Datasets:

booksouls

/

booksum-cleaned

like 0

I HE solemnly finished the last copy of the American Magazine, while his wife sighed, laid away her darning, and looked enviously at the lingerie designs in a women's magazine. The room was very still. It was a room which observed the best Floral Heights standards. The gray walls were divided into artificial paneling by strips of white-enameled pine. From the Babbitts' former house had come two much-carved rocking-chairs, but the other chairs were new, very deep and restful, upholstered in blue and gold-striped velvet. A blue velvet davenport faced the fireplace, and behind it was a cherrywood table and a tall piano-lamp with a shade of golden silk. (Two out of every three houses in Floral Heights had before the fireplace a davenport, a mahogany table real or imitation, and a piano-lamp or a reading-lamp with a shade of yellow or rose silk.) On the table was a runner of gold-threaded Chinese fabric, four magazines, a silver box containing cigarette-crumbs, and three "gift-books"--large, expensive editions of fairy-tales illustrated by English artists and as yet unread by any Babbitt save Tinka. In a corner by the front windows was a large cabinet Victrola. (Eight out of every nine Floral Heights houses had a cabinet phonograph.) Among the pictures, hung in the exact center of each gray panel, were a red and black imitation English hunting-print, an anemic imitation boudoir-print with a French caption of whose morality Babbitt had always been rather suspicious, and a "hand-colored" photograph of a Colonial room--rag rug, maiden spinning, cat demure before a white fireplace. (Nineteen out of every twenty houses in Floral Heights had either a hunting-print, a Madame Feit la Toilette print, a colored photograph of a New England house, a photograph of a Rocky Mountain, or all four.) It was a room as superior in comfort to the "parlor" of Babbitt's boyhood as his motor was superior to his father's buggy. Though there was nothing in the room that was interesting, there was nothing that was offensive. It was as neat, and as negative, as a block of artificial ice. The fireplace was unsoftened by downy ashes or by sooty brick; the brass fire-irons were of immaculate polish; and the grenadier andirons were like samples in a shop, desolate, unwanted, lifeless things of commerce. Against the wall was a piano, with another piano-lamp, but no one used it save Tinka. The hard briskness of the phonograph contented them; their store of jazz records made them feel wealthy and cultured; and all they knew of creating music was the nice adjustment of a bamboo needle. The books on the table were unspotted and laid in rigid parallels; not one corner of the carpet-rug was curled; and nowhere was there a hockey-stick, a torn picture-book, an old cap, or a gregarious and disorganizing dog. II At home, Babbitt never read with absorption. He was concentrated enough at the office but here he crossed his legs and fidgeted. When his story was interesting he read the best, that is the funniest, paragraphs to his wife; when it did not hold him he coughed, scratched his ankles and his right ear, thrust his left thumb into his vest pocket, jingled his silver, whirled the cigar-cutter and the keys on one end of his watch chain, yawned, rubbed his nose, and found errands to do. He went upstairs to put on his slippers--his elegant slippers of seal-brown, shaped like medieval shoes. He brought up an apple from the barrel which stood by the trunk-closet in the basement. "An apple a day keeps the doctor away," he enlightened Mrs. Babbitt, for quite the first time in fourteen hours. "That's so." "An apple is Nature's best regulator." "Yes, it--" "Trouble with women is, they never have sense enough to form regular habits." "Well, I--" "Always nibbling and eating between meals." "George!" She looked up from her reading. "Did you have a light lunch to-day, like you were going to? I did!" This malicious and unprovoked attack astounded him. "Well, maybe it wasn't as light as--Went to lunch with Paul and didn't have much chance to diet. Oh, you needn't to grin like a chessy cat! If it wasn't for me watching out and keeping an eye on our diet--I'm the only member of this family that appreciates the value of oatmeal for breakfast. I--" She stooped over her story while he piously sliced and gulped down the apple, discoursing: "One thing I've done: cut down my smoking. "Had kind of a run-in with Graff in the office. He's getting too darn fresh. I'll stand for a good deal, but once in a while I got to assert my authority, and I jumped him. 'Stan,' I said--Well, I told him just exactly where he got off. "Funny kind of a day. Makes you feel restless. "Wellllllllll, uh--" That sleepiest sound in the world, the terminal yawn. Mrs. Babbitt yawned with it, and looked grateful as he droned, "How about going to bed, eh? Don't suppose Rone and Ted will be in till all hours. Yep, funny kind of a day; not terribly warm but yet--Gosh, I'd like--Some day I'm going to take a long motor trip." "Yes, we'd enjoy that," she yawned. He looked away from her as he realized that he did not wish to have her go with him. As he locked doors and tried windows and set the heat regulator so that the furnace-drafts would open automatically in the morning, he sighed a little, heavy with a lonely feeling which perplexed and frightened him. So absent-minded was he that he could not remember which window-catches he had inspected, and through the darkness, fumbling at unseen perilous chairs, he crept back to try them all over again. His feet were loud on the steps as he clumped upstairs at the end of this great and treacherous day of veiled rebellions. III Before breakfast he always reverted to up-state village boyhood, and shrank from the complex urban demands of shaving, bathing, deciding whether the current shirt was clean enough for another day. Whenever he stayed home in the evening he went to bed early, and thriftily got ahead in those dismal duties. It was his luxurious custom to shave while sitting snugly in a tubful of hot water. He may be viewed to-night as a plump, smooth, pink, baldish, podgy goodman, robbed of the importance of spectacles, squatting in breast-high water, scraping his lather-smeared cheeks with a safety-razor like a tiny lawn-mower, and with melancholy dignity clawing through the water to recover a slippery and active piece of soap. He was lulled to dreaming by the caressing warmth. The light fell on the inner surface of the tub in a pattern of delicate wrinkled lines which slipped with a green sparkle over the curving porcelain as the clear water trembled. Babbitt lazily watched it; noted that along the silhouette of his legs against the radiance on the bottom of the tub, the shadows of the air-bubbles clinging to the hairs were reproduced as strange jungle mosses. He patted the water, and the reflected light capsized and leaped and volleyed. He was content and childish. He played. He shaved a swath down the calf of one plump leg. The drain-pipe was dripping, a dulcet and lively song: drippety drip drip dribble, drippety drip drip drip. He was enchanted by it. He looked at the solid tub, the beautiful nickel taps, the tiled walls of the room, and felt virtuous in the possession of this splendor. He roused himself and spoke gruffly to his bath-things. "Come here! You've done enough fooling!" he reproved the treacherous soap, and defied the scratchy nail-brush with "Oh, you would, would you!" He soaped himself, and rinsed himself, and austerely rubbed himself; he noted a hole in the Turkish towel, and meditatively thrust a finger through it, and marched back to the bedroom, a grave and unbending citizen. There was a moment of gorgeous abandon, a flash of melodrama such as he found in traffic-driving, when he laid out a clean collar, discovered that it was frayed in front, and tore it up with a magnificent yeeeeeing sound. Most important of all was the preparation of his bed and the sleeping-porch. It is not known whether he enjoyed his sleeping-porch because of the fresh air or because it was the standard thing to have a sleeping-porch. Just as he was an Elk, a Booster, and a member of the Chamber of Commerce, just as the priests of the Presbyterian Church determined his every religious belief and the senators who controlled the Republican Party decided in little smoky rooms in Washington what he should think about disarmament, tariff, and Germany, so did the large national advertisers fix the surface of his life, fix what he believed to be his individuality. These standard advertised wares--toothpastes, socks, tires, cameras, instantaneous hot-water heaters--were his symbols and proofs of excellence; at first the signs, then the substitutes, for joy and passion and wisdom. But none of these advertised tokens of financial and social success was more significant than a sleeping-porch with a sun-parlor below. The rites of preparing for bed were elaborate and unchanging. The blankets had to be tucked in at the foot of his cot. (Also, the reason why the maid hadn't tucked in the blankets had to be discussed with Mrs. Babbitt.) The rag rug was adjusted so that his bare feet would strike it when he arose in the morning. The alarm clock was wound. The hot-water bottle was filled and placed precisely two feet from the bottom of the cot. These tremendous undertakings yielded to his determination; one by one they were announced to Mrs. Babbitt and smashed through to accomplishment. At last his brow cleared, and in his "Gnight!" rang virile power. But there was yet need of courage. As he sank into sleep, just at the first exquisite relaxation, the Doppelbrau car came home. He bounced into wakefulness, lamenting, "Why the devil can't some people never get to bed at a reasonable hour?" So familiar was he with the process of putting up his own car that he awaited each step like an able executioner condemned to his own rack. The car insultingly cheerful on the driveway. The car door opened and banged shut, then the garage door slid open, grating on the sill, and the car door again. The motor raced for the climb up into the garage and raced once more, explosively, before it was shut off. A final opening and slamming of the car door. Silence then, a horrible silence filled with waiting, till the leisurely Mr. Doppelbrau had examined the state of his tires and had at last shut the garage door. Instantly, for Babbitt, a blessed state of oblivion. IV At that moment In the city of Zenith, Horace Updike was making love to Lucile McKelvey in her mauve drawing-room on Royal Ridge, after their return from a lecture by an eminent English novelist. Updike was Zenith's professional bachelor; a slim-waisted man of forty-six with an effeminate voice and taste in flowers, cretonnes, and flappers. Mrs. McKelvey was red-haired, creamy, discontented, exquisite, rude, and honest. Updike tried his invariable first maneuver--touching her nervous wrist. "Don't be an idiot!" she said. "Do you mind awfully?" "No! That's what I mind!" He changed to conversation. He was famous at conversation. He spoke reasonably of psychoanalysis, Long Island polo, and the Ming platter he had found in Vancouver. She promised to meet him in Deauville, the coming summer, "though," she sighed, "it's becoming too dreadfully banal; nothing but Americans and frowsy English baronesses." And at that moment in Zenith, a cocaine-runner and a prostitute were drinking cocktails in Healey Hanson's saloon on Front Street. Since national prohibition was now in force, and since Zenith was notoriously law-abiding, they were compelled to keep the cocktails innocent by drinking them out of tea-cups. The lady threw her cup at the cocaine-runner's head. He worked his revolver out of the pocket in his sleeve, and casually murdered her. At that moment in Zenith, two men sat in a laboratory. For thirty-seven hours now they had been working on a report of their investigations of synthetic rubber. At that moment in Zenith, there was a conference of four union officials as to whether the twelve thousand coal-miners within a hundred miles of the city should strike. Of these men one resembled a testy and prosperous grocer, one a Yankee carpenter, one a soda-clerk, and one a Russian Jewish actor. The Russian Jew quoted Kautsky, Gene Debs, and Abraham Lincoln. At that moment a G. A. R. veteran was dying. He had come from the Civil War straight to a farm which, though it was officially within the city-limits of Zenith, was primitive as the backwoods. He had never ridden in a motor car, never seen a bath-tub, never read any book save the Bible, McGuffey's readers, and religious tracts; and he believed that the earth is flat, that the English are the Lost Ten Tribes of Israel, and that the United States is a democracy. At that moment the steel and cement town which composed the factory of the Pullmore Tractor Company of Zenith was running on night shift to fill an order of tractors for the Polish army. It hummed like a million bees, glared through its wide windows like a volcano. Along the high wire fences, searchlights played on cinder-lined yards, switch-tracks, and armed guards on patrol. At that moment Mike Monday was finishing a meeting. Mr. Monday, the distinguished evangelist, the best-known Protestant pontiff in America, had once been a prize-fighter. Satan had not dealt justly with him. As a prize-fighter he gained nothing but his crooked nose, his celebrated vocabulary, and his stage-presence. The service of the Lord had been more profitable. He was about to retire with a fortune. It had been well earned, for, to quote his last report, "Rev. Mr. Monday, the Prophet with a Punch, has shown that he is the world's greatest salesman of salvation, and that by efficient organization the overhead of spiritual regeneration may be kept down to an unprecedented rock-bottom basis. He has converted over two hundred thousand lost and priceless souls at an average cost of less than ten dollars a head." Of the larger cities of the land, only Zenith had hesitated to submit its vices to Mike Monday and his expert reclamation corps. The more enterprising organizations of the city had voted to invite him--Mr. George F. Babbitt had once praised him in a speech at the Boosters' Club. But there was opposition from certain Episcopalian and Congregationalist ministers, those renegades whom Mr. Monday so finely called "a bunch of gospel-pushers with dish-water instead of blood, a gang of squealers that need more dust on the knees of their pants and more hair on their skinny old chests." This opposition had been crushed when the secretary of the Chamber of Commerce had reported to a committee of manufacturers that in every city where he had appeared, Mr. Monday had turned the minds of workmen from wages and hours to higher things, and thus averted strikes. He was immediately invited. An expense fund of forty thousand dollars had been underwritten; out on the County Fair Grounds a Mike Monday Tabernacle had been erected, to seat fifteen thousand people. In it the prophet was at this moment concluding his message: "There's a lot of smart college professors and tea-guzzling slobs in this burg that say I'm a roughneck and a never-wuzzer and my knowledge of history is not-yet. Oh, there's a gang of woolly-whiskered book-lice that think they know more than Almighty God, and prefer a lot of Hun science and smutty German criticism to the straight and simple Word of God. Oh, there's a swell bunch of Lizzie boys and lemon-suckers and pie-faces and infidels and beer-bloated scribblers that love to fire off their filthy mouths and yip that Mike Monday is vulgar and full of mush. Those pups are saying now that I hog the gospel-show, that I'm in it for the coin. Well, now listen, folks! I'm going to give those birds a chance! They can stand right up here and tell me to my face that I'm a galoot and a liar and a hick! Only if they do--if they do!--don't faint with surprise if some of those rum-dumm liars get one good swift poke from Mike, with all the kick of God's Flaming Righteousness behind the wallop! Well, come on, folks! Who says it? Who says Mike Monday is a fourflush and a yahoo? Huh? Don't I see anybody standing up? Well, there you are! Now I guess the folks in this man's town will quit listening to all this kyoodling from behind the fence; I guess you'll quit listening to the guys that pan and roast and kick and beef, and vomit out filthy atheism; and all of you 'll come in, with every grain of pep and reverence you got, and boost all together for Jesus Christ and his everlasting mercy and tenderness!" At that moment Seneca Doane, the radical lawyer, and Dr. Kurt Yavitch, the histologist (whose report on the destruction of epithelial cells under radium had made the name of Zenith known in Munich, Prague, and Rome), were talking in Doane's library. "Zenith's a city with gigantic power--gigantic buildings, gigantic machines, gigantic transportation," meditated Doane. "I hate your city. It has standardized all the beauty out of life. It is one big railroad station--with all the people taking tickets for the best cemeteries," Dr. Yavitch said placidly. Doane roused. "I'm hanged if it is! You make me sick, Kurt, with your perpetual whine about 'standardization.' Don't you suppose any other nation is 'standardized?' Is anything more standardized than England, with every house that can afford it having the same muffins at the same tea-hour, and every retired general going to exactly the same evensong at the same gray stone church with a square tower, and every golfing prig in Harris tweeds saying 'Right you are!' to every other prosperous ass? Yet I love England. And for standardization--just look at the sidewalk cafes in France and the love-making in Italy! "Standardization is excellent, per se. When I buy an Ingersoll watch or a Ford, I get a better tool for less money, and I know precisely what I'm getting, and that leaves me more time and energy to be individual in. And--I remember once in London I saw a picture of an American suburb, in a toothpaste ad on the back of the Saturday Evening Post--an elm-lined snowy street of these new houses, Georgian some of 'em, or with low raking roofs and--The kind of street you'd find here in Zenith, say in Floral Heights. Open. Trees. Grass. And I was homesick! There's no other country in the world that has such pleasant houses. And I don't care if they ARE standardized. It's a corking standard! "No, what I fight in Zenith is standardization of thought, and, of course, the traditions of competition. The real villains of the piece are the clean, kind, industrious Family Men who use every known brand of trickery and cruelty to insure the prosperity of their cubs. The worst thing about these fellows is that they're so good and, in their work at least, so intelligent. You can't hate them properly, and yet their standardized minds are the enemy. "Then this boosting--Sneakingly I have a notion that Zenith is a better place to live in than Manchester or Glasgow or Lyons or Berlin or Turin--" "It is not, and I have lift in most of them," murmured Dr. Yavitch. "Well, matter of taste. Personally, I prefer a city with a future so unknown that it excites my imagination. But what I particularly want--" "You," said Dr. Yavitch, "are a middle-road liberal, and you haven't the slightest idea what you want. I, being a revolutionist, know exactly what I want--and what I want now is a drink." VI At that moment in Zenith, Jake Offutt, the politician, and Henry T. Thompson were in conference. Offutt suggested, "The thing to do is to get your fool son-in-law, Babbitt, to put it over. He's one of these patriotic guys. When he grabs a piece of property for the gang, he makes it look like we were dyin' of love for the dear peepul, and I do love to buy respectability--reasonable. Wonder how long we can keep it up, Hank? We're safe as long as the good little boys like George Babbitt and all the nice respectable labor-leaders think you and me are rugged patriots. There's swell pickings for an honest politician here, Hank: a whole city working to provide cigars and fried chicken and dry martinis for us, and rallying to our banner with indignation, oh, fierce indignation, whenever some squealer like this fellow Seneca Doane comes along! Honest, Hank, a smart codger like me ought to be ashamed of himself if he didn't milk cattle like them, when they come around mooing for it! But the Traction gang can't get away with grand larceny like it used to. I wonder when--Hank, I wish we could fix some way to run this fellow Seneca Doane out of town. It's him or us!" At that moment in Zenith, three hundred and forty or fifty thousand Ordinary People were asleep, a vast unpenetrated shadow. In the slum beyond the railroad tracks, a young man who for six months had sought work turned on the gas and killed himself and his wife. At that moment Lloyd Mallam, the poet, owner of the Hafiz Book Shop, was finishing a rondeau to show how diverting was life amid the feuds of medieval Florence, but how dull it was in so obvious a place as Zenith. And at that moment George F. Babbitt turned ponderously in bed--the last turn, signifying that he'd had enough of this worried business of falling asleep and was about it in earnest. Instantly he was in the magic dream. He was somewhere among unknown people who laughed at him. He slipped away, ran down the paths of a midnight garden, and at the gate the fairy child was waiting. Her dear and tranquil hand caressed his cheek. He was gallant and wise and well-beloved; warm ivory were her arms; and beyond perilous moors the brave sea glittered.

After commenting to Myra that it was a "funny kind of a day" , Babbitt decides to go to bed. He shaves while taking a bath, playing childishly with his bath things. After completing his "elaborate and unchanging" rites of bedtime preparation, he falls into "a blessed state of oblivion". At that moment in Zenith, as George falls asleep on the porch, a vast array of illegal, immoral, or simply very serious things are occurring. Mike Monday, a prize-fighter turned scam-artist evangelist, is concluding an address attempting to defend his reputation and insult his opponents. Simultaneously, Seneca Doane, a lawyer, argues with histologist Dr. Kurt Yavitch over the merits and drawbacks of standardization of lifestyle and thought in Zenith. At this moment, George Babbitt dreams of his beloved fairy child

Hath not a Jew eyes? Hath not a Jew hands, organs, dimensions, senses, affections, passions? Fed with the same food, hurt with the same weapons, subject to the same diseases, healed by the same means, warmed and cooled by the same winter and summer, as a Christian is? --Merchant of Venice Oswald, returning, whispered into the ear of his master, "It is a Jew, who calls himself Isaac of York; is it fit I should marshall him into the hall?" "Let Gurth do thine office, Oswald," said Wamba with his usual effrontery; "the swineherd will be a fit usher to the Jew." "St Mary," said the Abbot, crossing himself, "an unbelieving Jew, and admitted into this presence!" "A dog Jew," echoed the Templar, "to approach a defender of the Holy Sepulchre?" "By my faith," said Wamba, "it would seem the Templars love the Jews' inheritance better than they do their company." "Peace, my worthy guests," said Cedric; "my hospitality must not be bounded by your dislikes. If Heaven bore with the whole nation of stiff-necked unbelievers for more years than a layman can number, we may endure the presence of one Jew for a few hours. But I constrain no man to converse or to feed with him.--Let him have a board and a morsel apart,--unless," he said smiling, "these turban'd strangers will admit his society." "Sir Franklin," answered the Templar, "my Saracen slaves are true Moslems, and scorn as much as any Christian to hold intercourse with a Jew." "Now, in faith," said Wamba, "I cannot see that the worshippers of Mahound and Termagaunt have so greatly the advantage over the people once chosen of Heaven." "He shall sit with thee, Wamba," said Cedric; "the fool and the knave will be well met." "The fool," answered Wamba, raising the relics of a gammon of bacon, "will take care to erect a bulwark against the knave." "Hush," said Cedric, "for here he comes." Introduced with little ceremony, and advancing with fear and hesitation, and many a bow of deep humility, a tall thin old man, who, however, had lost by the habit of stooping much of his actual height, approached the lower end of the board. His features, keen and regular, with an aquiline nose, and piercing black eyes; his high and wrinkled forehead, and long grey hair and beard, would have been considered as handsome, had they not been the marks of a physiognomy peculiar to a race, which, during those dark ages, was alike detested by the credulous and prejudiced vulgar, and persecuted by the greedy and rapacious nobility, and who, perhaps, owing to that very hatred and persecution, had adopted a national character, in which there was much, to say the least, mean and unamiable. The Jew's dress, which appeared to have suffered considerably from the storm, was a plain russet cloak of many folds, covering a dark purple tunic. He had large boots lined with fur, and a belt around his waist, which sustained a small knife, together with a case for writing materials, but no weapon. He wore a high square yellow cap of a peculiar fashion, assigned to his nation to distinguish them from Christians, and which he doffed with great humility at the door of the hall. The reception of this person in the hall of Cedric the Saxon, was such as might have satisfied the most prejudiced enemy of the tribes of Israel. Cedric himself coldly nodded in answer to the Jew's repeated salutations, and signed to him to take place at the lower end of the table, where, however, no one offered to make room for him. On the contrary, as he passed along the file, casting a timid supplicating glance, and turning towards each of those who occupied the lower end of the board, the Saxon domestics squared their shoulders, and continued to devour their supper with great perseverance, paying not the least attention to the wants of the new guest. The attendants of the Abbot crossed themselves, with looks of pious horror, and the very heathen Saracens, as Isaac drew near them, curled up their whiskers with indignation, and laid their hands on their poniards, as if ready to rid themselves by the most desperate means from the apprehended contamination of his nearer approach. Probably the same motives which induced Cedric to open his hall to this son of a rejected people, would have made him insist on his attendants receiving Isaac with more courtesy. But the Abbot had, at this moment, engaged him in a most interesting discussion on the breed and character of his favourite hounds, which he would not have interrupted for matters of much greater importance than that of a Jew going to bed supperless. While Isaac thus stood an outcast in the present society, like his people among the nations, looking in vain for welcome or resting place, the pilgrim who sat by the chimney took compassion upon him, and resigned his seat, saying briefly, "Old man, my garments are dried, my hunger is appeased, thou art both wet and fasting." So saying, he gathered together, and brought to a flame, the decaying brands which lay scattered on the ample hearth; took from the larger board a mess of pottage and seethed kid, placed it upon the small table at which he had himself supped, and, without waiting the Jew's thanks, went to the other side of the hall;--whether from unwillingness to hold more close communication with the object of his benevolence, or from a wish to draw near to the upper end of the table, seemed uncertain. Had there been painters in those days capable to execute such a subject, the Jew, as he bent his withered form, and expanded his chilled and trembling hands over the fire, would have formed no bad emblematical personification of the Winter season. Having dispelled the cold, he turned eagerly to the smoking mess which was placed before him, and ate with a haste and an apparent relish, that seemed to betoken long abstinence from food. Meanwhile the Abbot and Cedric continued their discourse upon hunting; the Lady Rowena seemed engaged in conversation with one of her attendant females; and the haughty Templar, whose eye wandered from the Jew to the Saxon beauty, revolved in his mind thoughts which appeared deeply to interest him. "I marvel, worthy Cedric," said the Abbot, as their discourse proceeded, "that, great as your predilection is for your own manly language, you do not receive the Norman-French into your favour, so far at least as the mystery of wood-craft and hunting is concerned. Surely no tongue is so rich in the various phrases which the field-sports demand, or furnishes means to the experienced woodman so well to express his jovial art." "Good Father Aymer," said the Saxon, "be it known to you, I care not for those over-sea refinements, without which I can well enough take my pleasure in the woods. I can wind my horn, though I call not the blast either a 'recheate' or a 'morte'--I can cheer my dogs on the prey, and I can flay and quarter the animal when it is brought down, without using the newfangled jargon of 'curee, arbor, nombles', and all the babble of the fabulous Sir Tristrem." [14] "The French," said the Templar, raising his voice with the presumptuous and authoritative tone which he used upon all occasions, "is not only the natural language of the chase, but that of love and of war, in which ladies should be won and enemies defied." "Pledge me in a cup of wine, Sir Templar," said Cedric, "and fill another to the Abbot, while I look back some thirty years to tell you another tale. As Cedric the Saxon then was, his plain English tale needed no garnish from French troubadours, when it was told in the ear of beauty; and the field of Northallerton, upon the day of the Holy Standard, could tell whether the Saxon war-cry was not heard as far within the ranks of the Scottish host as the 'cri de guerre' of the boldest Norman baron. To the memory of the brave who fought there!--Pledge me, my guests." He drank deep, and went on with increasing warmth. "Ay, that was a day of cleaving of shields, when a hundred banners were bent forwards over the heads of the valiant, and blood flowed round like water, and death was held better than flight. A Saxon bard had called it a feast of the swords--a gathering of the eagles to the prey--the clashing of bills upon shield and helmet, the shouting of battle more joyful than the clamour of a bridal. But our bards are no more," he said; "our deeds are lost in those of another race--our language--our very name--is hastening to decay, and none mourns for it save one solitary old man--Cupbearer! knave, fill the goblets--To the strong in arms, Sir Templar, be their race or language what it will, who now bear them best in Palestine among the champions of the Cross!" "It becomes not one wearing this badge to answer," said Sir Brian de Bois-Guilbert; "yet to whom, besides the sworn Champions of the Holy Sepulchre, can the palm be assigned among the champions of the Cross?" "To the Knights Hospitallers," said the Abbot; "I have a brother of their order." "I impeach not their fame," said the Templar; "nevertheless---" "I think, friend Cedric," said Wamba, interfering, "that had Richard of the Lion's Heart been wise enough to have taken a fool's advice, he might have staid at home with his merry Englishmen, and left the recovery of Jerusalem to those same Knights who had most to do with the loss of it." "Were there, then, none in the English army," said the Lady Rowena, "whose names are worthy to be mentioned with the Knights of the Temple, and of St John?" "Forgive me, lady," replied De Bois-Guilbert; "the English monarch did, indeed, bring to Palestine a host of gallant warriors, second only to those whose breasts have been the unceasing bulwark of that blessed land." "Second to NONE," said the Pilgrim, who had stood near enough to hear, and had listened to this conversation with marked impatience. All turned toward the spot from whence this unexpected asseveration was heard. "I say," repeated the Pilgrim in a firm and strong voice, "that the English chivalry were second to NONE who ever drew sword in defence of the Holy Land. I say besides, for I saw it, that King Richard himself, and five of his knights, held a tournament after the taking of St John-de-Acre, as challengers against all comers. I say that, on that day, each knight ran three courses, and cast to the ground three antagonists. I add, that seven of these assailants were Knights of the Temple--and Sir Brian de Bois-Guilbert well knows the truth of what I tell you." It is impossible for language to describe the bitter scowl of rage which rendered yet darker the swarthy countenance of the Templar. In the extremity of his resentment and confusion, his quivering fingers griped towards the handle of his sword, and perhaps only withdrew, from the consciousness that no act of violence could be safely executed in that place and presence. Cedric, whose feelings were all of a right onward and simple kind, and were seldom occupied by more than one object at once, omitted, in the joyous glee with which he heard of the glory of his countrymen, to remark the angry confusion of his guest; "I would give thee this golden bracelet, Pilgrim," he said, "couldst thou tell me the names of those knights who upheld so gallantly the renown of merry England." "That will I do blithely," replied the Pilgrim, "and without guerdon; my oath, for a time, prohibits me from touching gold." "I will wear the bracelet for you, if you will, friend Palmer," said Wamba. "The first in honour as in arms, in renown as in place," said the Pilgrim, "was the brave Richard, King of England." "I forgive him," said Cedric; "I forgive him his descent from the tyrant Duke William." "The Earl of Leicester was the second," continued the Pilgrim; "Sir Thomas Multon of Gilsland was the third." "Of Saxon descent, he at least," said Cedric, with exultation. "Sir Foulk Doilly the fourth," proceeded the Pilgrim. "Saxon also, at least by the mother's side," continued Cedric, who listened with the utmost eagerness, and forgot, in part at least, his hatred to the Normans, in the common triumph of the King of England and his islanders. "And who was the fifth?" he demanded. "The fifth was Sir Edwin Turneham." "Genuine Saxon, by the soul of Hengist!" shouted Cedric--"And the sixth?" he continued with eagerness--"how name you the sixth?" "The sixth," said the Palmer, after a pause, in which he seemed to recollect himself, "was a young knight of lesser renown and lower rank, assumed into that honourable company, less to aid their enterprise than to make up their number--his name dwells not in my memory." "Sir Palmer," said Sir Brian de Bois-Guilbert scornfully, "this assumed forgetfulness, after so much has been remembered, comes too late to serve your purpose. I will myself tell the name of the knight before whose lance fortune and my horse's fault occasioned my falling--it was the Knight of Ivanhoe; nor was there one of the six that, for his years, had more renown in arms.--Yet this will I say, and loudly--that were he in England, and durst repeat, in this week's tournament, the challenge of St John-de-Acre, I, mounted and armed as I now am, would give him every advantage of weapons, and abide the result." "Your challenge would soon be answered," replied the Palmer, "were your antagonist near you. As the matter is, disturb not the peaceful hall with vaunts of the issue of the conflict, which you well know cannot take place. If Ivanhoe ever returns from Palestine, I will be his surety that he meets you." "A goodly security!" said the Knight Templar; "and what do you proffer as a pledge?" "This reliquary," said the Palmer, taking a small ivory box from his bosom, and crossing himself, "containing a portion of the true cross, brought from the Monastery of Mount Carmel." The Prior of Jorvaulx crossed himself and repeated a pater noster, in which all devoutly joined, excepting the Jew, the Mahomedans, and the Templar; the latter of whom, without vailing his bonnet, or testifying any reverence for the alleged sanctity of the relic, took from his neck a gold chain, which he flung on the board, saying--"Let Prior Aymer hold my pledge and that of this nameless vagrant, in token that when the Knight of Ivanhoe comes within the four seas of Britain, he underlies the challenge of Brian de Bois-Guilbert, which, if he answer not, I will proclaim him as a coward on the walls of every Temple Court in Europe." "It will not need," said the Lady Rowena, breaking silence; "My voice shall be heard, if no other in this hall is raised in behalf of the absent Ivanhoe. I affirm he will meet fairly every honourable challenge. Could my weak warrant add security to the inestimable pledge of this holy pilgrim, I would pledge name and fame that Ivanhoe gives this proud knight the meeting he desires." A crowd of conflicting emotions seemed to have occupied Cedric, and kept him silent during this discussion. Gratified pride, resentment, embarrassment, chased each other over his broad and open brow, like the shadow of clouds drifting over a harvest-field; while his attendants, on whom the name of the sixth knight seemed to produce an effect almost electrical, hung in suspense upon their master's looks. But when Rowena spoke, the sound of her voice seemed to startle him from his silence. "Lady," said Cedric, "this beseems not; were further pledge necessary, I myself, offended, and justly offended, as I am, would yet gage my honour for the honour of Ivanhoe. But the wager of battle is complete, even according to the fantastic fashions of Norman chivalry--Is it not, Father Aymer?" "It is," replied the Prior; "and the blessed relic and rich chain will I bestow safely in the treasury of our convent, until the decision of this warlike challenge." Having thus spoken, he crossed himself again and again, and after many genuflections and muttered prayers, he delivered the reliquary to Brother Ambrose, his attendant monk, while he himself swept up with less ceremony, but perhaps with no less internal satisfaction, the golden chain, and bestowed it in a pouch lined with perfumed leather, which opened under his arm. "And now, Sir Cedric," he said, "my ears are chiming vespers with the strength of your good wine--permit us another pledge to the welfare of the Lady Rowena, and indulge us with liberty to pass to our repose." "By the rood of Bromholme," said the Saxon, "you do but small credit to your fame, Sir Prior! Report speaks you a bonny monk, that would hear the matin chime ere he quitted his bowl; and, old as I am, I feared to have shame in encountering you. But, by my faith, a Saxon boy of twelve, in my time, would not so soon have relinquished his goblet." The Prior had his own reasons, however, for persevering in the course of temperance which he had adopted. He was not only a professional peacemaker, but from practice a hater of all feuds and brawls. It was not altogether from a love to his neighbour, or to himself, or from a mixture of both. On the present occasion, he had an instinctive apprehension of the fiery temper of the Saxon, and saw the danger that the reckless and presumptuous spirit, of which his companion had already given so many proofs, might at length produce some disagreeable explosion. He therefore gently insinuated the incapacity of the native of any other country to engage in the genial conflict of the bowl with the hardy and strong-headed Saxons; something he mentioned, but slightly, about his own holy character, and ended by pressing his proposal to depart to repose. The grace-cup was accordingly served round, and the guests, after making deep obeisance to their landlord and to the Lady Rowena, arose and mingled in the hall, while the heads of the family, by separate doors, retired with their attendants. "Unbelieving dog," said the Templar to Isaac the Jew, as he passed him in the throng, "dost thou bend thy course to the tournament?" "I do so propose," replied Isaac, bowing in all humility, "if it please your reverend valour." "Ay," said the Knight, "to gnaw the bowels of our nobles with usury, and to gull women and boys with gauds and toys--I warrant thee store of shekels in thy Jewish scrip." "Not a shekel, not a silver penny, not a halfling--so help me the God of Abraham!" said the Jew, clasping his hands; "I go but to seek the assistance of some brethren of my tribe to aid me to pay the fine which the Exchequer of the Jews have imposed upon me--Father Jacob be my speed! I am an impoverished wretch--the very gaberdine I wear is borrowed from Reuben of Tadcaster." [15] The Templar smiled sourly as he replied, "Beshrew thee for a false-hearted liar!" and passing onward, as if disdaining farther conference, he communed with his Moslem slaves in a language unknown to the bystanders. The poor Israelite seemed so staggered by the address of the military monk, that the Templar had passed on to the extremity of the hall ere he raised his head from the humble posture which he had assumed, so far as to be sensible of his departure. And when he did look around, it was with the astonished air of one at whose feet a thunderbolt has just burst, and who hears still the astounding report ringing in his ears. The Templar and Prior were shortly after marshalled to their sleeping apartments by the steward and the cupbearer, each attended by two torchbearers and two servants carrying refreshments, while servants of inferior condition indicated to their retinue and to the other guests their respective places of repose.

The epigraph from this passage is from William Shakespeare's play The Merchant of Venice. Scott quotes this same section in his "Dedicatory Epistle," so it must be really important to him. It's from a super-famous speech by Shylock, the Jewish main character, who demands to know why Jews should be treated any differently from Christians when they are all human beings. By quoting these lines, Scott informs his readers that a major theme of Ivanhoe will be anti-Semitism, or prejudice against Jewish people. Oswald the steward tells Cedric that the guest at the door is a Jewish man named Isaac of York. Wamba, Prior Aymer, and Bois-Guilbert all protest the idea of sharing a table with a Jewish man, but Cedric insists that it's the duty of a host to welcome anyone who comes to the door, regardless of faith. After all, Cedric adds, they're sharing a table with the Normans' two Muslim servants from the Crusades. Isaac approaches the table humbly. Cedric indicates that he should sit down in the lower part of the hall, but no one seated there will make room for him. Isaac wanders the length of the table looking for a place to sit. Finally the man who guided the Normans to Cedric's house offers his seat at a small table to Isaac. The Palmer brings Isaac some food off the roasting spit and then approaches the upper table. Isaac starts eating as though he hasn't had food in ages. Prior Aymer and Cedric are deep in conversation about hunting. Bois-Guilbert pipes up that French is the true language, not just for hunting but also for love and war. Cedric exclaims that Saxons do as well in battle as any Norman. Bois-Guilbert insists that the true fame of the Crusades belongs to the Knights Templar and to the Hospitallers . Rowena asks if there are no knights among the English armies who can equal the Knights Templar and the Hospitallers. The Palmer announces that the English knights are the best among the Christian armies in the Holy Land. He witnessed with his own two eyes a tournament at Acre . There, Richard and five of his knights held their own against all comers, including seven members of the Knights Templar. When Cedric asks the names of these brave Englishmen, the Palmer lists off all of them but one. He remains mysterious on the subject of this sixth, lower-ranking man. Bois-Guilbert announces that this sixth man is none other than the Knight of Ivanhoe. Bois-Guilbert demands that Ivanhoe meet him in a week's time at the local tournament for a rematch so that he can prove he is the better man. The Palmer agrees and offers up an extremely valuable holy relic as a pledge that the Knight of Ivanhoe will fight in a week as promised. Prior Aymer suggests that they finish up this round of drinks and go to sleep. As they are leaving the hall, Bois-Guilbert asks Isaac rudely if he's going to the tournament. Bois-Guilbert assumes that Isaac is there to cheat and steal money from Christians. Isaac looks absolutely shocked.

Other opportunities of making her observations could not fail to occur. Anne had soon been in company with all the four together often enough to have an opinion, though too wise to acknowledge as much at home, where she knew it would have satisfied neither husband nor wife; for while she considered Louisa to be rather the favourite, she could not but think, as far as she might dare to judge from memory and experience, that Captain Wentworth was not in love with either. They were more in love with him; yet there it was not love. It was a little fever of admiration; but it might, probably must, end in love with some. Charles Hayter seemed aware of being slighted, and yet Henrietta had sometimes the air of being divided between them. Anne longed for the power of representing to them all what they were about, and of pointing out some of the evils they were exposing themselves to. She did not attribute guile to any. It was the highest satisfaction to her to believe Captain Wentworth not in the least aware of the pain he was occasioning. There was no triumph, no pitiful triumph in his manner. He had, probably, never heard, and never thought of any claims of Charles Hayter. He was only wrong in accepting the attentions (for accepting must be the word) of two young women at once. After a short struggle, however, Charles Hayter seemed to quit the field. Three days had passed without his coming once to Uppercross; a most decided change. He had even refused one regular invitation to dinner; and having been found on the occasion by Mr Musgrove with some large books before him, Mr and Mrs Musgrove were sure all could not be right, and talked, with grave faces, of his studying himself to death. It was Mary's hope and belief that he had received a positive dismissal from Henrietta, and her husband lived under the constant dependence of seeing him to-morrow. Anne could only feel that Charles Hayter was wise. One morning, about this time Charles Musgrove and Captain Wentworth being gone a-shooting together, as the sisters in the Cottage were sitting quietly at work, they were visited at the window by the sisters from the Mansion-house. It was a very fine November day, and the Miss Musgroves came through the little grounds, and stopped for no other purpose than to say, that they were going to take a long walk, and therefore concluded Mary could not like to go with them; and when Mary immediately replied, with some jealousy at not being supposed a good walker, "Oh, yes, I should like to join you very much, I am very fond of a long walk;" Anne felt persuaded, by the looks of the two girls, that it was precisely what they did not wish, and admired again the sort of necessity which the family habits seemed to produce, of everything being to be communicated, and everything being to be done together, however undesired and inconvenient. She tried to dissuade Mary from going, but in vain; and that being the case, thought it best to accept the Miss Musgroves' much more cordial invitation to herself to go likewise, as she might be useful in turning back with her sister, and lessening the interference in any plan of their own. "I cannot imagine why they should suppose I should not like a long walk," said Mary, as she went up stairs. "Everybody is always supposing that I am not a good walker; and yet they would not have been pleased, if we had refused to join them. When people come in this manner on purpose to ask us, how can one say no?" Just as they were setting off, the gentlemen returned. They had taken out a young dog, who had spoilt their sport, and sent them back early. Their time and strength, and spirits, were, therefore, exactly ready for this walk, and they entered into it with pleasure. Could Anne have foreseen such a junction, she would have staid at home; but, from some feelings of interest and curiosity, she fancied now that it was too late to retract, and the whole six set forward together in the direction chosen by the Miss Musgroves, who evidently considered the walk as under their guidance. Anne's object was, not to be in the way of anybody; and where the narrow paths across the fields made many separations necessary, to keep with her brother and sister. Her pleasure in the walk must arise from the exercise and the day, from the view of the last smiles of the year upon the tawny leaves, and withered hedges, and from repeating to herself some few of the thousand poetical descriptions extant of autumn, that season of peculiar and inexhaustible influence on the mind of taste and tenderness, that season which had drawn from every poet, worthy of being read, some attempt at description, or some lines of feeling. She occupied her mind as much as possible in such like musings and quotations; but it was not possible, that when within reach of Captain Wentworth's conversation with either of the Miss Musgroves, she should not try to hear it; yet she caught little very remarkable. It was mere lively chat, such as any young persons, on an intimate footing, might fall into. He was more engaged with Louisa than with Henrietta. Louisa certainly put more forward for his notice than her sister. This distinction appeared to increase, and there was one speech of Louisa's which struck her. After one of the many praises of the day, which were continually bursting forth, Captain Wentworth added:-- "What glorious weather for the Admiral and my sister! They meant to take a long drive this morning; perhaps we may hail them from some of these hills. They talked of coming into this side of the country. I wonder whereabouts they will upset to-day. Oh! it does happen very often, I assure you; but my sister makes nothing of it; she would as lieve be tossed out as not." "Ah! You make the most of it, I know," cried Louisa, "but if it were really so, I should do just the same in her place. If I loved a man, as she loves the Admiral, I would always be with him, nothing should ever separate us, and I would rather be overturned by him, than driven safely by anybody else." It was spoken with enthusiasm. "Had you?" cried he, catching the same tone; "I honour you!" And there was silence between them for a little while. Anne could not immediately fall into a quotation again. The sweet scenes of autumn were for a while put by, unless some tender sonnet, fraught with the apt analogy of the declining year, with declining happiness, and the images of youth and hope, and spring, all gone together, blessed her memory. She roused herself to say, as they struck by order into another path, "Is not this one of the ways to Winthrop?" But nobody heard, or, at least, nobody answered her. Winthrop, however, or its environs--for young men are, sometimes to be met with, strolling about near home--was their destination; and after another half mile of gradual ascent through large enclosures, where the ploughs at work, and the fresh made path spoke the farmer counteracting the sweets of poetical despondence, and meaning to have spring again, they gained the summit of the most considerable hill, which parted Uppercross and Winthrop, and soon commanded a full view of the latter, at the foot of the hill on the other side. Winthrop, without beauty and without dignity, was stretched before them; an indifferent house, standing low, and hemmed in by the barns and buildings of a farm-yard. Mary exclaimed, "Bless me! here is Winthrop. I declare I had no idea! Well now, I think we had better turn back; I am excessively tired." Henrietta, conscious and ashamed, and seeing no cousin Charles walking along any path, or leaning against any gate, was ready to do as Mary wished; but "No!" said Charles Musgrove, and "No, no!" cried Louisa more eagerly, and taking her sister aside, seemed to be arguing the matter warmly. Charles, in the meanwhile, was very decidedly declaring his resolution of calling on his aunt, now that he was so near; and very evidently, though more fearfully, trying to induce his wife to go too. But this was one of the points on which the lady shewed her strength; and when he recommended the advantage of resting herself a quarter of an hour at Winthrop, as she felt so tired, she resolutely answered, "Oh! no, indeed! walking up that hill again would do her more harm than any sitting down could do her good;" and, in short, her look and manner declared, that go she would not. After a little succession of these sort of debates and consultations, it was settled between Charles and his two sisters, that he and Henrietta should just run down for a few minutes, to see their aunt and cousins, while the rest of the party waited for them at the top of the hill. Louisa seemed the principal arranger of the plan; and, as she went a little way with them, down the hill, still talking to Henrietta, Mary took the opportunity of looking scornfully around her, and saying to Captain Wentworth-- "It is very unpleasant, having such connexions! But, I assure you, I have never been in the house above twice in my life." She received no other answer, than an artificial, assenting smile, followed by a contemptuous glance, as he turned away, which Anne perfectly knew the meaning of. The brow of the hill, where they remained, was a cheerful spot: Louisa returned; and Mary, finding a comfortable seat for herself on the step of a stile, was very well satisfied so long as the others all stood about her; but when Louisa drew Captain Wentworth away, to try for a gleaning of nuts in an adjoining hedge-row, and they were gone by degrees quite out of sight and sound, Mary was happy no longer; she quarrelled with her own seat, was sure Louisa had got a much better somewhere, and nothing could prevent her from going to look for a better also. She turned through the same gate, but could not see them. Anne found a nice seat for her, on a dry sunny bank, under the hedge-row, in which she had no doubt of their still being, in some spot or other. Mary sat down for a moment, but it would not do; she was sure Louisa had found a better seat somewhere else, and she would go on till she overtook her. Anne, really tired herself, was glad to sit down; and she very soon heard Captain Wentworth and Louisa in the hedge-row, behind her, as if making their way back along the rough, wild sort of channel, down the centre. They were speaking as they drew near. Louisa's voice was the first distinguished. She seemed to be in the middle of some eager speech. What Anne first heard was-- "And so, I made her go. I could not bear that she should be frightened from the visit by such nonsense. What! would I be turned back from doing a thing that I had determined to do, and that I knew to be right, by the airs and interference of such a person, or of any person I may say? No, I have no idea of being so easily persuaded. When I have made up my mind, I have made it; and Henrietta seemed entirely to have made up hers to call at Winthrop to-day; and yet, she was as near giving it up, out of nonsensical complaisance!" "She would have turned back then, but for you?" "She would indeed. I am almost ashamed to say it." "Happy for her, to have such a mind as yours at hand! After the hints you gave just now, which did but confirm my own observations, the last time I was in company with him, I need not affect to have no comprehension of what is going on. I see that more than a mere dutiful morning visit to your aunt was in question; and woe betide him, and her too, when it comes to things of consequence, when they are placed in circumstances requiring fortitude and strength of mind, if she have not resolution enough to resist idle interference in such a trifle as this. Your sister is an amiable creature; but yours is the character of decision and firmness, I see. If you value her conduct or happiness, infuse as much of your own spirit into her as you can. But this, no doubt, you have been always doing. It is the worst evil of too yielding and indecisive a character, that no influence over it can be depended on. You are never sure of a good impression being durable; everybody may sway it. Let those who would be happy be firm. Here is a nut," said he, catching one down from an upper bough, "to exemplify: a beautiful glossy nut, which, blessed with original strength, has outlived all the storms of autumn. Not a puncture, not a weak spot anywhere. This nut," he continued, with playful solemnity, "while so many of his brethren have fallen and been trodden under foot, is still in possession of all the happiness that a hazel nut can be supposed capable of." Then returning to his former earnest tone--"My first wish for all whom I am interested in, is that they should be firm. If Louisa Musgrove would be beautiful and happy in her November of life, she will cherish all her present powers of mind." He had done, and was unanswered. It would have surprised Anne if Louisa could have readily answered such a speech: words of such interest, spoken with such serious warmth! She could imagine what Louisa was feeling. For herself, she feared to move, lest she should be seen. While she remained, a bush of low rambling holly protected her, and they were moving on. Before they were beyond her hearing, however, Louisa spoke again. "Mary is good-natured enough in many respects," said she; "but she does sometimes provoke me excessively, by her nonsense and pride--the Elliot pride. She has a great deal too much of the Elliot pride. We do so wish that Charles had married Anne instead. I suppose you know he wanted to marry Anne?" After a moment's pause, Captain Wentworth said-- "Do you mean that she refused him?" "Oh! yes; certainly." "When did that happen?" "I do not exactly know, for Henrietta and I were at school at the time; but I believe about a year before he married Mary. I wish she had accepted him. We should all have liked her a great deal better; and papa and mamma always think it was her great friend Lady Russell's doing, that she did not. They think Charles might not be learned and bookish enough to please Lady Russell, and that therefore, she persuaded Anne to refuse him." The sounds were retreating, and Anne distinguished no more. Her own emotions still kept her fixed. She had much to recover from, before she could move. The listener's proverbial fate was not absolutely hers; she had heard no evil of herself, but she had heard a great deal of very painful import. She saw how her own character was considered by Captain Wentworth, and there had been just that degree of feeling and curiosity about her in his manner which must give her extreme agitation. As soon as she could, she went after Mary, and having found, and walked back with her to their former station, by the stile, felt some comfort in their whole party being immediately afterwards collected, and once more in motion together. Her spirits wanted the solitude and silence which only numbers could give. Charles and Henrietta returned, bringing, as may be conjectured, Charles Hayter with them. The minutiae of the business Anne could not attempt to understand; even Captain Wentworth did not seem admitted to perfect confidence here; but that there had been a withdrawing on the gentleman's side, and a relenting on the lady's, and that they were now very glad to be together again, did not admit a doubt. Henrietta looked a little ashamed, but very well pleased;--Charles Hayter exceedingly happy: and they were devoted to each other almost from the first instant of their all setting forward for Uppercross. Everything now marked out Louisa for Captain Wentworth; nothing could be plainer; and where many divisions were necessary, or even where they were not, they walked side by side nearly as much as the other two. In a long strip of meadow land, where there was ample space for all, they were thus divided, forming three distinct parties; and to that party of the three which boasted least animation, and least complaisance, Anne necessarily belonged. She joined Charles and Mary, and was tired enough to be very glad of Charles's other arm; but Charles, though in very good humour with her, was out of temper with his wife. Mary had shewn herself disobliging to him, and was now to reap the consequence, which consequence was his dropping her arm almost every moment to cut off the heads of some nettles in the hedge with his switch; and when Mary began to complain of it, and lament her being ill-used, according to custom, in being on the hedge side, while Anne was never incommoded on the other, he dropped the arms of both to hunt after a weasel which he had a momentary glance of, and they could hardly get him along at all. This long meadow bordered a lane, which their footpath, at the end of it was to cross, and when the party had all reached the gate of exit, the carriage advancing in the same direction, which had been some time heard, was just coming up, and proved to be Admiral Croft's gig. He and his wife had taken their intended drive, and were returning home. Upon hearing how long a walk the young people had engaged in, they kindly offered a seat to any lady who might be particularly tired; it would save her a full mile, and they were going through Uppercross. The invitation was general, and generally declined. The Miss Musgroves were not at all tired, and Mary was either offended, by not being asked before any of the others, or what Louisa called the Elliot pride could not endure to make a third in a one horse chaise. The walking party had crossed the lane, and were surmounting an opposite stile, and the Admiral was putting his horse in motion again, when Captain Wentworth cleared the hedge in a moment to say something to his sister. The something might be guessed by its effects. "Miss Elliot, I am sure you are tired," cried Mrs Croft. "Do let us have the pleasure of taking you home. Here is excellent room for three, I assure you. If we were all like you, I believe we might sit four. You must, indeed, you must." Anne was still in the lane; and though instinctively beginning to decline, she was not allowed to proceed. The Admiral's kind urgency came in support of his wife's; they would not be refused; they compressed themselves into the smallest possible space to leave her a corner, and Captain Wentworth, without saying a word, turned to her, and quietly obliged her to be assisted into the carriage. Yes; he had done it. She was in the carriage, and felt that he had placed her there, that his will and his hands had done it, that she owed it to his perception of her fatigue, and his resolution to give her rest. She was very much affected by the view of his disposition towards her, which all these things made apparent. This little circumstance seemed the completion of all that had gone before. She understood him. He could not forgive her, but he could not be unfeeling. Though condemning her for the past, and considering it with high and unjust resentment, though perfectly careless of her, and though becoming attached to another, still he could not see her suffer, without the desire of giving her relief. It was a remainder of former sentiment; it was an impulse of pure, though unacknowledged friendship; it was a proof of his own warm and amiable heart, which she could not contemplate without emotions so compounded of pleasure and pain, that she knew not which prevailed. Her answers to the kindness and the remarks of her companions were at first unconsciously given. They had travelled half their way along the rough lane, before she was quite awake to what they said. She then found them talking of "Frederick." "He certainly means to have one or other of those two girls, Sophy," said the Admiral; "but there is no saying which. He has been running after them, too, long enough, one would think, to make up his mind. Ay, this comes of the peace. If it were war now, he would have settled it long ago. We sailors, Miss Elliot, cannot afford to make long courtships in time of war. How many days was it, my dear, between the first time of my seeing you and our sitting down together in our lodgings at North Yarmouth?" "We had better not talk about it, my dear," replied Mrs Croft, pleasantly; "for if Miss Elliot were to hear how soon we came to an understanding, she would never be persuaded that we could be happy together. I had known you by character, however, long before." "Well, and I had heard of you as a very pretty girl, and what were we to wait for besides? I do not like having such things so long in hand. I wish Frederick would spread a little more canvass, and bring us home one of these young ladies to Kellynch. Then there would always be company for them. And very nice young ladies they both are; I hardly know one from the other." "Very good humoured, unaffected girls, indeed," said Mrs Croft, in a tone of calmer praise, such as made Anne suspect that her keener powers might not consider either of them as quite worthy of her brother; "and a very respectable family. One could not be connected with better people. My dear Admiral, that post! we shall certainly take that post." But by coolly giving the reins a better direction herself they happily passed the danger; and by once afterwards judiciously putting out her hand they neither fell into a rut, nor ran foul of a dung-cart; and Anne, with some amusement at their style of driving, which she imagined no bad representation of the general guidance of their affairs, found herself safely deposited by them at the Cottage.

Anne has her take on the situation, but wants to stay out of Musgrove drama, so she keeps her opinions to herself. Still, she thinks Louisa is ahead, but in her heart of hearts doesn't believe Captain Wentworth really loves either of the Musgrove girls. She also notices that Charles H. has withdrawn from the field, and thinks this is a wise move on his part. The Musgrove sisters come to visit Anne and Mary and say that they're going on a long and boring walk which Mary certainly doesn't want to join them on because it's going to be so long and boring, and did they mention long? Anne suspects that the sisters have some scheme for which they don't really want company, but Mary insists on joining them anyway. Charles M. and Captain W. at this moment return from their morning round of shooting things, and join the walking party as well. On the walk, Anne tries to stay out of everyone's way so she can dwell on her mental collection of emo poetry in peace. Captain Wentworth chats with the Musgrove sisters, and Anne notices that Louisa is getting more attention from him than her sister. Mention of the Crofts' habit of crashing their buggy leads Louisa to say that she would rather be wrecked with her boyfriend than driven safely by anyone else; Captain Wentworth's obvious pleasure at this display of reckless loyalty troubles Anne. The walking group arrives at Winthrop, the Hayter home, which is the apparent intended destination of the Musgrove girls. Henrietta seems uneasy, but Louisa talks her into going into the house; Charles M. accompanies her. The party splits further: Louisa and Wentworth go off walking together, leaving Anne with the cranky Mary. Mary goes off after Louisa, whom she is convinced is somewhere having fun that Mary wants to horn in on. While Mary's off whining elsewhere in the underbrush, Anne, unseen, overhears a conversation between Wentworth and Louisa. Louisa says that Henrietta would have turned back from Winthrop earlier, but for her firmer sister's influence; Wentworth compliments Louisa on her decisiveness. The conversation turns to Mary, whom Louisa says has too much of the Elliot pride, and that the Musgroves wish Charles M. had married Anne instead. Wentworth is surprised to hear that a) Anne had a marriage proposal and b) she turned it down. Louisa says that her parents blame Lady Russell for persuading Anne that Charles M. wasn't smart enough for her. The walking party regroups, and Henrietta brings Charles H. back with her; the status of the pair has apparently changed from "it's complicated" back to "in a relationship." They set off walking in pairs: Henrietta and Charles H., Louisa and Wentworth, and Mary and Charles M....and Anne. Mary keeps whining about how it's so difficult being her, so Charles splits as soon as he can, leaving tired Anne without a arm to support her. The group runs into the Crofts in their chaise . The Crofts, having room for only one more, offer to give a ride to whichever lady is most tired, but no one takes them up on the offer. They're just about to leave when Wentworth whispers something to them, and they insist that Anne join them. Before Anne has time to argue, Wentworth has helped her into the carriage. For Anne, the gesture is full of meaning: she thinks that while he hasn't forgiven her, he at least cares whether she lives or dies - or in this case, walks or rides. When she finally leaves her own thoughts and tunes back into the Crofts' conversation, they too are talking of Wentworth, but, having missed out on the morning's events, are still caught up in yesterday's argument as to which Musgrove sister he will choose. The Crofts talk about their own whirlwind wedding, and wonder why Wentworth doesn't just grab one of them and head for Vegas. The Admiral is about to crash the carriage into a post, but Mrs. Croft takes hold of the reins and guides them to safety; Anne thinks that this is how their marriage works, with Mrs. Croft steering her husband through his mess-ups.

ONE March evening in my Sophomore year I was sitting alone in my room after supper. There had been a warm thaw all day, with mushy yards and little streams of dark water gurgling cheerfully into the streets out of old snow-banks. My window was open, and the earthy wind blowing through made me indolent. On the edge of the prairie, where the sun had gone down, the sky was turquoise blue, like a lake, with gold light throbbing in it. Higher up, in the utter clarity of the western slope, the evening star hung like a lamp suspended by silver chains--like the lamp engraved upon the title-page of old Latin texts, which is always appearing in new heavens, and waking new desires in men. It reminded me, at any rate, to shut my window and light my wick in answer. I did so regretfully, and the dim objects in the room emerged from the shadows and took their place about me with the helpfulness which custom breeds. I propped my book open and stared listlessly at the page of the Georgics where to-morrow's lesson began. It opened with the melancholy reflection that, in the lives of mortals, the best days are the first to flee. "Optima dies {~HORIZONTAL ELLIPSIS~} prima fugit." I turned back to the beginning of the third book, which we had read in class that morning. "Primus ego in patriam mecum {~HORIZONTAL ELLIPSIS~} deducam Musas"; "for I shall be the first, if I live, to bring the Muse into my country." Cleric had explained to us that "patria" here meant, not a nation or even a province, but the little rural neighborhood on the Mincio where the poet was born. This was not a boast, but a hope, at once bold and devoutly humble, that he might bring the Muse (but lately come to Italy from her cloudy Grecian mountains), not to the capital, the palatia Romana, but to his own little "country"; to his father's fields, "sloping down to the river and to the old beech trees with broken tops." Cleric said he thought Virgil, when he was dying at Brindisi, must have remembered that passage. After he had faced the bitter fact that he was to leave the AEneid unfinished, and had decreed that the great canvas, crowded with figures of gods and men, should be burned rather than survive him unperfected, then his mind must have gone back to the perfect utterance of the Georgics, where the pen was fitted to the matter as the plough is to the furrow; and he must have said to himself with the thankfulness of a good man, "I was the first to bring the Muse into my country." We left the classroom quietly, conscious that we had been brushed by the wing of a great feeling, though perhaps I alone knew Cleric intimately enough to guess what that feeling was. In the evening, as I sat staring at my book, the fervor of his voice stirred through the quantities on the page before me. I was wondering whether that particular rocky strip of New England coast about which he had so often told me was Cleric's patria. Before I had got far with my reading I was disturbed by a knock. I hurried to the door and when I opened it saw a woman standing in the dark hall. "I expect you hardly know me, Jim." The voice seemed familiar, but I did not recognize her until she stepped into the light of my doorway and I beheld--Lena Lingard! She was so quietly conventionalized by city clothes that I might have passed her on the street without seeing her. Her black suit fitted her figure smoothly, and a black lace hat, with pale-blue forget-me-nots, sat demurely on her yellow hair. I led her toward Cleric's chair, the only comfortable one I had, questioning her confusedly. She was not disconcerted by my embarrassment. She looked about her with the naive curiosity I remembered so well. "You are quite comfortable here, are n't you? I live in Lincoln now, too, Jim. I'm in business for myself. I have a dressmaking shop in the Raleigh Block, out on O Street. I've made a real good start." "But, Lena, when did you come?" "Oh, I've been here all winter. Did n't your grandmother ever write you? I've thought about looking you up lots of times. But we've all heard what a studious young man you've got to be, and I felt bashful. I did n't know whether you'd be glad to see me." She laughed her mellow, easy laugh, that was either very artless or very comprehending, one never quite knew which. "You seem the same, though,--except you're a young man, now, of course. Do you think I've changed?" "Maybe you're prettier--though you were always pretty enough. Perhaps it's your clothes that make a difference." "You like my new suit? I have to dress pretty well in my business." She took off her jacket and sat more at ease in her blouse, of some soft, flimsy silk. She was already at home in my place, had slipped quietly into it, as she did into everything. She told me her business was going well, and she had saved a little money. "This summer I'm going to build the house for mother I've talked about so long. I won't be able to pay up on it at first, but I want her to have it before she is too old to enjoy it. Next summer I'll take her down new furniture and carpets, so she'll have something to look forward to all winter." I watched Lena sitting there so smooth and sunny and well cared-for, and thought of how she used to run barefoot over the prairie until after the snow began to fly, and how Crazy Mary chased her round and round the cornfields. It seemed to me wonderful that she should have got on so well in the world. Certainly she had no one but herself to thank for it. "You must feel proud of yourself, Lena," I said heartily. "Look at me; I've never earned a dollar, and I don't know that I'll ever be able to." "Tony says you're going to be richer than Mr. Harling some day. She's always bragging about you, you know." "Tell me, how _is_ Tony?" "She's fine. She works for Mrs. Gardener at the hotel now. She's housekeeper. Mrs. Gardener's health is n't what it was, and she can't see after everything like she used to. She has great confidence in Tony. Tony's made it up with the Harlings, too. Little Nina is so fond of her that Mrs. Harling kind of overlooked things." "Is she still going with Larry Donovan?" "Oh, that's on, worse than ever! I guess they're engaged. Tony talks about him like he was president of the railroad. Everybody laughs about it, because she was never a girl to be soft. She won't hear a word against him. She's so sort of innocent." I said I did n't like Larry, and never would. Lena's face dimpled. "Some of us could tell her things, but it would n't do any good. She'd always believe him. That's Antonia's failing, you know; if she once likes people, she won't hear anything against them." "I think I'd better go home and look after Antonia," I said. "I think you had." Lena looked up at me in frank amusement. "It's a good thing the Harlings are friendly with her again. Larry's afraid of them. They ship so much grain, they have influence with the railroad people. What are you studying?" She leaned her elbows on the table and drew my book toward her. I caught a faint odor of violet sachet. "So that's Latin, is it? It looks hard. You do go to the theater sometimes, though, for I've seen you there. Don't you just love a good play, Jim? I can't stay at home in the evening if there's one in town. I'd be willing to work like a slave, it seems to me, to live in a place where there are theaters." "Let's go to a show together sometime. You are going to let me come to see you, are n't you?" "Would you like to? I'd be ever so pleased. I'm never busy after six o'clock, and I let my sewing girls go at half-past five. I board, to save time, but sometimes I cook a chop for myself, and I'd be glad to cook one for you. Well,"--she began to put on her white gloves,--"it's been awful good to see you, Jim." "You need n't hurry, need you? You've hardly told me anything yet." "We can talk when you come to see me. I expect you don't often have lady visitors. The old woman downstairs did n't want to let me come up very much. I told her I was from your home town, and had promised your grandmother to come and see you. How surprised Mrs. Burden would be!" Lena laughed softly as she rose. When I caught up my hat she shook her head. "No, I don't want you to go with me. I'm to meet some Swedes at the drug-store. You would n't care for them. I wanted to see your room so I could write Tony all about it, but I must tell her how I left you right here with your books. She's always so afraid some one will run off with you!" Lena slipped her silk sleeves into the jacket I held for her, smoothed it over her person, and buttoned it slowly. I walked with her to the door. "Come and see me sometimes when you're lonesome. But maybe you have all the friends you want. Have you?" She turned her soft cheek to me. "Have you?" she whispered teasingly in my ear. In a moment I watched her fade down the dusky stairway. When I turned back to my room the place seemed much pleasanter than before. Lena had left something warm and friendly in the lamplight. How I loved to hear her laugh again! It was so soft and unexcited and appreciative--gave a favorable interpretation to everything. When I closed my eyes I could hear them all laughing--the Danish laundry girls and the three Bohemian Marys. Lena had brought them all back to me. It came over me, as it had never done before, the relation between girls like those and the poetry of Virgil. If there were no girls like them in the world, there would be no poetry. I understood that clearly, for the first time. This revelation seemed to me inestimably precious. I clung to it as if it might suddenly vanish. As I sat down to my book at last, my old dream about Lena coming across the harvest field in her short skirt seemed to me like the memory of an actual experience. It floated before me on the page like a picture, and underneath it stood the mournful line: Optima dies {~HORIZONTAL ELLIPSIS~} prima fugit.

One day during September Jim is sitting in his room reading Virgil and thinking about one particular line which, translated, means, "I was the first to bring the Muse into my country. He thinks about how Gaston may feel like that about his New England hometown when suddenly, Lena Lingard appears at his door. He doesn't recognize her at first because she is smartly dressed in city clothes and looks grown up. Lena tells him that she is now living in Lincoln as a dressmaker and is beginning to save enough money to build her mother a house. Jim is impressed that she has been able to do so well all by herself. Lena mentions Tony, and Jim is eager to hear about her. According to Lena, Tony is now Mrs. Gardener's housekeeper, has reconciled with the Harlings, and is engaged to Larry Donovan, whom she adores. Jim says he doesn't like Larry Donovan and unself-consciously remarks that he should go back to Black Hawk to look after Antonia. Lena tells him that Antonia is always bragging about him being so smart. Before she leaves, Lena gets Jim to offer to take her to the theater sometime, and she tells him that she has to write a letter to Antonia all about what he's doing. She whispers suggestively into his ear about his maybe being lonely and then leaves. Jim is happy after she goes because she reminds him of all the hired girls. He realizes that poetry like Virgil's would never exist unless there were girls like Lena. As he sits down to read, the sexual dream about Lena seems like an actual memory, and a line of poetry, translated "The best days are the first to flee," acquires special meaning.

29 HUNTING FOR THE EQUIPMENTS The most preoccupied of the four friends was certainly d'Artagnan, although he, in his quality of Guardsman, would be much more easily equipped than Messieurs the Musketeers, who were all of high rank; but our Gascon cadet was, as may have been observed, of a provident and almost avaricious character, and with that (explain the contradiction) so vain as almost to rival Porthos. To this preoccupation of his vanity, d'Artagnan at this moment joined an uneasiness much less selfish. Notwithstanding all his inquiries respecting Mme. Bonacieux, he could obtain no intelligence of her. M. de Treville had spoken of her to the queen. The queen was ignorant where the mercer's young wife was, but had promised to have her sought for; but this promise was very vague and did not at all reassure d'Artagnan. Athos did not leave his chamber; he made up his mind not to take a single step to equip himself. "We have still fifteen days before us," said he to his friends, "well, if at the end of a fortnight I have found nothing, or rather if nothing has come to find me, as I, too good a Catholic to kill myself with a pistol bullet, I will seek a good quarrel with four of his Eminence's Guards or with eight Englishmen, and I will fight until one of them has killed me, which, considering the number, cannot fail to happen. It will then be said of me that I died for the king; so that I shall have performed my duty without the expense of an outfit." Porthos continued to walk about with his hands behind him, tossing his head and repeating, "I shall follow up on my idea." Aramis, anxious and negligently dressed, said nothing. It may be seen by these disastrous details that desolation reigned in the community. The lackeys on their part, like the coursers of Hippolytus, shared the sadness of their masters. Mousqueton collected a store of crusts; Bazin, who had always been inclined to devotion, never quit the churches; Planchet watched the flight of flies; and Grimaud, whom the general distress could not induce to break the silence imposed by his master, heaved sighs enough to soften the stones. The three friends--for, as we have said, Athos had sworn not to stir a foot to equip himself--went out early in the morning, and returned late at night. They wandered about the streets, looking at the pavement as if to see whether the passengers had not left a purse behind them. They might have been supposed to be following tracks, so observant were they wherever they went. When they met they looked desolately at one another, as much as to say, "Have you found anything?" However, as Porthos had first found an idea, and had thought of it earnestly afterward, he was the first to act. He was a man of execution, this worthy Porthos. D'Artagnan perceived him one day walking toward the church of St. Leu, and followed him instinctively. He entered, after having twisted his mustache and elongated his imperial, which always announced on his part the most triumphant resolutions. As d'Artagnan took some precautions to conceal himself, Porthos believed he had not been seen. D'Artagnan entered behind him. Porthos went and leaned against the side of a pillar. D'Artagnan, still unperceived, supported himself against the other side. There happened to be a sermon, which made the church very full of people. Porthos took advantage of this circumstance to ogle the women. Thanks to the cares of Mousqueton, the exterior was far from announcing the distress of the interior. His hat was a little napless, his feather was a little faded, his gold lace was a little tarnished, his laces were a trifle frayed; but in the obscurity of the church these things were not seen, and Porthos was still the handsome Porthos. D'Artagnan observed, on the bench nearest to the pillar against which Porthos leaned, a sort of ripe beauty, rather yellow and rather dry, but erect and haughty under her black hood. The eyes of Porthos were furtively cast upon this lady, and then roved about at large over the nave. On her side the lady, who from time to time blushed, darted with the rapidity of lightning a glance toward the inconstant Porthos; and then immediately the eyes of Porthos wandered anxiously. It was plain that this mode of proceeding piqued the lady in the black hood, for she bit her lips till they bled, scratched the end of her nose, and could not sit still in her seat. Porthos, seeing this, retwisted his mustache, elongated his imperial a second time, and began to make signals to a beautiful lady who was near the choir, and who not only was a beautiful lady, but still further, no doubt, a great lady--for she had behind her a Negro boy who had brought the cushion on which she knelt, and a female servant who held the emblazoned bag in which was placed the book from which she read the Mass. The lady with the black hood followed through all their wanderings the looks of Porthos, and perceived that they rested upon the lady with the velvet cushion, the little Negro, and the maid-servant. During this time Porthos played close. It was almost imperceptible motions of his eyes, fingers placed upon the lips, little assassinating smiles, which really did assassinate the disdained beauty. Then she cried, "Ahem!" under cover of the MEA CULPA, striking her breast so vigorously that everybody, even the lady with the red cushion, turned round toward her. Porthos paid no attention. Nevertheless, he understood it all, but was deaf. The lady with the red cushion produced a great effect--for she was very handsome--upon the lady with the black hood, who saw in her a rival really to be dreaded; a great effect upon Porthos, who thought her much prettier than the lady with the black hood; a great effect upon d'Artagnan, who recognized in her the lady of Meung, of Calais, and of Dover, whom his persecutor, the man with the scar, had saluted by the name of Milady. D'Artagnan, without losing sight of the lady of the red cushion, continued to watch the proceedings of Porthos, which amused him greatly. He guessed that the lady of the black hood was the procurator's wife of the Rue aux Ours, which was the more probable from the church of St. Leu being not far from that locality. He guessed, likewise, by induction, that Porthos was taking his revenge for the defeat of Chantilly, when the procurator's wife had proved so refractory with respect to her purse. Amid all this, d'Artagnan remarked also that not one countenance responded to the gallantries of Porthos. There were only chimeras and illusions; but for real love, for true jealousy, is there any reality except illusions and chimeras? The sermon over, the procurator's wife advanced toward the holy font. Porthos went before her, and instead of a finger, dipped his whole hand in. The procurator's wife smiled, thinking that it was for her Porthos had put himself to this trouble; but she was cruelly and promptly undeceived. When she was only about three steps from him, he turned his head round, fixing his eyes steadfastly upon the lady with the red cushion, who had risen and was approaching, followed by her black boy and her woman. When the lady of the red cushion came close to Porthos, Porthos drew his dripping hand from the font. The fair worshipper touched the great hand of Porthos with her delicate fingers, smiled, made the sign of the cross, and left the church. This was too much for the procurator's wife; she doubted not there was an intrigue between this lady and Porthos. If she had been a great lady she would have fainted; but as she was only a procurator's wife, she contented herself saying to the Musketeer with concentrated fury, "Eh, Monsieur Porthos, you don't offer me any holy water?" Porthos, at the sound of that voice, started like a man awakened from a sleep of a hundred years. "Ma-madame!" cried he; "is that you? How is your husband, our dear Monsieur Coquenard? Is he still as stingy as ever? Where can my eyes have been not to have seen you during the two hours of the sermon?" "I was within two paces of you, monsieur," replied the procurator's wife; "but you did not perceive me because you had no eyes but for the pretty lady to whom you just now gave the holy water." Porthos pretended to be confused. "Ah," said he, "you have remarked--" "I must have been blind not to have seen." "Yes," said Porthos, "that is a duchess of my acquaintance whom I have great trouble to meet on account of the jealousy of her husband, and who sent me word that she should come today to this poor church, buried in this vile quarter, solely for the sake of seeing me." "Monsieur Porthos," said the procurator's wife, "will you have the kindness to offer me your arm for five minutes? I have something to say to you." "Certainly, madame," said Porthos, winking to himself, as a gambler does who laughs at the dupe he is about to pluck. At that moment d'Artagnan passed in pursuit of Milady; he cast a passing glance at Porthos, and beheld this triumphant look. "Eh, eh!" said he, reasoning to himself according to the strangely easy morality of that gallant period, "there is one who will be equipped in good time!" Porthos, yielding to the pressure of the arm of the procurator's wife, as a bark yields to the rudder, arrived at the cloister St. Magloire--a little-frequented passage, enclosed with a turnstile at each end. In the daytime nobody was seen there but mendicants devouring their crusts, and children at play. "Ah, Monsieur Porthos," cried the procurator's wife, when she was assured that no one who was a stranger to the population of the locality could either see or hear her, "ah, Monsieur Porthos, you are a great conqueror, as it appears!" "I, madame?" said Porthos, drawing himself up proudly; "how so?" "The signs just now, and the holy water! But that must be a princess, at least--that lady with her Negro boy and her maid!" "My God! Madame, you are deceived," said Porthos; "she is simply a duchess." "And that running footman who waited at the door, and that carriage with a coachman in grand livery who sat waiting on his seat?" Porthos had seen neither the footman nor the carriage, but with the eye of a jealous woman, Mme. Coquenard had seen everything. Porthos regretted that he had not at once made the lady of the red cushion a princess. "Ah, you are quite the pet of the ladies, Monsieur Porthos!" resumed the procurator's wife, with a sigh. "Well," responded Porthos, "you may imagine, with the physique with which nature has endowed me, I am not in want of good luck." "Good Lord, how quickly men forget!" cried the procurator's wife, raising her eyes toward heaven. "Less quickly than the women, it seems to me," replied Porthos; "for I, madame, I may say I was your victim, when wounded, dying, I was abandoned by the surgeons. I, the offspring of a noble family, who placed reliance upon your friendship--I was near dying of my wounds at first, and of hunger afterward, in a beggarly inn at Chantilly, without you ever deigning once to reply to the burning letters I addressed to you." "But, Monsieur Porthos," murmured the procurator's wife, who began to feel that, to judge by the conduct of the great ladies of the time, she was wrong. "I, who had sacrificed for you the Baronne de--" "I know it well." "The Comtesse de--" "Monsieur Porthos, be generous!" "You are right, madame, and I will not finish." "But it was my husband who would not hear of lending." "Madame Coquenard," said Porthos, "remember the first letter you wrote me, and which I preserve engraved in my memory." The procurator's wife uttered a groan. "Besides," said she, "the sum you required me to borrow was rather large." "Madame Coquenard, I gave you the preference. I had but to write to the Duchesse--but I won't repeat her name, for I am incapable of compromising a woman; but this I know, that I had but to write to her and she would have sent me fifteen hundred." The procurator's wife shed a tear. "Monsieur Porthos," said she, "I can assure you that you have severely punished me; and if in the time to come you should find yourself in a similar situation, you have but to apply to me." "Fie, madame, fie!" said Porthos, as if disgusted. "Let us not talk about money, if you please; it is humiliating." "Then you no longer love me!" said the procurator's wife, slowly and sadly. Porthos maintained a majestic silence. "And that is the only reply you make? Alas, I understand." "Think of the offense you have committed toward me, madame! It remains HERE!" said Porthos, placing his hand on his heart, and pressing it strongly. "I will repair it, indeed I will, my dear Porthos." "Besides, what did I ask of you?" resumed Porthos, with a movement of the shoulders full of good fellowship. "A loan, nothing more! After all, I am not an unreasonable man. I know you are not rich, Madame Coquenard, and that your husband is obliged to bleed his poor clients to squeeze a few paltry crowns from them. Oh! If you were a duchess, a marchioness, or a countess, it would be quite a different thing; it would be unpardonable." The procurator's wife was piqued. "Please to know, Monsieur Porthos," said she, "that my strongbox, the strongbox of a procurator's wife though it may be, is better filled than those of your affected minxes." "That doubles the offense," said Porthos, disengaging his arm from that of the procurator's wife; "for if you are rich, Madame Coquenard, then there is no excuse for your refusal." "When I said rich," replied the procurator's wife, who saw that she had gone too far, "you must not take the word literally. I am not precisely rich, though I am pretty well off." "Hold, madame," said Porthos, "let us say no more upon the subject, I beg of you. You have misunderstood me, all sympathy is extinct between us." "Ingrate that you are!" "Ah! I advise you to complain!" said Porthos. "Begone, then, to your beautiful duchess; I will detain you no longer." "And she is not to be despised, in my opinion." "Now, Monsieur Porthos, once more, and this is the last! Do you love me still?" "Ah, madame," said Porthos, in the most melancholy tone he could assume, "when we are about to enter upon a campaign--a campaign, in which my presentiments tell me I shall be killed--" "Oh, don't talk of such things!" cried the procurator's wife, bursting into tears. "Something whispers me so," continued Porthos, becoming more and more melancholy. "Rather say that you have a new love." "Not so; I speak frankly to you. No object affects me; and I even feel here, at the bottom of my heart, something which speaks for you. But in fifteen days, as you know, or as you do not know, this fatal campaign is to open. I shall be fearfully preoccupied with my outfit. Then I must make a journey to see my family, in the lower part of Brittany, to obtain the sum necessary for my departure." Porthos observed a last struggle between love and avarice. "And as," continued he, "the duchess whom you saw at the church has estates near to those of my family, we mean to make the journey together. Journeys, you know, appear much shorter when we travel two in company." "Have you no friends in Paris, then, Monsieur Porthos?" said the procurator's wife. "I thought I had," said Porthos, resuming his melancholy air; "but I have been taught my mistake." "You have some!" cried the procurator's wife, in a transport that surprised even herself. "Come to our house tomorrow. You are the son of my aunt, consequently my cousin; you come from Noyon, in Picardy; you have several lawsuits and no attorney. Can you recollect all that?" "Perfectly, madame." "Come at dinnertime." "Very well." "And be upon your guard before my husband, who is rather shrewd, notwithstanding his seventy-six years." "Seventy-six years! PESTE! That's a fine age!" replied Porthos. "A great age, you mean, Monsieur Porthos. Yes, the poor man may be expected to leave me a widow, any hour," continued she, throwing a significant glance at Porthos. "Fortunately, by our marriage contract, the survivor takes everything." "All?" "Yes, all." "You are a woman of precaution, I see, my dear Madame Coquenard," said Porthos, squeezing the hand of the procurator's wife tenderly. "We are then reconciled, dear Monsieur Porthos?" said she, simpering. "For life," replied Porthos, in the same manner. "Till we meet again, then, dear traitor!" "Till we meet again, my forgetful charmer!" "Tomorrow, my angel!" "Tomorrow, flame of my life!"

There is still no information on the whereabouts of Madame Bonacieux. Athos refuses to leave his house to find money. There are fifteen days before the campaign starts, and Athos tells his friends that if he still doesn't have any money when the time comes, he will pick a fight with the Cardinal's Guards or some Englishmen in order to die with honor. Porthos is concocting some plan. Aramis says nothing. Three of them take to the streets in long, mournful walks, hoping to find a wallet full of money on the sidewalk. No luck. Porthos, however, gets ready to execute his plan. D'Artagnan spies him heading to the church of St. Leu and follows him. Mass is going on, and Porthos looks magnificently handsome. There are two women in the church of importance. The first is "a sort of ripe beauty, rather yellow and rather dry, but erect and haughty under her black hood." The lady in the black hood is obviously keenly aware of Porthos's presence, but he ignores her. He's busy spying on a beautiful lady sitting on a red cushion near the choir. The lady with the red cushion is absolutely gorgeous, and D'Artagnan can tell that the woman in the black hood is jealous. D'Artagnan also recognizes the lady with the red cushion as the one from Meung, called Milady. D'Artagnan guesses the lady in the black hood to be the attorney's wife, and that Porthos is taking his revenge for her stingy attitude during his time in Chantilly. With mass over, Porthos goes to the font of holy water ahead of the lady in the black hood. She thinks he's going to offer it to her, but instead he offers it to the beautiful woman. Really angry now, the cloaked woman asks Porthos if he's going to offer any holy water to her. Porthos smiles to himself. The plan is working! To make a long story short, Porthos drops all sorts of not-so-subtle hints about all the rich, wealthy, beautiful women in his life that are willing to lend him money. Madame Coquenard gets increasingly jealous. Finally, she tells him to pretend to be her cousin, who is dealing with several lawsuits. She warns him to be careful of her husband, who is seventy-six years old. The two part on good terms.

VIII. Monseigneur in the Country A beautiful landscape, with the corn bright in it, but not abundant. Patches of poor rye where corn should have been, patches of poor peas and beans, patches of most coarse vegetable substitutes for wheat. On inanimate nature, as on the men and women who cultivated it, a prevalent tendency towards an appearance of vegetating unwillingly--a dejected disposition to give up, and wither away. Monsieur the Marquis in his travelling carriage (which might have been lighter), conducted by four post-horses and two postilions, fagged up a steep hill. A blush on the countenance of Monsieur the Marquis was no impeachment of his high breeding; it was not from within; it was occasioned by an external circumstance beyond his control--the setting sun. The sunset struck so brilliantly into the travelling carriage when it gained the hill-top, that its occupant was steeped in crimson. "It will die out," said Monsieur the Marquis, glancing at his hands, "directly." In effect, the sun was so low that it dipped at the moment. When the heavy drag had been adjusted to the wheel, and the carriage slid down hill, with a cinderous smell, in a cloud of dust, the red glow departed quickly; the sun and the Marquis going down together, there was no glow left when the drag was taken off. But, there remained a broken country, bold and open, a little village at the bottom of the hill, a broad sweep and rise beyond it, a church-tower, a windmill, a forest for the chase, and a crag with a fortress on it used as a prison. Round upon all these darkening objects as the night drew on, the Marquis looked, with the air of one who was coming near home. The village had its one poor street, with its poor brewery, poor tannery, poor tavern, poor stable-yard for relays of post-horses, poor fountain, all usual poor appointments. It had its poor people too. All its people were poor, and many of them were sitting at their doors, shredding spare onions and the like for supper, while many were at the fountain, washing leaves, and grasses, and any such small yieldings of the earth that could be eaten. Expressive signs of what made them poor, were not wanting; the tax for the state, the tax for the church, the tax for the lord, tax local and tax general, were to be paid here and to be paid there, according to solemn inscription in the little village, until the wonder was, that there was any village left unswallowed. Few children were to be seen, and no dogs. As to the men and women, their choice on earth was stated in the prospect--Life on the lowest terms that could sustain it, down in the little village under the mill; or captivity and Death in the dominant prison on the crag. Heralded by a courier in advance, and by the cracking of his postilions' whips, which twined snake-like about their heads in the evening air, as if he came attended by the Furies, Monsieur the Marquis drew up in his travelling carriage at the posting-house gate. It was hard by the fountain, and the peasants suspended their operations to look at him. He looked at them, and saw in them, without knowing it, the slow sure filing down of misery-worn face and figure, that was to make the meagreness of Frenchmen an English superstition which should survive the truth through the best part of a hundred years. Monsieur the Marquis cast his eyes over the submissive faces that drooped before him, as the like of himself had drooped before Monseigneur of the Court--only the difference was, that these faces drooped merely to suffer and not to propitiate--when a grizzled mender of the roads joined the group. "Bring me hither that fellow!" said the Marquis to the courier. The fellow was brought, cap in hand, and the other fellows closed round to look and listen, in the manner of the people at the Paris fountain. "I passed you on the road?" "Monseigneur, it is true. I had the honour of being passed on the road." "Coming up the hill, and at the top of the hill, both?" "Monseigneur, it is true." "What did you look at, so fixedly?" "Monseigneur, I looked at the man." He stooped a little, and with his tattered blue cap pointed under the carriage. All his fellows stooped to look under the carriage. "What man, pig? And why look there?" "Pardon, Monseigneur; he swung by the chain of the shoe--the drag." "Who?" demanded the traveller. "Monseigneur, the man." "May the Devil carry away these idiots! How do you call the man? You know all the men of this part of the country. Who was he?" "Your clemency, Monseigneur! He was not of this part of the country. Of all the days of my life, I never saw him." "Swinging by the chain? To be suffocated?" "With your gracious permission, that was the wonder of it, Monseigneur. His head hanging over--like this!" He turned himself sideways to the carriage, and leaned back, with his face thrown up to the sky, and his head hanging down; then recovered himself, fumbled with his cap, and made a bow. "What was he like?" "Monseigneur, he was whiter than the miller. All covered with dust, white as a spectre, tall as a spectre!" The picture produced an immense sensation in the little crowd; but all eyes, without comparing notes with other eyes, looked at Monsieur the Marquis. Perhaps, to observe whether he had any spectre on his conscience. "Truly, you did well," said the Marquis, felicitously sensible that such vermin were not to ruffle him, "to see a thief accompanying my carriage, and not open that great mouth of yours. Bah! Put him aside, Monsieur Gabelle!" Monsieur Gabelle was the Postmaster, and some other taxing functionary united; he had come out with great obsequiousness to assist at this examination, and had held the examined by the drapery of his arm in an official manner. "Bah! Go aside!" said Monsieur Gabelle. "Lay hands on this stranger if he seeks to lodge in your village to-night, and be sure that his business is honest, Gabelle." "Monseigneur, I am flattered to devote myself to your orders." "Did he run away, fellow?--where is that Accursed?" The accursed was already under the carriage with some half-dozen particular friends, pointing out the chain with his blue cap. Some half-dozen other particular friends promptly hauled him out, and presented him breathless to Monsieur the Marquis. "Did the man run away, Dolt, when we stopped for the drag?" "Monseigneur, he precipitated himself over the hill-side, head first, as a person plunges into the river." "See to it, Gabelle. Go on!" The half-dozen who were peering at the chain were still among the wheels, like sheep; the wheels turned so suddenly that they were lucky to save their skins and bones; they had very little else to save, or they might not have been so fortunate. The burst with which the carriage started out of the village and up the rise beyond, was soon checked by the steepness of the hill. Gradually, it subsided to a foot pace, swinging and lumbering upward among the many sweet scents of a summer night. The postilions, with a thousand gossamer gnats circling about them in lieu of the Furies, quietly mended the points to the lashes of their whips; the valet walked by the horses; the courier was audible, trotting on ahead into the dull distance. At the steepest point of the hill there was a little burial-ground, with a Cross and a new large figure of Our Saviour on it; it was a poor figure in wood, done by some inexperienced rustic carver, but he had studied the figure from the life--his own life, maybe--for it was dreadfully spare and thin. To this distressful emblem of a great distress that had long been growing worse, and was not at its worst, a woman was kneeling. She turned her head as the carriage came up to her, rose quickly, and presented herself at the carriage-door. "It is you, Monseigneur! Monseigneur, a petition." With an exclamation of impatience, but with his unchangeable face, Monseigneur looked out. "How, then! What is it? Always petitions!" "Monseigneur. For the love of the great God! My husband, the forester." "What of your husband, the forester? Always the same with you people. He cannot pay something?" "He has paid all, Monseigneur. He is dead." "Well! He is quiet. Can I restore him to you?" "Alas, no, Monseigneur! But he lies yonder, under a little heap of poor grass." "Well?" "Monseigneur, there are so many little heaps of poor grass?" "Again, well?" She looked an old woman, but was young. Her manner was one of passionate grief; by turns she clasped her veinous and knotted hands together with wild energy, and laid one of them on the carriage-door--tenderly, caressingly, as if it had been a human breast, and could be expected to feel the appealing touch. "Monseigneur, hear me! Monseigneur, hear my petition! My husband died of want; so many die of want; so many more will die of want." "Again, well? Can I feed them?" "Monseigneur, the good God knows; but I don't ask it. My petition is, that a morsel of stone or wood, with my husband's name, may be placed over him to show where he lies. Otherwise, the place will be quickly forgotten, it will never be found when I am dead of the same malady, I shall be laid under some other heap of poor grass. Monseigneur, they are so many, they increase so fast, there is so much want. Monseigneur! Monseigneur!" The valet had put her away from the door, the carriage had broken into a brisk trot, the postilions had quickened the pace, she was left far behind, and Monseigneur, again escorted by the Furies, was rapidly diminishing the league or two of distance that remained between him and his chateau. The sweet scents of the summer night rose all around him, and rose, as the rain falls, impartially, on the dusty, ragged, and toil-worn group at the fountain not far away; to whom the mender of roads, with the aid of the blue cap without which he was nothing, still enlarged upon his man like a spectre, as long as they could bear it. By degrees, as they could bear no more, they dropped off one by one, and lights twinkled in little casements; which lights, as the casements darkened, and more stars came out, seemed to have shot up into the sky instead of having been extinguished. The shadow of a large high-roofed house, and of many over-hanging trees, was upon Monsieur the Marquis by that time; and the shadow was exchanged for the light of a flambeau, as his carriage stopped, and the great door of his chateau was opened to him. "Monsieur Charles, whom I expect; is he arrived from England?" "Monseigneur, not yet."

The Marquis' carriage heads out into the country. As he drives, our narrator gives us a description of the land. It's parched and almost dead. All the crops that can be wrung out of the land have been grown and are slowly dying--like the poor people who farm them. Heading into the village, the carriage pauses. Our narrator takes this time to explain why the village looks so crummy, as well. See, the Marquis has been taxing his villagers within an inch of their lives. They don't have the money to buy food or care for their children because they're sending all of their money to the Marquis. In the village, the Marquis pulls aside a man whom he passed on the road. Understandably, the guy's a bit nervous. The Marquis isn't exactly known for his generosity around here. The Marquis demands to know what the guy was staring at when the carriage passed him by a few minutes before. Gulping, the man says that he was staring at another man who was riding below the carriage as a stowaway. Angry and astonished, the Marquis demands to know more. The peasant describes the stowaway as a tall, thin, white-faced man. Gabelle, the town tax collector and postmaster, steps forward to take charge of a hunt for the mysterious man. The Marquis' carriage heads out of town. They've almost reached the Marquis' country estate when a single woman stops them on the road. She's poor and desperate. Her husband has just died, their farm yields no money, and now her children are starving. She's not asking for food, however. She'd just like money to build a small tombstone for her husband. See, the woman is about to die, as well--and she's very upset at the thought that the townspeople won't be able to bury her beside her husband. Right now there's nothing to mark his grave. Without a headstone, no one will know where he was buried. Any guesses as to what the Marquis will do? Exactly. He rides away without listening to another word. Just in case you were wondering, this is exhibit B in the case Dickens is building. Case? What case? Well, we'll call it the "Why the Marquis is a heartless monster" case, for now. Hmm...killing a small child and ignoring the pleas of a desperate woman. Sounds like the Marquis is a monster after all. Luckily for him, he doesn't care. His carriage pulls up to a magnificent country mansion. As the Marquis gets out, he asks if Monsieur Charles has arrived yet. Hang on a second...don't we already know a Charles? What's going on here?

It was not that I didn't wait, on this occasion, for more, for I was rooted as deeply as I was shaken. Was there a "secret" at Bly--a mystery of Udolpho or an insane, an unmentionable relative kept in unsuspected confinement? I can't say how long I turned it over, or how long, in a confusion of curiosity and dread, I remained where I had had my collision; I only recall that when I re-entered the house darkness had quite closed in. Agitation, in the interval, certainly had held me and driven me, for I must, in circling about the place, have walked three miles; but I was to be, later on, so much more overwhelmed that this mere dawn of alarm was a comparatively human chill. The most singular part of it, in fact--singular as the rest had been--was the part I became, in the hall, aware of in meeting Mrs. Grose. This picture comes back to me in the general train--the impression, as I received it on my return, of the wide white panelled space, bright in the lamplight and with its portraits and red carpet, and of the good surprised look of my friend, which immediately told me she had missed me. It came to me straightway, under her contact, that, with plain heartiness, mere relieved anxiety at my appearance, she knew nothing whatever that could bear upon the incident I had there ready for her. I had not suspected in advance that her comfortable face would pull me up, and I somehow measured the importance of what I had seen by my thus finding myself hesitate to mention it. Scarce anything in the whole history seems to me so odd as this fact that my real beginning of fear was one, as I may say, with the instinct of sparing my companion. On the spot, accordingly, in the pleasant hall and with her eyes on me, I, for a reason that I couldn't then have phrased, achieved an inward resolution--offered a vague pretext for my lateness and, with the plea of the beauty of the night and of the heavy dew and wet feet, went as soon as possible to my room. Here it was another affair; here, for many days after, it was a queer affair enough. There were hours, from day to day--or at least there were moments, snatched even from clear duties--when I had to shut myself up to think. It was not so much yet that I was more nervous than I could bear to be as that I was remarkably afraid of becoming so; for the truth I had now to turn over was, simply and clearly, the truth that I could arrive at no account whatever of the visitor with whom I had been so inexplicably and yet, as it seemed to me, so intimately concerned. It took little time to see that I could sound without forms of inquiry and without exciting remark any domestic complications. The shock I had suffered must have sharpened all my senses; I felt sure, at the end of three days and as the result of mere closer attention, that I had not been practiced upon by the servants nor made the object of any "game." Of whatever it was that I knew, nothing was known around me. There was but one sane inference: someone had taken a liberty rather gross. That was what, repeatedly, I dipped into my room and locked the door to say to myself. We had been, collectively, subject to an intrusion; some unscrupulous traveler, curious in old houses, had made his way in unobserved, enjoyed the prospect from the best point of view, and then stolen out as he came. If he had given me such a bold hard stare, that was but a part of his indiscretion. The good thing, after all, was that we should surely see no more of him. This was not so good a thing, I admit, as not to leave me to judge that what, essentially, made nothing else much signify was simply my charming work. My charming work was just my life with Miles and Flora, and through nothing could I so like it as through feeling that I could throw myself into it in trouble. The attraction of my small charges was a constant joy, leading me to wonder afresh at the vanity of my original fears, the distaste I had begun by entertaining for the probable gray prose of my office. There was to be no gray prose, it appeared, and no long grind; so how could work not be charming that presented itself as daily beauty? It was all the romance of the nursery and the poetry of the schoolroom. I don't mean by this, of course, that we studied only fiction and verse; I mean I can express no otherwise the sort of interest my companions inspired. How can I describe that except by saying that instead of growing used to them--and it's a marvel for a governess: I call the sisterhood to witness!--I made constant fresh discoveries. There was one direction, assuredly, in which these discoveries stopped: deep obscurity continued to cover the region of the boy's conduct at school. It had been promptly given me, I have noted, to face that mystery without a pang. Perhaps even it would be nearer the truth to say that--without a word--he himself had cleared it up. He had made the whole charge absurd. My conclusion bloomed there with the real rose flush of his innocence: he was only too fine and fair for the little horrid, unclean school world, and he had paid a price for it. I reflected acutely that the sense of such differences, such superiorities of quality, always, on the part of the majority--which could include even stupid, sordid headmasters--turn infallibly to the vindictive. Both the children had a gentleness (it was their only fault, and it never made Miles a muff) that kept them--how shall I express it?--almost impersonal and certainly quite unpunishable. They were like the cherubs of the anecdote, who had--morally, at any rate--nothing to whack! I remember feeling with Miles in especial as if he had had, as it were, no history. We expect of a small child a scant one, but there was in this beautiful little boy something extraordinarily sensitive, yet extraordinarily happy, that, more than in any creature of his age I have seen, struck me as beginning anew each day. He had never for a second suffered. I took this as a direct disproof of his having really been chastised. If he had been wicked he would have "caught" it, and I should have caught it by the rebound--I should have found the trace. I found nothing at all, and he was therefore an angel. He never spoke of his school, never mentioned a comrade or a master; and I, for my part, was quite too much disgusted to allude to them. Of course I was under the spell, and the wonderful part is that, even at the time, I perfectly knew I was. But I gave myself up to it; it was an antidote to any pain, and I had more pains than one. I was in receipt in these days of disturbing letters from home, where things were not going well. But with my children, what things in the world mattered? That was the question I used to put to my scrappy retirements. I was dazzled by their loveliness. There was a Sunday--to get on--when it rained with such force and for so many hours that there could be no procession to church; in consequence of which, as the day declined, I had arranged with Mrs. Grose that, should the evening show improvement, we would attend together the late service. The rain happily stopped, and I prepared for our walk, which, through the park and by the good road to the village, would be a matter of twenty minutes. Coming downstairs to meet my colleague in the hall, I remembered a pair of gloves that had required three stitches and that had received them--with a publicity perhaps not edifying--while I sat with the children at their tea, served on Sundays, by exception, in that cold, clean temple of mahogany and brass, the "grown-up" dining room. The gloves had been dropped there, and I turned in to recover them. The day was gray enough, but the afternoon light still lingered, and it enabled me, on crossing the threshold, not only to recognize, on a chair near the wide window, then closed, the articles I wanted, but to become aware of a person on the other side of the window and looking straight in. One step into the room had sufficed; my vision was instantaneous; it was all there. The person looking straight in was the person who had already appeared to me. He appeared thus again with I won't say greater distinctness, for that was impossible, but with a nearness that represented a forward stride in our intercourse and made me, as I met him, catch my breath and turn cold. He was the same--he was the same, and seen, this time, as he had been seen before, from the waist up, the window, though the dining room was on the ground floor, not going down to the terrace on which he stood. His face was close to the glass, yet the effect of this better view was, strangely, only to show me how intense the former had been. He remained but a few seconds--long enough to convince me he also saw and recognized; but it was as if I had been looking at him for years and had known him always. Something, however, happened this time that had not happened before; his stare into my face, through the glass and across the room, was as deep and hard as then, but it quitted me for a moment during which I could still watch it, see it fix successively several other things. On the spot there came to me the added shock of a certitude that it was not for me he had come there. He had come for someone else. The flash of this knowledge--for it was knowledge in the midst of dread--produced in me the most extraordinary effect, started as I stood there, a sudden vibration of duty and courage. I say courage because I was beyond all doubt already far gone. I bounded straight out of the door again, reached that of the house, got, in an instant, upon the drive, and, passing along the terrace as fast as I could rush, turned a corner and came full in sight. But it was in sight of nothing now--my visitor had vanished. I stopped, I almost dropped, with the real relief of this; but I took in the whole scene--I gave him time to reappear. I call it time, but how long was it? I can't speak to the purpose today of the duration of these things. That kind of measure must have left me: they couldn't have lasted as they actually appeared to me to last. The terrace and the whole place, the lawn and the garden beyond it, all I could see of the park, were empty with a great emptiness. There were shrubberies and big trees, but I remember the clear assurance I felt that none of them concealed him. He was there or was not there: not there if I didn't see him. I got hold of this; then, instinctively, instead of returning as I had come, went to the window. It was confusedly present to me that I ought to place myself where he had stood. I did so; I applied my face to the pane and looked, as he had looked, into the room. As if, at this moment, to show me exactly what his range had been, Mrs. Grose, as I had done for himself just before, came in from the hall. With this I had the full image of a repetition of what had already occurred. She saw me as I had seen my own visitant; she pulled up short as I had done; I gave her something of the shock that I had received. She turned white, and this made me ask myself if I had blanched as much. She stared, in short, and retreated on just MY lines, and I knew she had then passed out and come round to me and that I should presently meet her. I remained where I was, and while I waited I thought of more things than one. But there's only one I take space to mention. I wondered why SHE should be scared.

The Governess's run-in from afar with the creepy stranger understandably unsettles her. She wonders if Bly might be housing some terrible secret, like an insane relative in the attic, a la Jane Eyre. She spends the rest of the evening pacing around, wondering what to do. When the Governess returns to the house and runs into Mrs. Grose, she decides instantly to "spare" her friend the trouble of worrying about the mystery man; she makes her excuses and runs off to her room without mentioning her bizarre encounter. Over the next few days, the Governess observes her surroundings, and decides that nobody in the household is playing a trick on her. She assumes that the stranger that she saw must have actually been a stranger to the house, who snuck in, checked out the house, and left. The Governess's fears are pushed out of her mind by the utter delight of her job. The children seem to only grow more and more wonderful day by day, and the Governess is head-over-heels in teacherly love with them. The only thing that mars the perfection of this job is the continuing mystery of Miles's wrongdoing at school. The idea that Miles could be bad grows more and more ridiculous to the Governess. He has the air of only being loved and never punished, which leads her to believe that he's never done any wrong, and never been caught doing anything. She admits to being "under the spell" of his charm. One Sunday, as the Governess and Mrs. Grose prepare to go to an evening church service, the Governess goes to pick up a pair of gloves she dropped in the formal dining room. Upon entering the room, she immediately senses another presence. Lo and behold, just outside the window, she sees the same creepy guy she saw on the tower. She's shocked and horrified. The pair match gazes again, but this time, he looks away for a moment and glances around the room. This convinces the Governess that he's not there for her, he's there to find someone else. Inspired by this knowledge, the Governess sprints outside to confront the Peeping Tom. However, when she gets to the outside of the window, he's gone, and is nowhere to be found. At a loss, the Governess decides to mimic the man to try and discern what he was doing there. She looks in through the window just where he was - and, in an odd and fascinating repetition of what just happened, Mrs. Grose sees her from inside. Mrs. Grose's shock and horror perfectly mirrors that of the Governess when she saw the strange man outside - however, she doesn't understand what the housekeeper has to be scared of.

Ragueneau, the duenna. Then Roxane, Cyrano, and two pages. RAGUENEAU: --And then, off she went, with a musketeer! Deserted and ruined too, I would make an end of all, and so hanged myself. My last breath was drawn:-- then in comes Monsieur de Bergerac! He cuts me down, and begs his cousin to take me for her steward. THE DUENNA: Well, but how came it about that you were thus ruined? RAGUENEAU: Oh! Lise loved the warriors, and I loved the poets! What cakes there were that Apollo chanced to leave were quickly snapped up by Mars. Thus ruin was not long a-coming. THE DUENNA (rising, and calling up to the open window): Roxane, are you ready? They wait for us! ROXANE'S VOICE (from the window): I will but put me on a cloak! THE DUENNA (to Ragueneau, showing him the door opposite): They wait us there opposite, at Clomire's house. She receives them all there to-day--the precieuses, the poets; they read a discourse on the Tender Passion. RAGUENEAU: The Tender Passion? THE DUENNA (in a mincing voice): Ay, indeed! (Calling up to the window): Roxane, an you come not down quickly, we shall miss the discourse on the Tender Passion! ROXANE'S VOICE: I come! I come! (A sound of stringed instruments approaching.) CYRANO'S VOICE (behind the scenes, singing): La, la, la, la! THE DUENNA (surprised): They serenade us? CYRANO (followed by two pages with arch-lutes): I tell you they are demi-semi-quavers, demi-semi-fool! FIRST PAGE (ironically): You know then, Sir, to distinguish between semi-quavers and demi-semi- quavers? CYRANO: Is not every disciple of Gassendi a musician? THE PAGE (playing and singing): La, la! CYRANO (snatching the lute from him, and going on with the phrase): In proof of which, I can continue! La, la, la, la! ROXANE (appearing on the balcony): What? 'Tis you? CYRANO (going on with the air, and singing to it): 'Tis I, who come to serenade your lilies, and pay my devoir to your ro-o- oses! ROXANE: I am coming down! (She leaves the balcony.) THE DUENNA (pointing to the pages): How come these two virtuosi here? CYRANO: 'Tis for a wager I won of D'Assoucy. We were disputing a nice point in grammar; contradictions raged hotly--''Tis so!' 'Nay, 'tis so!' when suddenly he shows me these two long-shanks, whom he takes about with him as an escort, and who are skillful in scratching lute-strings with their skinny claws! 'I will wager you a day's music,' says he!--And lost it! Thus, see you, till Phoebus' chariot starts once again, these lute-twangers are at my heels, seeing all I do, hearing all I say, and accompanying all with melody. 'Twas pleasant at the first, but i' faith, I begin to weary of it already! (To the musicians): Ho there! go serenade Montfleury for me! Play a dance to him! (The pages go toward the door. To the duenna): I have come, as is my wont, nightly, to ask Roxane whether. . . (To the pages, who are going out): Play a long time,--and play out of tune! (To the duenna): . . .Whether her soul's elected is ever the same, ever faultless! ROXANE (coming out of the house): Ah! How handsome he is, how brilliant a wit! And--how well I love him! CYRANO (smiling): Christian has so brilliant a wit? ROXANE: Brighter than even your own, cousin! CYRANO: Be it so, with all my heart! ROXANE: Ah! methinks 'twere impossible that there could breathe a man on this earth skilled to say as sweetly as he all the pretty nothings that mean so much-- that mean all! At times his mind seems far away, the Muse says naught--and then, presto! he speaks--bewitchingly! enchantingly! CYRANO (incredulously): No, no! ROXANE: Fie! That is ill said! But lo! men are ever thus! Because he is fair to see, you would have it that he must be dull of speech. CYRANO: He hath an eloquent tongue in telling his love? ROXANE: In telling his love? why, 'tis not simple telling, 'tis dissertation, 'tis analysis! CYRANO: How is he with the pen? ROXANE: Still better! Listen,--here:-- (Reciting): 'The more of my poor heart you take The larger grows my heart!' (Triumphantly to Cyrano): How like you those lines? CYRANO: Pooh! ROXANE: And thus it goes on. . . 'And, since some target I must show For Cupid's cruel dart, Oh, if mine own you deign to keep, Then give me your sweet heart!' CYRANO: Lord! first he has too much, then anon not enough! How much heart does the fellow want? ROXANE: You would vex a saint!. . .But 'tis your jealousy. CYRANO (starting): What mean you? ROXANE: Ay, your poet's jealousy! Hark now, if this again be not tender-sweet?-- 'My heart to yours sounds but one cry: If kisses fast could flee By letter, then with your sweet lips My letters read should be! If kisses could be writ with ink, If kisses fast could flee!' CYRANO (smiling approvingly in spite of himself): Ha! those last lines are,--hm!. . .hm!. . . (Correcting himself--contemptuously): --They are paltry enough! ROXANE: And this. . . CYRANO (enchanted): Then you have his letters by heart? ROXANE: Every one of them! CYRANO: By all oaths that can be sworn,--'tis flattering! ROXANE: They are the lines of a master! CYRANO (modestly): Come, nay. . .a master?. . . ROXANE: Ay, I say it--a master! CYRANO: Good--be it so. THE DUENNA (coming down quickly): Here comes Monsieur de Guiche! (To Cyrano, pushing him toward the house): In with you! 'twere best he see you not; it might perchance put him on the scent. . . ROXANE (to Cyrano): Ay, of my own dear secret! He loves me, and is powerful, and, if he knew, then all were lost! Marry! he could well deal a deathblow to my love! CYRANO (entering the house): Good! good! (De Guiche appears.)

Ragueneau is sitting outside Roxane's house, telling her Duenna that his wife has just left him for the Musketeer, taking what little money they had. Ragueneau tried to hang himself, but Cyrano found him, cut him down, and sent him to Roxane to be her steward. The Duenna calls Roxane; they are going to hear a talk about love. Cyrano enters with some musicians and begins to serenade Roxane, who appears on her balcony. Cyrano explains that he won the services of the musicians in a bet about a point of grammar. He is now bored with them, however, and sends them away. Roxane comes down and discusses Christian with Cyrano. She says that she loves him, and that he is even cleverer than Cyrano in writing eloquent letters. Cyrano is disparaging about the phrases in the letters, and Roxane says he is jealous of Christian's literary talent. The Duenna warns Roxane and Cyrano that de Guiche is coming. Cyrano goes into the house

Of course Miss Bartlett accepted. And, equally of course, she felt sure that she would prove a nuisance, and begged to be given an inferior spare room--something with no view, anything. Her love to Lucy. And, equally of course, George Emerson could come to tennis on the Sunday week. Lucy faced the situation bravely, though, like most of us, she only faced the situation that encompassed her. She never gazed inwards. If at times strange images rose from the depths, she put them down to nerves. When Cecil brought the Emersons to Summer Street, it had upset her nerves. Charlotte would burnish up past foolishness, and this might upset her nerves. She was nervous at night. When she talked to George--they met again almost immediately at the Rectory--his voice moved her deeply, and she wished to remain near him. How dreadful if she really wished to remain near him! Of course, the wish was due to nerves, which love to play such perverse tricks upon us. Once she had suffered from "things that came out of nothing and meant she didn't know what." Now Cecil had explained psychology to her one wet afternoon, and all the troubles of youth in an unknown world could be dismissed. It is obvious enough for the reader to conclude, "She loves young Emerson." A reader in Lucy's place would not find it obvious. Life is easy to chronicle, but bewildering to practice, and we welcome "nerves" or any other shibboleth that will cloak our personal desire. She loved Cecil; George made her nervous; will the reader explain to her that the phrases should have been reversed? But the external situation--she will face that bravely. The meeting at the Rectory had passed off well enough. Standing between Mr. Beebe and Cecil, she had made a few temperate allusions to Italy, and George had replied. She was anxious to show that she was not shy, and was glad that he did not seem shy either. "A nice fellow," said Mr. Beebe afterwards "He will work off his crudities in time. I rather mistrust young men who slip into life gracefully." Lucy said, "He seems in better spirits. He laughs more." "Yes," replied the clergyman. "He is waking up." That was all. But, as the week wore on, more of her defences fell, and she entertained an image that had physical beauty. In spite of the clearest directions, Miss Bartlett contrived to bungle her arrival. She was due at the South-Eastern station at Dorking, whither Mrs. Honeychurch drove to meet her. She arrived at the London and Brighton station, and had to hire a cab up. No one was at home except Freddy and his friend, who had to stop their tennis and to entertain her for a solid hour. Cecil and Lucy turned up at four o'clock, and these, with little Minnie Beebe, made a somewhat lugubrious sextette upon the upper lawn for tea. "I shall never forgive myself," said Miss Bartlett, who kept on rising from her seat, and had to be begged by the united company to remain. "I have upset everything. Bursting in on young people! But I insist on paying for my cab up. Grant that, at any rate." "Our visitors never do such dreadful things," said Lucy, while her brother, in whose memory the boiled egg had already grown unsubstantial, exclaimed in irritable tones: "Just what I've been trying to convince Cousin Charlotte of, Lucy, for the last half hour." "I do not feel myself an ordinary visitor," said Miss Bartlett, and looked at her frayed glove. "All right, if you'd really rather. Five shillings, and I gave a bob to the driver." Miss Bartlett looked in her purse. Only sovereigns and pennies. Could any one give her change? Freddy had half a quid and his friend had four half-crowns. Miss Bartlett accepted their moneys and then said: "But who am I to give the sovereign to?" "Let's leave it all till mother comes back," suggested Lucy. "No, dear; your mother may take quite a long drive now that she is not hampered with me. We all have our little foibles, and mine is the prompt settling of accounts." Here Freddy's friend, Mr. Floyd, made the one remark of his that need be quoted: he offered to toss Freddy for Miss Bartlett's quid. A solution seemed in sight, and even Cecil, who had been ostentatiously drinking his tea at the view, felt the eternal attraction of Chance, and turned round. But this did not do, either. "Please--please--I know I am a sad spoil-sport, but it would make me wretched. I should practically be robbing the one who lost." "Freddy owes me fifteen shillings," interposed Cecil. "So it will work out right if you give the pound to me." "Fifteen shillings," said Miss Bartlett dubiously. "How is that, Mr. Vyse?" "Because, don't you see, Freddy paid your cab. Give me the pound, and we shall avoid this deplorable gambling." Miss Bartlett, who was poor at figures, became bewildered and rendered up the sovereign, amidst the suppressed gurgles of the other youths. For a moment Cecil was happy. He was playing at nonsense among his peers. Then he glanced at Lucy, in whose face petty anxieties had marred the smiles. In January he would rescue his Leonardo from this stupefying twaddle. "But I don't see that!" exclaimed Minnie Beebe who had narrowly watched the iniquitous transaction. "I don't see why Mr. Vyse is to have the quid." "Because of the fifteen shillings and the five," they said solemnly. "Fifteen shillings and five shillings make one pound, you see." "But I don't see--" They tried to stifle her with cake. "No, thank you. I'm done. I don't see why--Freddy, don't poke me. Miss Honeychurch, your brother's hurting me. Ow! What about Mr. Floyd's ten shillings? Ow! No, I don't see and I never shall see why Miss What's-her-name shouldn't pay that bob for the driver." "I had forgotten the driver," said Miss Bartlett, reddening. "Thank you, dear, for reminding me. A shilling was it? Can any one give me change for half a crown?" "I'll get it," said the young hostess, rising with decision. "Cecil, give me that sovereign. No, give me up that sovereign. I'll get Euphemia to change it, and we'll start the whole thing again from the beginning." "Lucy--Lucy--what a nuisance I am!" protested Miss Bartlett, and followed her across the lawn. Lucy tripped ahead, simulating hilarity. When they were out of earshot Miss Bartlett stopped her wails and said quite briskly: "Have you told him about him yet?" "No, I haven't," replied Lucy, and then could have bitten her tongue for understanding so quickly what her cousin meant. "Let me see--a sovereign's worth of silver." She escaped into the kitchen. Miss Bartlett's sudden transitions were too uncanny. It sometimes seemed as if she planned every word she spoke or caused to be spoken; as if all this worry about cabs and change had been a ruse to surprise the soul. "No, I haven't told Cecil or any one," she remarked, when she returned. "I promised you I shouldn't. Here is your money--all shillings, except two half-crowns. Would you count it? You can settle your debt nicely now." Miss Bartlett was in the drawing-room, gazing at the photograph of St. John ascending, which had been framed. "How dreadful!" she murmured, "how more than dreadful, if Mr. Vyse should come to hear of it from some other source." "Oh, no, Charlotte," said the girl, entering the battle. "George Emerson is all right, and what other source is there?" Miss Bartlett considered. "For instance, the driver. I saw him looking through the bushes at you, remember he had a violet between his teeth." Lucy shuddered a little. "We shall get the silly affair on our nerves if we aren't careful. How could a Florentine cab-driver ever get hold of Cecil?" "We must think of every possibility." "Oh, it's all right." "Or perhaps old Mr. Emerson knows. In fact, he is certain to know." "I don't care if he does. I was grateful to you for your letter, but even if the news does get round, I think I can trust Cecil to laugh at it." "To contradict it?" "No, to laugh at it." But she knew in her heart that she could not trust him, for he desired her untouched. "Very well, dear, you know best. Perhaps gentlemen are different to what they were when I was young. Ladies are certainly different." "Now, Charlotte!" She struck at her playfully. "You kind, anxious thing. What WOULD you have me do? First you say 'Don't tell'; and then you say, 'Tell'. Which is it to be? Quick!" Miss Bartlett sighed "I am no match for you in conversation, dearest. I blush when I think how I interfered at Florence, and you so well able to look after yourself, and so much cleverer in all ways than I am. You will never forgive me." "Shall we go out, then. They will smash all the china if we don't." For the air rang with the shrieks of Minnie, who was being scalped with a teaspoon. "Dear, one moment--we may not have this chance for a chat again. Have you seen the young one yet?" "Yes, I have." "What happened?" "We met at the Rectory." "What line is he taking up?" "No line. He talked about Italy, like any other person. It is really all right. What advantage would he get from being a cad, to put it bluntly? I do wish I could make you see it my way. He really won't be any nuisance, Charlotte." "Once a cad, always a cad. That is my poor opinion." Lucy paused. "Cecil said one day--and I thought it so profound--that there are two kinds of cads--the conscious and the subconscious." She paused again, to be sure of doing justice to Cecil's profundity. Through the window she saw Cecil himself, turning over the pages of a novel. It was a new one from Smith's library. Her mother must have returned from the station. "Once a cad, always a cad," droned Miss Bartlett. "What I mean by subconscious is that Emerson lost his head. I fell into all those violets, and he was silly and surprised. I don't think we ought to blame him very much. It makes such a difference when you see a person with beautiful things behind him unexpectedly. It really does; it makes an enormous difference, and he lost his head: he doesn't admire me, or any of that nonsense, one straw. Freddy rather likes him, and has asked him up here on Sunday, so you can judge for yourself. He has improved; he doesn't always look as if he's going to burst into tears. He is a clerk in the General Manager's office at one of the big railways--not a porter! and runs down to his father for week-ends. Papa was to do with journalism, but is rheumatic and has retired. There! Now for the garden." She took hold of her guest by the arm. "Suppose we don't talk about this silly Italian business any more. We want you to have a nice restful visit at Windy Corner, with no worriting." Lucy thought this rather a good speech. The reader may have detected an unfortunate slip in it. Whether Miss Bartlett detected the slip one cannot say, for it is impossible to penetrate into the minds of elderly people. She might have spoken further, but they were interrupted by the entrance of her hostess. Explanations took place, and in the midst of them Lucy escaped, the images throbbing a little more vividly in her brain.

Lucy prepares for the external situation of Sunday, but she avoids self-examination. She met George at the rectory soon after the incident at the lake; the sound of his voice had a strong affect on her, and she longed to be near him. But Lucy has convinced herself that these feelings all come from stress and confusion. Charlotte Bartlett has arrived, and she is already proving a nuisance with her fussiness. Mr. Floyd , Cecil, Freddy, Lucy, and Charlotte are all outside the house on a beautiful autumn day. Charlotte tries to pay for her cab ride, but since she has no small coins and no one is able to make change, an elaborate conversation starts up, with competing schemes for dispersing the money fairly. Finally fed up, Lucy intercedes and takes Charlotte's money, to go make change with one of the servants. Charlotte follows her into the house and, once they are alone, asks if anyone knows about "him" yet. Lucy responds crossly that no one knows. They argue back and forth: Charlotte now thinks that Lucy must fess up, lest Cecil should hear about the kiss from someone else. Lucy thinks it impossible that Cecil might hear of it, but Charlotte seems fixated on the possibility. Lucy finally argues that Cecil will laugh at it if he hears it, but deep down she knows that he won't. He demands that she be completely pure for him. They talk about George, and Lucy insists that he does not mean to be a cad. She makes a speech trying to explain the kiss ; it is an important moment in the novel, worth a look. She talks about how George was swept up in the moment: he saw Lucy surrounded by violets and lost his head. She defends his character. He is happier than before, and he works as a clerk. She insists, amiably, that Charlotte forget about the whole thing. But she makes a critical error: when talking about George losing his head and being swept away by the moment, she unknowingly uses the masculine pronoun instead of the feminine: "It makes such a difference when you see a person with beautiful things behind him unexpectedly". Forster does not tell us if Charlotte detects the slip.

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.]

In England, Duncan's son Malcolm tests the loyalty of his newest recruit, Macduff. By demeaning his own nobility and professing himself to be a greater tyrant than Macbeth, Malcolm hopes to goad Macduff into an open display of his loyalties. This attempt at reverse psychology has its desired effect. Macduff is thrown into a fit of anger against the "untitled tyrant" Macbeth, and Malcolm enlists his help in the struggle. When Ross appears with news of the slaughter of Macduff's family, Macduff is finally convinced not only to engage in the rebel army but also to take personal revenge upon Macbeth. This scene also includes a passage in which it is reported that England's king, Edward the Confessor, has provided more than political aid to Malcolm; he has been healing the sick by supernatural means.

Emma's pensive meditations, as she walked home, were not interrupted; but on entering the parlour, she found those who must rouse her. Mr. Knightley and Harriet had arrived during her absence, and were sitting with her father.--Mr. Knightley immediately got up, and in a manner decidedly graver than usual, said, "I would not go away without seeing you, but I have no time to spare, and therefore must now be gone directly. I am going to London, to spend a few days with John and Isabella. Have you any thing to send or say, besides the 'love,' which nobody carries?" "Nothing at all. But is not this a sudden scheme?" "Yes--rather--I have been thinking of it some little time." Emma was sure he had not forgiven her; he looked unlike himself. Time, however, she thought, would tell him that they ought to be friends again. While he stood, as if meaning to go, but not going--her father began his inquiries. "Well, my dear, and did you get there safely?--And how did you find my worthy old friend and her daughter?--I dare say they must have been very much obliged to you for coming. Dear Emma has been to call on Mrs. and Miss Bates, Mr. Knightley, as I told you before. She is always so attentive to them!" Emma's colour was heightened by this unjust praise; and with a smile, and shake of the head, which spoke much, she looked at Mr. Knightley.--It seemed as if there were an instantaneous impression in her favour, as if his eyes received the truth from hers, and all that had passed of good in her feelings were at once caught and honoured.-- He looked at her with a glow of regard. She was warmly gratified--and in another moment still more so, by a little movement of more than common friendliness on his part.--He took her hand;--whether she had not herself made the first motion, she could not say--she might, perhaps, have rather offered it--but he took her hand, pressed it, and certainly was on the point of carrying it to his lips--when, from some fancy or other, he suddenly let it go.--Why he should feel such a scruple, why he should change his mind when it was all but done, she could not perceive.--He would have judged better, she thought, if he had not stopped.--The intention, however, was indubitable; and whether it was that his manners had in general so little gallantry, or however else it happened, but she thought nothing became him more.--It was with him, of so simple, yet so dignified a nature.--She could not but recall the attempt with great satisfaction. It spoke such perfect amity.--He left them immediately afterwards--gone in a moment. He always moved with the alertness of a mind which could neither be undecided nor dilatory, but now he seemed more sudden than usual in his disappearance. Emma could not regret her having gone to Miss Bates, but she wished she had left her ten minutes earlier;--it would have been a great pleasure to talk over Jane Fairfax's situation with Mr. Knightley.--Neither would she regret that he should be going to Brunswick Square, for she knew how much his visit would be enjoyed--but it might have happened at a better time--and to have had longer notice of it, would have been pleasanter.--They parted thorough friends, however; she could not be deceived as to the meaning of his countenance, and his unfinished gallantry;--it was all done to assure her that she had fully recovered his good opinion.--He had been sitting with them half an hour, she found. It was a pity that she had not come back earlier! In the hope of diverting her father's thoughts from the disagreeableness of Mr. Knightley's going to London; and going so suddenly; and going on horseback, which she knew would be all very bad; Emma communicated her news of Jane Fairfax, and her dependence on the effect was justified; it supplied a very useful check,--interested, without disturbing him. He had long made up his mind to Jane Fairfax's going out as governess, and could talk of it cheerfully, but Mr. Knightley's going to London had been an unexpected blow. "I am very glad, indeed, my dear, to hear she is to be so comfortably settled. Mrs. Elton is very good-natured and agreeable, and I dare say her acquaintance are just what they ought to be. I hope it is a dry situation, and that her health will be taken good care of. It ought to be a first object, as I am sure poor Miss Taylor's always was with me. You know, my dear, she is going to be to this new lady what Miss Taylor was to us. And I hope she will be better off in one respect, and not be induced to go away after it has been her home so long." The following day brought news from Richmond to throw every thing else into the background. An express arrived at Randalls to announce the death of Mrs. Churchill! Though her nephew had had no particular reason to hasten back on her account, she had not lived above six-and-thirty hours after his return. A sudden seizure of a different nature from any thing foreboded by her general state, had carried her off after a short struggle. The great Mrs. Churchill was no more. It was felt as such things must be felt. Every body had a degree of gravity and sorrow; tenderness towards the departed, solicitude for the surviving friends; and, in a reasonable time, curiosity to know where she would be buried. Goldsmith tells us, that when lovely woman stoops to folly, she has nothing to do but to die; and when she stoops to be disagreeable, it is equally to be recommended as a clearer of ill-fame. Mrs. Churchill, after being disliked at least twenty-five years, was now spoken of with compassionate allowances. In one point she was fully justified. She had never been admitted before to be seriously ill. The event acquitted her of all the fancifulness, and all the selfishness of imaginary complaints. "Poor Mrs. Churchill! no doubt she had been suffering a great deal: more than any body had ever supposed--and continual pain would try the temper. It was a sad event--a great shock--with all her faults, what would Mr. Churchill do without her? Mr. Churchill's loss would be dreadful indeed. Mr. Churchill would never get over it."--Even Mr. Weston shook his head, and looked solemn, and said, "Ah! poor woman, who would have thought it!" and resolved, that his mourning should be as handsome as possible; and his wife sat sighing and moralising over her broad hems with a commiseration and good sense, true and steady. How it would affect Frank was among the earliest thoughts of both. It was also a very early speculation with Emma. The character of Mrs. Churchill, the grief of her husband--her mind glanced over them both with awe and compassion--and then rested with lightened feelings on how Frank might be affected by the event, how benefited, how freed. She saw in a moment all the possible good. Now, an attachment to Harriet Smith would have nothing to encounter. Mr. Churchill, independent of his wife, was feared by nobody; an easy, guidable man, to be persuaded into any thing by his nephew. All that remained to be wished was, that the nephew should form the attachment, as, with all her goodwill in the cause, Emma could feel no certainty of its being already formed. Harriet behaved extremely well on the occasion, with great self-command. What ever she might feel of brighter hope, she betrayed nothing. Emma was gratified, to observe such a proof in her of strengthened character, and refrained from any allusion that might endanger its maintenance. They spoke, therefore, of Mrs. Churchill's death with mutual forbearance. Short letters from Frank were received at Randalls, communicating all that was immediately important of their state and plans. Mr. Churchill was better than could be expected; and their first removal, on the departure of the funeral for Yorkshire, was to be to the house of a very old friend in Windsor, to whom Mr. Churchill had been promising a visit the last ten years. At present, there was nothing to be done for Harriet; good wishes for the future were all that could yet be possible on Emma's side. It was a more pressing concern to shew attention to Jane Fairfax, whose prospects were closing, while Harriet's opened, and whose engagements now allowed of no delay in any one at Highbury, who wished to shew her kindness--and with Emma it was grown into a first wish. She had scarcely a stronger regret than for her past coldness; and the person, whom she had been so many months neglecting, was now the very one on whom she would have lavished every distinction of regard or sympathy. She wanted to be of use to her; wanted to shew a value for her society, and testify respect and consideration. She resolved to prevail on her to spend a day at Hartfield. A note was written to urge it. The invitation was refused, and by a verbal message. "Miss Fairfax was not well enough to write;" and when Mr. Perry called at Hartfield, the same morning, it appeared that she was so much indisposed as to have been visited, though against her own consent, by himself, and that she was suffering under severe headaches, and a nervous fever to a degree, which made him doubt the possibility of her going to Mrs. Smallridge's at the time proposed. Her health seemed for the moment completely deranged--appetite quite gone--and though there were no absolutely alarming symptoms, nothing touching the pulmonary complaint, which was the standing apprehension of the family, Mr. Perry was uneasy about her. He thought she had undertaken more than she was equal to, and that she felt it so herself, though she would not own it. Her spirits seemed overcome. Her present home, he could not but observe, was unfavourable to a nervous disorder:--confined always to one room;--he could have wished it otherwise--and her good aunt, though his very old friend, he must acknowledge to be not the best companion for an invalid of that description. Her care and attention could not be questioned; they were, in fact, only too great. He very much feared that Miss Fairfax derived more evil than good from them. Emma listened with the warmest concern; grieved for her more and more, and looked around eager to discover some way of being useful. To take her--be it only an hour or two--from her aunt, to give her change of air and scene, and quiet rational conversation, even for an hour or two, might do her good; and the following morning she wrote again to say, in the most feeling language she could command, that she would call for her in the carriage at any hour that Jane would name--mentioning that she had Mr. Perry's decided opinion, in favour of such exercise for his patient. The answer was only in this short note: "Miss Fairfax's compliments and thanks, but is quite unequal to any exercise." Emma felt that her own note had deserved something better; but it was impossible to quarrel with words, whose tremulous inequality shewed indisposition so plainly, and she thought only of how she might best counteract this unwillingness to be seen or assisted. In spite of the answer, therefore, she ordered the carriage, and drove to Mrs. Bates's, in the hope that Jane would be induced to join her--but it would not do;--Miss Bates came to the carriage door, all gratitude, and agreeing with her most earnestly in thinking an airing might be of the greatest service--and every thing that message could do was tried--but all in vain. Miss Bates was obliged to return without success; Jane was quite unpersuadable; the mere proposal of going out seemed to make her worse.--Emma wished she could have seen her, and tried her own powers; but, almost before she could hint the wish, Miss Bates made it appear that she had promised her niece on no account to let Miss Woodhouse in. "Indeed, the truth was, that poor dear Jane could not bear to see any body--any body at all--Mrs. Elton, indeed, could not be denied--and Mrs. Cole had made such a point--and Mrs. Perry had said so much--but, except them, Jane would really see nobody." Emma did not want to be classed with the Mrs. Eltons, the Mrs. Perrys, and the Mrs. Coles, who would force themselves anywhere; neither could she feel any right of preference herself--she submitted, therefore, and only questioned Miss Bates farther as to her niece's appetite and diet, which she longed to be able to assist. On that subject poor Miss Bates was very unhappy, and very communicative; Jane would hardly eat any thing:--Mr. Perry recommended nourishing food; but every thing they could command (and never had any body such good neighbours) was distasteful. Emma, on reaching home, called the housekeeper directly, to an examination of her stores; and some arrowroot of very superior quality was speedily despatched to Miss Bates with a most friendly note. In half an hour the arrowroot was returned, with a thousand thanks from Miss Bates, but "dear Jane would not be satisfied without its being sent back; it was a thing she could not take--and, moreover, she insisted on her saying, that she was not at all in want of any thing." When Emma afterwards heard that Jane Fairfax had been seen wandering about the meadows, at some distance from Highbury, on the afternoon of the very day on which she had, under the plea of being unequal to any exercise, so peremptorily refused to go out with her in the carriage, she could have no doubt--putting every thing together--that Jane was resolved to receive no kindness from _her_. She was sorry, very sorry. Her heart was grieved for a state which seemed but the more pitiable from this sort of irritation of spirits, inconsistency of action, and inequality of powers; and it mortified her that she was given so little credit for proper feeling, or esteemed so little worthy as a friend: but she had the consolation of knowing that her intentions were good, and of being able to say to herself, that could Mr. Knightley have been privy to all her attempts of assisting Jane Fairfax, could he even have seen into her heart, he would not, on this occasion, have found any thing to reprove.

Emma returns to Hartfield to discover that Mr. Knightley and Harriet have arrived in her absence. Knightley is about to depart for London to visit John and Isabella. His hastiness surprises Emma. Mr. Woodhouse inquires about Emma's visit with the Bateses, and Emma blushes and exchanges a glance with Knightley. She believes he understands her feelings and forgives her. He makes an unusual gesture, taking her hand and almost kissing it. She is gratified, though a little puzzled about his scruple in completing the kiss. The next day, unexpected news arrives: Mrs. Churchill has died. Emma thinks this event may improve Harriet's chances with Frank. Meanwhile, she attempts to provide assistance to Jane, inviting her to Hartfield, sending her healthful foods, and attempting to visit her. Jane pleads ill health, but Emma hears that Jane has been taking outside exercise, and she feels hurt that Jane seems to be particularly avoiding her.

The Same Subject Continued (Concerning the General Power of Taxation) For the Independent Journal. Saturday, January 5, 1788 HAMILTON To the People of the State of New York: BEFORE we proceed to examine any other objections to an indefinite power of taxation in the Union, I shall make one general remark; which is, that if the jurisdiction of the national government, in the article of revenue, should be restricted to particular objects, it would naturally occasion an undue proportion of the public burdens to fall upon those objects. Two evils would spring from this source: the oppression of particular branches of industry; and an unequal distribution of the taxes, as well among the several States as among the citizens of the same State. Suppose, as has been contended for, the federal power of taxation were to be confined to duties on imports, it is evident that the government, for want of being able to command other resources, would frequently be tempted to extend these duties to an injurious excess. There are persons who imagine that they can never be carried to too great a length; since the higher they are, the more it is alleged they will tend to discourage an extravagant consumption, to produce a favorable balance of trade, and to promote domestic manufactures. But all extremes are pernicious in various ways. Exorbitant duties on imported articles would beget a general spirit of smuggling; which is always prejudicial to the fair trader, and eventually to the revenue itself: they tend to render other classes of the community tributary, in an improper degree, to the manufacturing classes, to whom they give a premature monopoly of the markets; they sometimes force industry out of its more natural channels into others in which it flows with less advantage; and in the last place, they oppress the merchant, who is often obliged to pay them himself without any retribution from the consumer. When the demand is equal to the quantity of goods at market, the consumer generally pays the duty; but when the markets happen to be overstocked, a great proportion falls upon the merchant, and sometimes not only exhausts his profits, but breaks in upon his capital. I am apt to think that a division of the duty, between the seller and the buyer, more often happens than is commonly imagined. It is not always possible to raise the price of a commodity in exact proportion to every additional imposition laid upon it. The merchant, especially in a country of small commercial capital, is often under a necessity of keeping prices down in order to a more expeditious sale. The maxim that the consumer is the payer, is so much oftener true than the reverse of the proposition, that it is far more equitable that the duties on imports should go into a common stock, than that they should redound to the exclusive benefit of the importing States. But it is not so generally true as to render it equitable, that those duties should form the only national fund. When they are paid by the merchant they operate as an additional tax upon the importing State, whose citizens pay their proportion of them in the character of consumers. In this view they are productive of inequality among the States; which inequality would be increased with the increased extent of the duties. The confinement of the national revenues to this species of imposts would be attended with inequality, from a different cause, between the manufacturing and the non-manufacturing States. The States which can go farthest towards the supply of their own wants, by their own manufactures, will not, according to their numbers or wealth, consume so great a proportion of imported articles as those States which are not in the same favorable situation. They would not, therefore, in this mode alone contribute to the public treasury in a ratio to their abilities. To make them do this it is necessary that recourse be had to excises, the proper objects of which are particular kinds of manufactures. New York is more deeply interested in these considerations than such of her citizens as contend for limiting the power of the Union to external taxation may be aware of. New York is an importing State, and is not likely speedily to be, to any great extent, a manufacturing State. She would, of course, suffer in a double light from restraining the jurisdiction of the Union to commercial imposts. So far as these observations tend to inculcate a danger of the import duties being extended to an injurious extreme it may be observed, conformably to a remark made in another part of these papers, that the interest of the revenue itself would be a sufficient guard against such an extreme. I readily admit that this would be the case, as long as other resources were open; but if the avenues to them were closed, HOPE, stimulated by necessity, would beget experiments, fortified by rigorous precautions and additional penalties, which, for a time, would have the intended effect, till there had been leisure to contrive expedients to elude these new precautions. The first success would be apt to inspire false opinions, which it might require a long course of subsequent experience to correct. Necessity, especially in politics, often occasions false hopes, false reasonings, and a system of measures correspondingly erroneous. But even if this supposed excess should not be a consequence of the limitation of the federal power of taxation, the inequalities spoken of would still ensue, though not in the same degree, from the other causes that have been noticed. Let us now return to the examination of objections. One which, if we may judge from the frequency of its repetition, seems most to be relied on, is, that the House of Representatives is not sufficiently numerous for the reception of all the different classes of citizens, in order to combine the interests and feelings of every part of the community, and to produce a due sympathy between the representative body and its constituents. This argument presents itself under a very specious and seducing form; and is well calculated to lay hold of the prejudices of those to whom it is addressed. But when we come to dissect it with attention, it will appear to be made up of nothing but fair-sounding words. The object it seems to aim at is, in the first place, impracticable, and in the sense in which it is contended for, is unnecessary. I reserve for another place the discussion of the question which relates to the sufficiency of the representative body in respect to numbers, and shall content myself with examining here the particular use which has been made of a contrary supposition, in reference to the immediate subject of our inquiries. The idea of an actual representation of all classes of the people, by persons of each class, is altogether visionary. Unless it were expressly provided in the Constitution, that each different occupation should send one or more members, the thing would never take place in practice. Mechanics and manufacturers will always be inclined, with few exceptions, to give their votes to merchants, in preference to persons of their own professions or trades. Those discerning citizens are well aware that the mechanic and manufacturing arts furnish the materials of mercantile enterprise and industry. Many of them, indeed, are immediately connected with the operations of commerce. They know that the merchant is their natural patron and friend; and they are aware, that however great the confidence they may justly feel in their own good sense, their interests can be more effectually promoted by the merchant than by themselves. They are sensible that their habits in life have not been such as to give them those acquired endowments, without which, in a deliberative assembly, the greatest natural abilities are for the most part useless; and that the influence and weight, and superior acquirements of the merchants render them more equal to a contest with any spirit which might happen to infuse itself into the public councils, unfriendly to the manufacturing and trading interests. These considerations, and many others that might be mentioned prove, and experience confirms it, that artisans and manufacturers will commonly be disposed to bestow their votes upon merchants and those whom they recommend. We must therefore consider merchants as the natural representatives of all these classes of the community. With regard to the learned professions, little need be observed; they truly form no distinct interest in society, and according to their situation and talents, will be indiscriminately the objects of the confidence and choice of each other, and of other parts of the community. Nothing remains but the landed interest; and this, in a political view, and particularly in relation to taxes, I take to be perfectly united, from the wealthiest landlord down to the poorest tenant. No tax can be laid on land which will not affect the proprietor of millions of acres as well as the proprietor of a single acre. Every landholder will therefore have a common interest to keep the taxes on land as low as possible; and common interest may always be reckoned upon as the surest bond of sympathy. But if we even could suppose a distinction of interest between the opulent landholder and the middling farmer, what reason is there to conclude, that the first would stand a better chance of being deputed to the national legislature than the last? If we take fact as our guide, and look into our own senate and assembly, we shall find that moderate proprietors of land prevail in both; nor is this less the case in the senate, which consists of a smaller number, than in the assembly, which is composed of a greater number. Where the qualifications of the electors are the same, whether they have to choose a small or a large number, their votes will fall upon those in whom they have most confidence; whether these happen to be men of large fortunes, or of moderate property, or of no property at all. It is said to be necessary, that all classes of citizens should have some of their own number in the representative body, in order that their feelings and interests may be the better understood and attended to. But we have seen that this will never happen under any arrangement that leaves the votes of the people free. Where this is the case, the representative body, with too few exceptions to have any influence on the spirit of the government, will be composed of landholders, merchants, and men of the learned professions. But where is the danger that the interests and feelings of the different classes of citizens will not be understood or attended to by these three descriptions of men? Will not the landholder know and feel whatever will promote or insure the interest of landed property? And will he not, from his own interest in that species of property, be sufficiently prone to resist every attempt to prejudice or encumber it? Will not the merchant understand and be disposed to cultivate, as far as may be proper, the interests of the mechanic and manufacturing arts, to which his commerce is so nearly allied? Will not the man of the learned profession, who will feel a neutrality to the rivalships between the different branches of industry, be likely to prove an impartial arbiter between them, ready to promote either, so far as it shall appear to him conducive to the general interests of the society? If we take into the account the momentary humors or dispositions which may happen to prevail in particular parts of the society, and to which a wise administration will never be inattentive, is the man whose situation leads to extensive inquiry and information less likely to be a competent judge of their nature, extent, and foundation than one whose observation does not travel beyond the circle of his neighbors and acquaintances? Is it not natural that a man who is a candidate for the favor of the people, and who is dependent on the suffrages of his fellow-citizens for the continuance of his public honors, should take care to inform himself of their dispositions and inclinations, and should be willing to allow them their proper degree of influence upon his conduct? This dependence, and the necessity of being bound himself, and his posterity, by the laws to which he gives his assent, are the true, and they are the strong chords of sympathy between the representative and the constituent. There is no part of the administration of government that requires extensive information and a thorough knowledge of the principles of political economy, so much as the business of taxation. The man who understands those principles best will be least likely to resort to oppressive expedients, or sacrifice any particular class of citizens to the procurement of revenue. It might be demonstrated that the most productive system of finance will always be the least burdensome. There can be no doubt that in order to a judicious exercise of the power of taxation, it is necessary that the person in whose hands it should be acquainted with the general genius, habits, and modes of thinking of the people at large, and with the resources of the country. And this is all that can be reasonably meant by a knowledge of the interests and feelings of the people. In any other sense the proposition has either no meaning, or an absurd one. And in that sense let every considerate citizen judge for himself where the requisite qualification is most likely to be found. PUBLIUS

Hamilton defends the unfettered ability of the national government to levy taxes from the perspective of equality and fairness. He asserts that if the union were only allowed to levy certain taxes, then the tax burden would be unequally distributed among the population. For example, if only imports could be taxed, then merchant classes and states that rely primarily on imports would suffer disproportionately. Hamilton also answers the claim that the constitution ought to ensure that the house of representatives have representatives from all classes of people, such laborers, merchants, learned professionals, etc. Hamilton responds that such a provision is unnecessary since people from certain classes can still represent those from other classes. For example, merchants have an interest in protecting the interests of manufacturers since they provide the items that merchants trade. Hamilton predicts that the house will mostly be composed of landholders, merchants, and learned professionals ; however, this will not be a problem, since these classes of men are still accountable to voters of all classes and will therefore be motivated to understand their constituents' diverse needs.

The Spell Seems Broken The suite of rooms opening into each other at Park House looked duly brilliant with lights and flowers and the personal splendors of sixteen couples, with attendant parents and guardians. The focus of brilliancy was the long drawing-room, where the dancing went forward, under the inspiration of the grand piano; the library, into which it opened at one end, had the more sober illumination of maturity, with caps and cards; and at the other end the pretty sitting-room, with a conservatory attached, was left as an occasional cool retreat. Lucy, who had laid aside her black for the first time, and had her pretty slimness set off by an abundant dress of white crape, was the acknowledged queen of the occasion; for this was one of the Miss Guests' thoroughly condescending parties, including no member of any aristocracy higher than that of St. Ogg's, and stretching to the extreme limits of commercial and professional gentility. Maggie at first refused to dance, saying that she had forgotten all the figures--it was so many years since she had danced at school; and she was glad to have that excuse, for it is ill dancing with a heavy heart. But at length the music wrought in her young limbs, and the longing came; even though it was the horrible young Torry, who walked up a second time to try and persuade her. She warned him that she could not dance anything but a country-dance; but he, of course, was willing to wait for that high felicity, meaning only to be complimentary when he assured her at several intervals that it was a "great bore" that she couldn't waltz, he would have liked so much to waltz with her. But at last it was the turn of the good old-fashioned dance which has the least of vanity and the most of merriment in it, and Maggie quite forgot her troublous life in a childlike enjoyment of that half-rustic rhythm which seems to banish pretentious etiquette. She felt quite charitably toward young Torry, as his hand bore her along and held her up in the dance; her eyes and cheeks had that fire of young joy in them which will flame out if it can find the least breath to fan it; and her simple black dress, with its bit of black lace, seemed like the dim setting of a jewel. Stephen had not yet asked her to dance; had not yet paid her more than a passing civility. Since yesterday, that inward vision of her which perpetually made part of his consciousness, had been half screened by the image of Philip Wakem, which came across it like a blot; there was some attachment between her and Philip; at least there was an attachment on his side, which made her feel in some bondage. Here, then, Stephen told himself, was another claim of honor which called on him to resist the attraction that was continually threatening to overpower him. He told himself so; and yet he had once or twice felt a certain savage resistance, and at another moment a shuddering repugnance, to this intrusion of Philip's image, which almost made it a new incitement to rush toward Maggie and claim her for himself. Nevertheless, he had done what he meant to do this evening,--he had kept aloof from her; he had hardly looked at her; and he had been gayly assiduous to Lucy. But now his eyes were devouring Maggie; he felt inclined to kick young Torry out of the dance, and take his place. Then he wanted the dance to end that he might get rid of his partner. The possibility that he too should dance with Maggie, and have her hand in his so long, was beginning to possess him like a thirst. But even now their hands were meeting in the dance,--were meeting still to the very end of it, though they were far off each other. Stephen hardly knew what happened, or in what automatic way he got through the duties of politeness in the interval, until he was free and saw Maggie seated alone again, at the farther end of the room. He made his way toward her round the couples that were forming for the waltz; and when Maggie became conscious that she was the person he sought, she felt, in spite of all the thoughts that had gone before, a glowing gladness at heart. Her eyes and cheeks were still brightened with her childlike enthusiasm in the dance; her whole frame was set to joy and tenderness; even the coming pain could not seem bitter,--she was ready to welcome it as a part of life, for life at this moment seemed a keen, vibrating consciousness poised above pleasure or pain. This one, this last night, she might expand unrestrainedly in the warmth of the present, without those chill, eating thoughts of the past and the future. "They're going to waltz again," said Stephen, bending to speak to her, with that glance and tone of subdued tenderness which young dreams create to themselves in the summer woods when low, cooing voices fill the air. Such glances and tones bring the breath of poetry with them into a room that is half stifling with glaring gas and hard flirtation. "They are going to waltz again. It is rather dizzy work to look on, and the room is very warm; shall we walk about a little?" He took her hand and placed it within his arm, and they walked on into the sitting-room, where the tables were strewn with engravings for the accommodation of visitors who would not want to look at them. But no visitors were here at this moment. They passed on into the conservatory. "How strange and unreal the trees and flowers look with the lights among them!" said Maggie, in a low voice. "They look as if they belonged to an enchanted land, and would never fade away; I could fancy they were all made of jewels." She was looking at the tier of geraniums as she spoke, and Stephen made no answer; but he was looking at her; and does not a supreme poet blend light and sound into one, calling darkness mute, and light eloquent? Something strangely powerful there was in the light of Stephen's long gaze, for it made Maggie's face turn toward it and look upward at it, slowly, like a flower at the ascending brightness. And they walked unsteadily on, without feeling that they were walking; without feeling anything but that long, grave, mutual gaze which has the solemnity belonging to all deep human passion. The hovering thought that they must and would renounce each other made this moment of mute confession more intense in its rapture. But they had reached the end of the conservatory, and were obliged to pause and turn. The change of movement brought a new consciousness to Maggie; she blushed deeply, turned away her head, and drew her arm from Stephen's, going up to some flowers to smell them. Stephen stood motionless, and still pale. "Oh, may I get this rose?" said Maggie, making a great effort to say something, and dissipate the burning sense of irretrievable confession. "I think I am quite wicked with roses; I like to gather them and smell them till they have no scent left." Stephen was mute; he was incapable of putting a sentence together, and Maggie bent her arm a little upward toward the large half-opened rose that had attracted her. Who has not felt the beauty of a woman's arm? The unspeakable suggestions of tenderness that lie in the dimpled elbow, and all the varied gently lessening curves, down to the delicate wrist, with its tiniest, almost imperceptible nicks in the firm softness. A woman's arm touched the soul of a great sculptor two thousand years ago, so that he wrought an image of it for the Parthenon which moves us still as it clasps lovingly the timeworn marble of a headless trunk. Maggie's was such an arm as that, and it had the warm tints of life. A mad impulse seized on Stephen; he darted toward the arm, and showered kisses on it, clasping the wrist. But the next moment Maggie snatched it from him, and glared at him like a wounded war-goddess, quivering with rage and humiliation. "How dare you?" She spoke in a deeply shaken, half-smothered voice. "What right have I given you to insult me?" She darted from him into the adjoining room, and threw herself on the sofa, panting and trembling. A horrible punishment was come upon her for the sin of allowing a moment's happiness that was treachery to Lucy, to Philip, to her own better soul. That momentary happiness had been smitten with a blight, a leprosy; Stephen thought more lightly of _her_ than he did of Lucy. As for Stephen, he leaned back against the framework of the conservatory, dizzy with the conflict of passions,--love, rage, and confused despair; despair at his want of self-mastery, and despair that he had offended Maggie. The last feeling surmounted every other; to be by her side again and entreat forgiveness was the only thing that had the force of a motive for him, and she had not been seated more than a few minutes when he came and stood humbly before her. But Maggie's bitter rage was unspent. "Leave me to myself, if you please," she said, with impetuous haughtiness, "and for the future avoid me." Stephen turned away, and walked backward and forward at the other end of the room. There was the dire necessity of going back into the dancing-room again, and he was beginning to be conscious of that. They had been absent so short a time, that when he went in again the waltz was not ended. Maggie, too, was not long before she re-entered. All the pride of her nature was stung into activity; the hateful weakness which had dragged her within reach of this wound to her self-respect had at least wrought its own cure. The thoughts and temptations of the last month should all be flung away into an unvisited chamber of memory. There was nothing to allure her now; duty would be easy, and all the old calm purposes would reign peacefully once more. She re-entered the drawing-room still with some excited brightness in her face, but with a sense of proud self-command that defied anything to agitate her. She refused to dance again, but she talked quite readily and calmly with every one who addressed her. And when they got home that night, she kissed Lucy with a free heart, almost exulting in this scorching moment, which had delivered her from the possibility of another word or look that would have the stamp of treachery toward that gentle, unsuspicious sister. The next morning Maggie did not set off to Basset quite so soon as she had expected. Her mother was to accompany her in the carriage, and household business could not be dispatched hastily by Mrs. Tulliver. So Maggie, who had been in a hurry to prepare herself, had to sit waiting, equipped for the drive, in the garden. Lucy was busy in the house wrapping up some bazaar presents for the younger ones at Basset, and when there was a loud ring at the door-bell, Maggie felt some alarm lest Lucy should bring out Stephen to her; it was sure to be Stephen. But presently the visitor came out into the garden alone, and seated himself by her on the garden-chair. It was not Stephen. "We can just catch the tips of the Scotch firs, Maggie, from this seat," said Philip. They had taken each other's hands in silence, but Maggie had looked at him with a more complete revival of the old childlike affectionate smile than he had seen before, and he felt encouraged. "Yes," she said, "I often look at them, and wish I could see the low sunlight on the stems again. But I have never been that way but once,--to the churchyard with my mother." "I have been there, I go there, continually," said Philip. "I have nothing but the past to live upon." A keen remembrance and keen pity impelled Maggie to put her hand in Philip's. They had so often walked hand in hand! "I remember all the spots," she said,--"just where you told me of particular things, beautiful stories that I had never heard of before." "You will go there again soon, won't you, Maggie?" said Philip, getting timid. "The Mill will soon be your brother's home again." "Yes; but I shall not be there," said Maggie. "I shall only hear of that happiness. I am going away again; Lucy has not told you, perhaps?" "Then the future will never join on to the past again, Maggie? That book is quite closed?" The gray eyes that had so often looked up at her with entreating worship, looked up at her now, with a last struggling ray of hope in them, and Maggie met them with her large sincere gaze. "That book never will be closed, Philip," she said, with grave sadness; "I desire no future that will break the ties of the past. But the tie to my brother is one of the strongest. I can do nothing willingly that will divide me always from him." "Is that the only reason that would keep us apart forever, Maggie?" said Philip, with a desperate determination to have a definite answer. "The only reason," said Maggie, with calm decision. And she believed it. At that moment she felt as if the enchanted cup had been dashed to the ground. The reactionary excitement that gave her a proud self-mastery had not subsided, and she looked at the future with a sense of calm choice. They sat hand in hand without looking at each other or speaking for a few minutes; in Maggie's mind the first scenes of love and parting were more present than the actual moment, and she was looking at Philip in the Red Deeps. Philip felt that he ought to have been thoroughly happy in that answer of hers; she was as open and transparent as a rock-pool. Why was he not thoroughly happy? Jealousy is never satisfied with anything short of an omniscience that would detect the subtlest fold of the heart.

Time for a party. It's a who's who deal for St. Ogg's. Everyone cool is there. Maggie refuses to dance at first but finally agree to dance with a man named Mr. Torry. She has fun. Stephen is back to ignoring Maggie. He is conflicted, especially after his confrontation with Philip yesterday. Part of Stephen wants to claim Maggie for himself and the other part wants to do the right thing by Philip. Stephen can't stay away, though, and he and Maggie go for a walk outside together. They have another Moment with capital M. Maggie goes to pick a flower and Stephen finally loses control and starts kissing her arm. Which is kind of weird. Maggie flips out and worries that Stephen thinks she's some kind of woman of questionable morals. She runs off and Stephen feels like a moron. The two go back inside and try to pretend like nothing happened. Philip comes by the next day to talk to Maggie. He tries to give her an out and absolve her of her sort-of promise to marry him one day. But Maggie tells him that only reason she won't marry him is because of her brother, which is a cop-out. Philip is still suspicious of Maggie and Stephen, though.

They had a very fine day for Box Hill; and all the other outward circumstances of arrangement, accommodation, and punctuality, were in favour of a pleasant party. Mr. Weston directed the whole, officiating safely between Hartfield and the Vicarage, and every body was in good time. Emma and Harriet went together; Miss Bates and her niece, with the Eltons; the gentlemen on horseback. Mrs. Weston remained with Mr. Woodhouse. Nothing was wanting but to be happy when they got there. Seven miles were travelled in expectation of enjoyment, and every body had a burst of admiration on first arriving; but in the general amount of the day there was deficiency. There was a languor, a want of spirits, a want of union, which could not be got over. They separated too much into parties. The Eltons walked together; Mr. Knightley took charge of Miss Bates and Jane; and Emma and Harriet belonged to Frank Churchill. And Mr. Weston tried, in vain, to make them harmonise better. It seemed at first an accidental division, but it never materially varied. Mr. and Mrs. Elton, indeed, shewed no unwillingness to mix, and be as agreeable as they could; but during the two whole hours that were spent on the hill, there seemed a principle of separation, between the other parties, too strong for any fine prospects, or any cold collation, or any cheerful Mr. Weston, to remove. At first it was downright dulness to Emma. She had never seen Frank Churchill so silent and stupid. He said nothing worth hearing--looked without seeing--admired without intelligence--listened without knowing what she said. While he was so dull, it was no wonder that Harriet should be dull likewise; and they were both insufferable. When they all sat down it was better; to her taste a great deal better, for Frank Churchill grew talkative and gay, making her his first object. Every distinguishing attention that could be paid, was paid to her. To amuse her, and be agreeable in her eyes, seemed all that he cared for--and Emma, glad to be enlivened, not sorry to be flattered, was gay and easy too, and gave him all the friendly encouragement, the admission to be gallant, which she had ever given in the first and most animating period of their acquaintance; but which now, in her own estimation, meant nothing, though in the judgment of most people looking on it must have had such an appearance as no English word but flirtation could very well describe. "Mr. Frank Churchill and Miss Woodhouse flirted together excessively." They were laying themselves open to that very phrase--and to having it sent off in a letter to Maple Grove by one lady, to Ireland by another. Not that Emma was gay and thoughtless from any real felicity; it was rather because she felt less happy than she had expected. She laughed because she was disappointed; and though she liked him for his attentions, and thought them all, whether in friendship, admiration, or playfulness, extremely judicious, they were not winning back her heart. She still intended him for her friend. "How much I am obliged to you," said he, "for telling me to come to-day!--If it had not been for you, I should certainly have lost all the happiness of this party. I had quite determined to go away again." "Yes, you were very cross; and I do not know what about, except that you were too late for the best strawberries. I was a kinder friend than you deserved. But you were humble. You begged hard to be commanded to come." "Don't say I was cross. I was fatigued. The heat overcame me." "It is hotter to-day." "Not to my feelings. I am perfectly comfortable to-day." "You are comfortable because you are under command." "Your command?--Yes." "Perhaps I intended you to say so, but I meant self-command. You had, somehow or other, broken bounds yesterday, and run away from your own management; but to-day you are got back again--and as I cannot be always with you, it is best to believe your temper under your own command rather than mine." "It comes to the same thing. I can have no self-command without a motive. You order me, whether you speak or not. And you can be always with me. You are always with me." "Dating from three o'clock yesterday. My perpetual influence could not begin earlier, or you would not have been so much out of humour before." "Three o'clock yesterday! That is your date. I thought I had seen you first in February." "Your gallantry is really unanswerable. But (lowering her voice)--nobody speaks except ourselves, and it is rather too much to be talking nonsense for the entertainment of seven silent people." "I say nothing of which I am ashamed," replied he, with lively impudence. "I saw you first in February. Let every body on the Hill hear me if they can. Let my accents swell to Mickleham on one side, and Dorking on the other. I saw you first in February." And then whispering--"Our companions are excessively stupid. What shall we do to rouse them? Any nonsense will serve. They _shall_ talk. Ladies and gentlemen, I am ordered by Miss Woodhouse (who, wherever she is, presides) to say, that she desires to know what you are all thinking of?" Some laughed, and answered good-humouredly. Miss Bates said a great deal; Mrs. Elton swelled at the idea of Miss Woodhouse's presiding; Mr. Knightley's answer was the most distinct. "Is Miss Woodhouse sure that she would like to hear what we are all thinking of?" "Oh! no, no"--cried Emma, laughing as carelessly as she could--"Upon no account in the world. It is the very last thing I would stand the brunt of just now. Let me hear any thing rather than what you are all thinking of. I will not say quite all. There are one or two, perhaps, (glancing at Mr. Weston and Harriet,) whose thoughts I might not be afraid of knowing." "It is a sort of thing," cried Mrs. Elton emphatically, "which _I_ should not have thought myself privileged to inquire into. Though, perhaps, as the _Chaperon_ of the party--_I_ never was in any circle--exploring parties--young ladies--married women--" Her mutterings were chiefly to her husband; and he murmured, in reply, "Very true, my love, very true. Exactly so, indeed--quite unheard of--but some ladies say any thing. Better pass it off as a joke. Every body knows what is due to _you_." "It will not do," whispered Frank to Emma; "they are most of them affronted. I will attack them with more address. Ladies and gentlemen--I am ordered by Miss Woodhouse to say, that she waives her right of knowing exactly what you may all be thinking of, and only requires something very entertaining from each of you, in a general way. Here are seven of you, besides myself, (who, she is pleased to say, am very entertaining already,) and she only demands from each of you either one thing very clever, be it prose or verse, original or repeated--or two things moderately clever--or three things very dull indeed, and she engages to laugh heartily at them all." "Oh! very well," exclaimed Miss Bates, "then I need not be uneasy. 'Three things very dull indeed.' That will just do for me, you know. I shall be sure to say three dull things as soon as ever I open my mouth, shan't I? (looking round with the most good-humoured dependence on every body's assent)--Do not you all think I shall?" Emma could not resist. "Ah! ma'am, but there may be a difficulty. Pardon me--but you will be limited as to number--only three at once." Miss Bates, deceived by the mock ceremony of her manner, did not immediately catch her meaning; but, when it burst on her, it could not anger, though a slight blush shewed that it could pain her. "Ah!--well--to be sure. Yes, I see what she means, (turning to Mr. Knightley,) and I will try to hold my tongue. I must make myself very disagreeable, or she would not have said such a thing to an old friend." "I like your plan," cried Mr. Weston. "Agreed, agreed. I will do my best. I am making a conundrum. How will a conundrum reckon?" "Low, I am afraid, sir, very low," answered his son;--"but we shall be indulgent--especially to any one who leads the way." "No, no," said Emma, "it will not reckon low. A conundrum of Mr. Weston's shall clear him and his next neighbour. Come, sir, pray let me hear it." "I doubt its being very clever myself," said Mr. Weston. "It is too much a matter of fact, but here it is.--What two letters of the alphabet are there, that express perfection?" "What two letters!--express perfection! I am sure I do not know." "Ah! you will never guess. You, (to Emma), I am certain, will never guess.--I will tell you.--M. and A.--Em-ma.--Do you understand?" Understanding and gratification came together. It might be a very indifferent piece of wit, but Emma found a great deal to laugh at and enjoy in it--and so did Frank and Harriet.--It did not seem to touch the rest of the party equally; some looked very stupid about it, and Mr. Knightley gravely said, "This explains the sort of clever thing that is wanted, and Mr. Weston has done very well for himself; but he must have knocked up every body else. _Perfection_ should not have come quite so soon." "Oh! for myself, I protest I must be excused," said Mrs. Elton; "_I_ really cannot attempt--I am not at all fond of the sort of thing. I had an acrostic once sent to me upon my own name, which I was not at all pleased with. I knew who it came from. An abominable puppy!--You know who I mean (nodding to her husband). These kind of things are very well at Christmas, when one is sitting round the fire; but quite out of place, in my opinion, when one is exploring about the country in summer. Miss Woodhouse must excuse me. I am not one of those who have witty things at every body's service. I do not pretend to be a wit. I have a great deal of vivacity in my own way, but I really must be allowed to judge when to speak and when to hold my tongue. Pass us, if you please, Mr. Churchill. Pass Mr. E., Knightley, Jane, and myself. We have nothing clever to say--not one of us. "Yes, yes, pray pass _me_," added her husband, with a sort of sneering consciousness; "_I_ have nothing to say that can entertain Miss Woodhouse, or any other young lady. An old married man--quite good for nothing. Shall we walk, Augusta?" "With all my heart. I am really tired of exploring so long on one spot. Come, Jane, take my other arm." Jane declined it, however, and the husband and wife walked off. "Happy couple!" said Frank Churchill, as soon as they were out of hearing:--"How well they suit one another!--Very lucky--marrying as they did, upon an acquaintance formed only in a public place!--They only knew each other, I think, a few weeks in Bath! Peculiarly lucky!--for as to any real knowledge of a person's disposition that Bath, or any public place, can give--it is all nothing; there can be no knowledge. It is only by seeing women in their own homes, among their own set, just as they always are, that you can form any just judgment. Short of that, it is all guess and luck--and will generally be ill-luck. How many a man has committed himself on a short acquaintance, and rued it all the rest of his life!" Miss Fairfax, who had seldom spoken before, except among her own confederates, spoke now. "Such things do occur, undoubtedly."--She was stopped by a cough. Frank Churchill turned towards her to listen. "You were speaking," said he, gravely. She recovered her voice. "I was only going to observe, that though such unfortunate circumstances do sometimes occur both to men and women, I cannot imagine them to be very frequent. A hasty and imprudent attachment may arise--but there is generally time to recover from it afterwards. I would be understood to mean, that it can be only weak, irresolute characters, (whose happiness must be always at the mercy of chance,) who will suffer an unfortunate acquaintance to be an inconvenience, an oppression for ever." He made no answer; merely looked, and bowed in submission; and soon afterwards said, in a lively tone, "Well, I have so little confidence in my own judgment, that whenever I marry, I hope some body will chuse my wife for me. Will you? (turning to Emma.) Will you chuse a wife for me?--I am sure I should like any body fixed on by you. You provide for the family, you know, (with a smile at his father). Find some body for me. I am in no hurry. Adopt her, educate her." "And make her like myself." "By all means, if you can." "Very well. I undertake the commission. You shall have a charming wife." "She must be very lively, and have hazle eyes. I care for nothing else. I shall go abroad for a couple of years--and when I return, I shall come to you for my wife. Remember." Emma was in no danger of forgetting. It was a commission to touch every favourite feeling. Would not Harriet be the very creature described? Hazle eyes excepted, two years more might make her all that he wished. He might even have Harriet in his thoughts at the moment; who could say? Referring the education to her seemed to imply it. "Now, ma'am," said Jane to her aunt, "shall we join Mrs. Elton?" "If you please, my dear. With all my heart. I am quite ready. I was ready to have gone with her, but this will do just as well. We shall soon overtake her. There she is--no, that's somebody else. That's one of the ladies in the Irish car party, not at all like her.--Well, I declare--" They walked off, followed in half a minute by Mr. Knightley. Mr. Weston, his son, Emma, and Harriet, only remained; and the young man's spirits now rose to a pitch almost unpleasant. Even Emma grew tired at last of flattery and merriment, and wished herself rather walking quietly about with any of the others, or sitting almost alone, and quite unattended to, in tranquil observation of the beautiful views beneath her. The appearance of the servants looking out for them to give notice of the carriages was a joyful sight; and even the bustle of collecting and preparing to depart, and the solicitude of Mrs. Elton to have _her_ carriage first, were gladly endured, in the prospect of the quiet drive home which was to close the very questionable enjoyments of this day of pleasure. Such another scheme, composed of so many ill-assorted people, she hoped never to be betrayed into again. While waiting for the carriage, she found Mr. Knightley by her side. He looked around, as if to see that no one were near, and then said, "Emma, I must once more speak to you as I have been used to do: a privilege rather endured than allowed, perhaps, but I must still use it. I cannot see you acting wrong, without a remonstrance. How could you be so unfeeling to Miss Bates? How could you be so insolent in your wit to a woman of her character, age, and situation?--Emma, I had not thought it possible." Emma recollected, blushed, was sorry, but tried to laugh it off. "Nay, how could I help saying what I did?--Nobody could have helped it. It was not so very bad. I dare say she did not understand me." "I assure you she did. She felt your full meaning. She has talked of it since. I wish you could have heard how she talked of it--with what candour and generosity. I wish you could have heard her honouring your forbearance, in being able to pay her such attentions, as she was for ever receiving from yourself and your father, when her society must be so irksome." "Oh!" cried Emma, "I know there is not a better creature in the world: but you must allow, that what is good and what is ridiculous are most unfortunately blended in her." "They are blended," said he, "I acknowledge; and, were she prosperous, I could allow much for the occasional prevalence of the ridiculous over the good. Were she a woman of fortune, I would leave every harmless absurdity to take its chance, I would not quarrel with you for any liberties of manner. Were she your equal in situation--but, Emma, consider how far this is from being the case. She is poor; she has sunk from the comforts she was born to; and, if she live to old age, must probably sink more. Her situation should secure your compassion. It was badly done, indeed! You, whom she had known from an infant, whom she had seen grow up from a period when her notice was an honour, to have you now, in thoughtless spirits, and the pride of the moment, laugh at her, humble her--and before her niece, too--and before others, many of whom (certainly _some_,) would be entirely guided by _your_ treatment of her.--This is not pleasant to you, Emma--and it is very far from pleasant to me; but I must, I will,--I will tell you truths while I can; satisfied with proving myself your friend by very faithful counsel, and trusting that you will some time or other do me greater justice than you can do now." While they talked, they were advancing towards the carriage; it was ready; and, before she could speak again, he had handed her in. He had misinterpreted the feelings which had kept her face averted, and her tongue motionless. They were combined only of anger against herself, mortification, and deep concern. She had not been able to speak; and, on entering the carriage, sunk back for a moment overcome--then reproaching herself for having taken no leave, making no acknowledgment, parting in apparent sullenness, she looked out with voice and hand eager to shew a difference; but it was just too late. He had turned away, and the horses were in motion. She continued to look back, but in vain; and soon, with what appeared unusual speed, they were half way down the hill, and every thing left far behind. She was vexed beyond what could have been expressed--almost beyond what she could conceal. Never had she felt so agitated, mortified, grieved, at any circumstance in her life. She was most forcibly struck. The truth of this representation there was no denying. She felt it at her heart. How could she have been so brutal, so cruel to Miss Bates! How could she have exposed herself to such ill opinion in any one she valued! And how suffer him to leave her without saying one word of gratitude, of concurrence, of common kindness! Time did not compose her. As she reflected more, she seemed but to feel it more. She never had been so depressed. Happily it was not necessary to speak. There was only Harriet, who seemed not in spirits herself, fagged, and very willing to be silent; and Emma felt the tears running down her cheeks almost all the way home, without being at any trouble to check them, extraordinary as they were.

The next day, the party goes to Box Hill for a picnic. Frank Churchill is still in a bad mood, but his mood improves when he concentrates only on amusing Emma. The party is listless, so Frank proposes a little game: everyone must say one thing very clever to Emma, or else two things moderately clever, or three things dull. When Miss Bates begins to chatter on incessantly, Emma puts her down harshly, telling her that she is limited to only three dull things. Later on, Emma, Jane and Frank discuss marriage. Jane speaks about how quick marriages can be salvaged, while Frank tells Emma to choose a wife for him and mold her. Emma returns to the idea of Frank and Harriet. Afterwards, Mr. Knightley scolds Emma for treating Miss Bates so rudely, telling her that Miss Bates deserves her compassion and not her scorn.

Enter the Duke of Norfolke at one doore. At the other, the Duke of Buckingham, and the Lord Aburgauenny. Buckingham. Good morrow, and well met. How haue ye done Since last we saw in France? Norf. I thanke your Grace: Healthfull, and euer since a fresh Admirer Of what I saw there Buck. An vntimely Ague Staid me a Prisoner in my Chamber, when Those Sunnes of Glory, those two Lights of Men Met in the vale of Andren Nor. 'Twixt Guynes and Arde, I was then present, saw them salute on Horsebacke, Beheld them when they lighted, how they clung In their Embracement, as they grew together, Which had they, What foure Thron'd ones could haue weigh'd Such a compounded one? Buck. All the whole time I was my Chambers Prisoner Nor. Then you lost The view of earthly glory: Men might say Till this time Pompe was single, but now married To one aboue it selfe. Each following day Became the next dayes master, till the last Made former Wonders, it's. To day the French, All Clinquant all in Gold, like Heathen Gods Shone downe the English; and to morrow, they Made Britaine, India: Euery man that stood, Shew'd like a Mine. Their Dwarfish Pages were As Cherubins, all gilt: the Madams too, Not vs'd to toyle, did almost sweat to beare The Pride vpon them, that their very labour Was to them, as a Painting. Now this Maske Was cry'de incompareable; and th' ensuing night Made it a Foole, and Begger. The two Kings Equall in lustre, were now best, now worst As presence did present them: Him in eye, Still him in praise, and being present both, 'Twas said they saw but one, and no Discerner Durst wagge his Tongue in censure, when these Sunnes (For so they phrase 'em) by their Heralds challeng'd The Noble Spirits to Armes, they did performe Beyond thoughts Compasse, that former fabulous Storie Being now seene, possible enough, got credit That Beuis was beleeu'd Buc. Oh you go farre Nor. As I belong to worship, and affect In Honor, Honesty, the tract of eu'ry thing, Would by a good Discourser loose some life, Which Actions selfe, was tongue too Buc. All was Royall, To the disposing of it nought rebell'd, Order gaue each thing view. The Office did Distinctly his full Function: who did guide, I meane who set the Body, and the Limbes Of this great Sport together? Nor. As you guesse: One certes, that promises no Element In such a businesse Buc. I pray you who, my Lord? Nor. All this was ordred by the good Discretion Of the right Reuerend Cardinall of Yorke Buc. The diuell speed him: No mans Pye is freed From his Ambitious finger. What had he To do in these fierce Vanities? I wonder, That such a Keech can with his very bulke Take vp the Rayes o'th' beneficiall Sun, And keepe it from the Earth Nor. Surely Sir, There's in him stuffe, that put's him to these ends: For being not propt by Auncestry, whose grace Chalkes Successors their way; nor call'd vpon For high feats done to'th' Crowne; neither Allied To eminent Assistants; but Spider-like Out of his Selfe-drawing Web. O giues vs note, The force of his owne merit makes his way A guift that heauen giues for him, which buyes A place next to the King Abur. I cannot tell What Heauen hath giuen him: let some Grauer eye Pierce into that, but I can see his Pride Peepe through each part of him: whence ha's he that, If not from Hell? The Diuell is a Niggard, Or ha's giuen all before, and he begins A new Hell in himselfe Buc. Why the Diuell, Vpon this French going out, tooke he vpon him (Without the priuity o'th' King) t' appoint Who should attend on him? He makes vp the File Of all the Gentry; for the most part such To whom as great a Charge, as little Honor He meant to lay vpon: and his owne Letter The Honourable Boord of Councell, out Must fetch him in, he Papers Abur. I do know Kinsmen of mine, three at the least, that haue By this, so sicken'd their Estates, that neuer They shall abound as formerly Buc. O many Haue broke their backes with laying Mannors on 'em For this great Iourney. What did this vanity But minister communication of A most poore issue Nor. Greeuingly I thinke, The Peace betweene the French and vs, not valewes The Cost that did conclude it Buc. Euery man, After the hideous storme that follow'd, was A thing Inspir'd, and not consulting, broke Into a generall Prophesie; That this Tempest Dashing the Garment of this Peace, aboaded The sodaine breach on't Nor. Which is budded out, For France hath flaw'd the League, and hath attach'd Our Merchants goods at Burdeux Abur. Is it therefore Th' Ambassador is silenc'd? Nor. Marry is't Abur. A proper Title of a Peace, and purchas'd At a superfluous rate Buc. Why all this Businesse Our Reuerend Cardinall carried Nor. Like it your Grace, The State takes notice of the priuate difference Betwixt you, and the Cardinall. I aduise you (And take it from a heart, that wishes towards you Honor, and plenteous safety) that you reade The Cardinals Malice, and his Potency Together; To consider further, that What his high Hatred would effect, wants not A Minister in his Power. You know his Nature, That he's Reuengefull; and I know, his Sword Hath a sharpe edge: It's long, and't may be saide It reaches farre, and where 'twill not extend, Thither he darts it. Bosome vp my counsell, You'l finde it wholesome. Loe, where comes that Rock That I aduice your shunning. Enter Cardinall Wolsey, the Purse borne before him, certaine of the Guard, and two Secretaries with Papers: The Cardinall in his passage, fixeth his eye on Buckingham, and Buckingham on him, both full of disdaine. Car. The Duke of Buckinghams Surueyor? Ha? Where's his Examination? Secr. Heere so please you Car. Is he in person, ready? Secr. I, please your Grace Car. Well, we shall then know more, & Buckingham Shall lessen this bigge looke. Exeunt. Cardinall, and his Traine. Buc. This Butchers Curre is venom'd-mouth'd, and I Haue not the power to muzzle him, therefore best Not wake him in his slumber. A Beggers booke, Out-worths a Nobles blood Nor. What are you chaff'd? Aske God for Temp'rance, that's th' appliance onely Which your disease requires Buc. I read in's looks Matter against me, and his eye reuil'd Me as his abiect obiect, at this instant He bores me with some tricke; He's gone to'th' King: Ile follow, and out-stare him Nor. Stay my Lord, And let your Reason with your Choller question What 'tis you go about: to climbe steepe hilles Requires slow pace at first. Anger is like A full hot Horse, who being allow'd his way Selfe-mettle tyres him: Not a man in England Can aduise me like you: Be to your selfe, As you would to your Friend Buc. Ile to the King, And from a mouth of Honor, quite cry downe This Ipswich fellowes insolence; or proclaime, There's difference in no persons Norf. Be aduis'd; Heat not a Furnace for your foe so hot That it do sindge your selfe. We may out-runne By violent swiftnesse that which we run at; And lose by ouer-running: know you not, The fire that mounts the liquor til't run ore, In seeming to augment it, wasts it: be aduis'd; I say againe there is no English Soule More stronger to direct you then your selfe; If with the sap of reason you would quench, Or but allay the fire of passion Buck. Sir, I am thankfull to you, and Ile goe along By your prescription: but this top-proud fellow, Whom from the flow of gall I name not, but From sincere motions, by Intelligence, And proofes as cleere as Founts in Iuly, when Wee see each graine of grauell; I doe know To be corrupt and treasonous Norf. Say not treasonous Buck. To th' King Ile say't, & make my vouch as strong As shore of Rocke: attend. This holy Foxe, Or Wolfe, or both (for he is equall rau'nous As he is subtile, and as prone to mischiefe, As able to perform't) his minde, and place Infecting one another, yea reciprocally, Only to shew his pompe, as well in France, As here at home, suggests the King our Master To this last costly Treaty: Th' enteruiew, That swallowed so much treasure, and like a glasse Did breake ith' wrenching Norf. Faith, and so it did Buck. Pray giue me fauour Sir: This cunning Cardinall The Articles o'th' Combination drew As himselfe pleas'd; and they were ratified As he cride thus let be, to as much end, As giue a Crutch to th' dead. But our Count-Cardinall Has done this, and tis well: for worthy Wolsey (Who cannot erre) he did it. Now this followes, (Which as I take it, is a kinde of Puppie To th' old dam Treason) Charles the Emperour, Vnder pretence to see the Queene his Aunt, (For twas indeed his colour, but he came To whisper Wolsey) here makes visitation, His feares were that the Interview betwixt England and France, might through their amity Breed him some preiudice; for from this League, Peep'd harmes that menac'd him. Priuily Deales with our Cardinal, and as I troa Which I doe well; for I am sure the Emperour Paid ere he promis'd, whereby his Suit was granted Ere it was ask'd. But when the way was made And pau'd with gold: the Emperor thus desir'd, That he would please to alter the Kings course, And breake the foresaid peace. Let the King know (As soone he shall by me) that thus the Cardinall Does buy and sell his Honour as he pleases, And for his owne aduantage Norf. I am sorry To heare this of him; and could wish he were Somthing mistaken in't Buck. No, not a sillable: I doe pronounce him in that very shape He shall appeare in proofe. Enter Brandon, a Sergeant at Armes before him, and two or three of the Guard. Brandon. Your Office Sergeant: execute it Sergeant. Sir, My Lord the Duke of Buckingham, and Earle Of Hertford, Stafford and Northampton, I Arrest thee of High Treason, in the name Of our most Soueraigne King Buck. Lo you my Lord, The net has falne vpon me, I shall perish Vnder deuice, and practise Bran. I am sorry, To see you tane from liberty, to looke on The busines present. Tis his Highnes pleasure You shall to th' Tower Buck. It will helpe me nothing To plead mine Innocence; for that dye is on me Which makes my whit'st part, black. The will of Heau'n Be done in this and all things: I obey. O my Lord Aburgany: Fare you well Bran. Nay, he must beare you company. The King Is pleas'd you shall to th' Tower, till you know How he determines further Abur. As the Duke said, The will of Heauen be done, and the Kings pleasure By me obey'd Bran. Here is a warrant from The King, t' attach Lord Mountacute, and the Bodies Of the Dukes Confessor, Iohn de la Car, One Gilbert Pecke, his Councellour Buck. So, so; These are the limbs o'th' Plot: no more I hope Bra. A Monke o'th' Chartreux Buck. O Michaell Hopkins? Bra. He Buck. My Surueyor is falce: The oregreat Cardinall Hath shew'd him gold; my life is spand already: I am the shadow of poore Buckingham, Whose Figure euen this instant Clowd puts on, By Darkning my cleere Sunne. My Lords farewell. Exe.

King Henry VIII enters, with Cardinal Wolsey and Sir Thomas Lovell. The king ascends to his throne, thanks Wolsey for stopping the plots against him, and asks that Buckingham's estate manager be called in to speak. Just then, Queen Katharine enters with Norfolk and the Duke of Suffolk. Katharine kneels before the king, intending to make a request. She says she has been asked to speak on behalf of the king's subjects, who are upset about the levying of new taxes. While the people complain mostly about Wolsey, the originator of the taxes, they speak, too, against the king, and she warns that rebellion threatens. The king says he has not heard about this tax, but the queen reminds him that whether he created it or not, he is held responsible for it. The king asks for more information, and the queen explains that the tax is said to help pay for campaigns in France, which angers the people. The king says this tax displeases him. Wolsey claims he only set it up because the judges told him to, but he urges the king not to make changes just to please those who would say negative things. Wolsey says that what we do best is often viewed in the public eye as our worst act, and our worst works come to look like our best. But the king thinks the tax is too much, so he undoes it and orders released any who have been imprisoned for resisting payment. Wolsey tells his secretary to release the order but quietly instructs him to let it be known that the tax was reduced through the encouragement of Wolsey himself. Buckingham's Surveyor, who ran Buckingham's estates, enters. Katharine says to the king that she thinks it is a pity that Buckingham is out of favor, and the king agrees, but he thinks that advantageous positions sometimes lead to corruption, even in the seemingly wonderful Buckingham. Wolsey orders the Surveyor to recount what he knows of Buckingham. The Surveyor says that he heard Buckingham say he intended to arrange for the crown to fall to him should the king die without a male heir. Apparently, a friar had led him to believe that he could be in line to the throne, and Buckingham shared this information with his friends. Katharine notes that Buckingham fired the Surveyor because of complaints from the tenants; thus, the Surveyor's commentary may be an effort to get revenge on Buckingham. But the king urges the Surveyor to continue. The Surveyor says Buckingham declared he would have Wolsey and Lovell killed if the king died and then gain the throne himself. Further, he quotes Buckingham speaking of the role his father played in Richard III's struggle for the throne. Where his father could have stabbed Richard III to death, but was restrained by loyalty, Buckingham intends to appear loyal yet kill the king. The king now believes Buckingham is a traitor who intends to assassinate him. The king calls for a trial.

It is dark here in the forest. The leaves rustle over our head, black against the last gold of the sky. The moss is soft and warm. We shall sleep on this moss for many nights, till the beasts of the forest come to tear our body. We have no bed now, save the moss, and no future, save the beasts. We are old now, yet we were young this morning, when we carried our glass box through the streets of the City to the Home of the Scholars. No men stopped us, for there were none about [-from-] the Palace of Corrective Detention, and the others knew nothing. No men stopped us at the gate. We walked through {+the+} empty passages and into the great hall where the World Council of Scholars sat in solemn meeting. We saw nothing as we entered, save the sky in the great windows, blue and glowing. Then we saw the Scholars who sat around a long table; they were as shapeless clouds huddled at the rise of [-the-] {+a+} great sky. There were {+the+} men whose famous names we knew, and others from distant lands whose names we had not heard. We saw a great painting on the wall over their heads, of the twenty illustrious men who had invented the candle. All the heads of the Council turned to us as we entered. These great and wise of the earth did not know what to think of us, and they looked upon us with wonder and curiosity, as if we were a miracle. It is true that our tunic was torn and stained with brown stains which had been blood. We raised our right arm and we said: "Our greeting to you, our honored brothers of the World Council of Scholars!" Then Collective 0-0009, the oldest and wisest of the Council, spoke and asked: "Who are you, our brother? For you do not look like a Scholar." "Our name is [-Equality-] {+Equity+} 7-2521," we answered, "and we are a Street Sweeper of this City." Then [-is-] {+it+} was [-as-] if a great wind had stricken the hall, for all the Scholars spoke at once, and they were angry and frightened. "A Street Sweeper! A Street Sweeper walking in upon the World Council of Scholars! It is not to be believed! It is against all the rules and all the laws!" But we knew how to stop them. "Our brothers!" we said. "We matter not, nor our transgression. It is only our brother men who matter. Give no thought to us, for we are nothing, but listen to our words, for we bring you a gift such as [-had-] {+has+} never been brought to men. Listen to us, for we hold the future of mankind in our hands." Then they listened. We placed our glass box [-upon-] {+on+} the table before them. We spoke of it, and of our long quest, and of our tunnel, and of our escape from the Palace of Corrective Detention. Not a hand moved in that hall, as we spoke, nor an eye. Then we put the wires to the box, and they all bent forward and sat still, watching. And we stood still, our eyes upon the wire. And slowly, slowly as a flush of blood, a red flame trembled in the wire. Then the wire glowed. But terror struck the men of the Council. They leapt to their feet, they ran from the table, and they stood pressed against the wall, huddled together, seeking the warmth of one another's bodies to give them courage. We looked upon them and we laughed and said: "Fear nothing, our brothers. There is a great power in these wires, but this power is tamed. It is yours. We give it to you." Still they would not move. "We give you the power of the sky!" we cried. "We give you the key to the earth! Take it, and let us be one of you, the humblest among you. Let us [-all-] work together, and harness this power, and make it ease the toil of men. Let us throw away our candles and our torches. Let us flood our cities with light. Let us bring a new light to men!" But they looked upon us, and suddenly we were afraid. For their eyes were still, and small, and evil. "Our brothers!" we cried. "Have you nothing to say to us?" Then Collective 0-0009 moved forward. They moved to the table and the others followed. "Yes," spoke Collective 0-0009, "we have much to say to you." The sound of their [-voices-] {+voice+} brought silence to the hall and to [-be-] {+the+} beat of our heart. "Yes," said Collective 0-0009, "we have much to say to a wretch who have broken all the laws and who boast of their infamy! How dared you think that your mind held greater wisdom [-that-] {+than+} the minds of your brothers? And if the [-Councils-] {+Council+} had decreed that you [-should-] be a Street Sweeper, how dared you think that you could be of greater use to men than in sweeping the streets?" "How dared you, gutter cleaner," spoke Fraternity 9-3452, "to hold yourself as one alone and with the thoughts of [-the-] one and not of [-the-] many?" "You shall be burned at the stake," said Democracy 4-6998. "No, they shall be lashed," said Unanimity 7-3304, "till there is nothing left under the lashes." "No," said Collective 0-0009, "we cannot decide upon this, our brothers. No such crime has ever been committed, and it is not for us to judge. Nor for any small Council. We shall deliver this creature to the World Council itself and let their will be done." We looked upon them and we pleaded: "Our brothers! You are right. Let the will of the Council be done upon our body. We do not care. But the light? What will you do with the light?" Collective 0-0009 looked upon us, and they smiled. "So you think [-that-] you have found a new power," said Collective 0-0009. "Do {+you think+} all your brothers think that?" "No," we answered. "What is not thought by all men cannot be true," said Collective 0-0009. "You have worked on this alone?" asked International 1-5537. [-"Man-] {+"Yes," we answered. "What is not done collectively cannot be good," said International 1-5537. "Many+} men in the Homes of the Scholars have had strange new ideas in the past," said Solidarity 8-1164, "but when the majority of their brother Scholars voted against them, they abandoned their ideas, as all men must." "This box is useless," said Alliance [-6-4349.-] {+6-7349.+} "Should it be what they claim of it," said Harmony 9-2642, "then it would bring ruin to the Department of Candles. The [-andle-] {+Candle+} is a great boon to mankind, as approved by all men. Therefore it cannot be destroyed by the whim of one." "This would wreck the [-Plans-] {+plans+} of the World Council," said Unanimity 2-9913, "and without the Plans of the World Council the sun cannot rise. It took fifty years to secure the approval of all the Councils for the Candle, and to decide upon the number needed, and to re-fit {+the+} Plans so as to make candles instead of torches. This touched upon thousands and thousands of men working in scores of States. We cannot alter the Plans again [-to-] {+so+} soon." "And if this should lighten the toil of men," said Similarity 5-0306, "then it is a great evil, for men have no cause to exist save in toiling for other men." Then Collective 0-0009 rose and pointed at our box. "This thing," they said, "must be destroyed." And all the others cried as one: "It must be destroyed!" Then we leapt to the table. We seized our box, we shoved them aside, and we ran to the window. We turned and we looked at them for the last time, and a rage, such as [-it-] is not fit for humans to know, choked our voice in our throat. "You [-fools"-] {+fools!"+} we cried. "You fools! You thrice-damned fools!" We swung our fist through the windowpane, and we leapt out in a ringing rain of glass. We fell, but we never let the box fall from our hands. Then we ran. We ran blindly, and men and houses streaked past us in a torrent without shape. And the road seemed not to be flat before us, but as if it were leaping up to meet us, and we waited for the earth to rise and strike us in the face. But we ran. We knew not where we were going. We knew only that we must run, run to the end of the world, to the end of our days. Then we knew suddenly that we were lying on a soft earth and that we had stopped. Trees taller than we had ever seen before stood over us in {+a+} great silence. Then we knew. We were in the Uncharted Forest. We had not thought of coming here, but our legs had carried our wisdom, and our legs had brought us to the Uncharted Forest against our will. Our glass box lay beside us. We crawled to it, we fell upon it, our face in our arms, and we lay still. We lay [-this-] {+thus+} for a long time. Then we rose, we took our [-box and-] {+box, had+} walked on into the forest. It mattered not where we went. We knew that men would not follow us, for they never [-enter-] {+entered+} the Uncharted Forest. We had nothing to fear from them. The forest disposes of its own victims. This gave us no fear either. Only we wished to be [-away,-] away from the City and [-from-] the air that touches upon the air of the City. So we walked on, our box in our arms, our heart empty. We are doomed. Whatever days are left to us, we shall spend them alone. And we have heard of the corruption to be found in solitude. We have torn ourselves from the truth which is our brother men, and there is no road back for us, and no redemption. We know these things, but we do not care. We care for nothing on earth. We are tired. Only the glass box in our arms is like a living heart that gives us strength. We have lied to ourselves. We have not built this box for the good of our brothers. We built it for its own sake. It is above all our brothers to us, and its truth above their truth. Why wonder about this? We {+have not many days to live. We+} are walking to the fangs awaiting us somewhere among the great, silent trees. There is not a thing behind us to regret. Then a blow of pain struck us, our first and our only. We thought of the Golden One. We thought of the Golden One whom we shall never see again. Then the pain passed. It is best. We are one of the Damned. It is best if the Golden [-One-] {+one+} forget our name and the body which bore that name.

Equality 7-2521 tells us that he is writing from the forest. He will be there for a long time. That morning, he went to see the Scholars, and... Equality 7-2521 jaunts into the Home of the Scholars. There's no one there from the Palace of Corrective Detention, so he doesn't get any trouble. Equality 7-2521 arrives in the great hall where the Council is taking place. As he steps in, all of the Scholars turn to look at him with astonishment. Equality 7-2521 greets them loudly. The oldest Scholar, Collective 0-0009, wants to know who Equality 7-2521 is; he doesn't look like a Scholar. Equality 7-2521 announces that he is a Street Sweeper. The Scholars do not take this well. It is quite against the rules for a Street Sweeper to be in the House of the Scholars. Equality 7-2521 tells them that he brings them a gift, a great gift for all of mankind, and asks them to listen. The scholars listen. Equality 7-2521 tells the Scholars everything he's done. Then he puts the light bulb, which he's brought with him, on a table before them and activates it. The Scholars are terrified. They jump, shriek, and huddle together. Equality 7-2521 laughs, and tells them that he has given them the power of the sky, which he has tamed. He wants to spread it to all men. The Scholars do not have pleasant looks on their faces. Their eyes are "still, and small, and evil" . Equality 7-2521 is afraid. Collective 0-0009 steps forward and tells Equality 7-2521 that he has broken all of the laws. He has been arrogant enough to believe that he's greater and wiser than everyone else. He should have stayed a Street Sweeper! Other Scholars pipe in that Equality 7-2521 should be burned at the stake or lashed to death. Collective 0-0009 says that Equality 7-2521 must be handed over to the World Council for their judgment. Equality 7-2521 wants to know what will become of his light. Collective 0-0009 responds that "what is not thought by all men cannot be true" . Various others say that the light cannot be good because it was not come up with collectively. And that it would just be a disaster for the Department of Candles. The Scholars, following Collective 0-0009's lead, all point at the light-box and pronounce that it must be destroyed. Equality 7-2521 jumps to the table, seizes the light-box, and runs to the window. Equality 7-2521, who's filled with rage at this point, calls the Scholars a bunch of "damned fools," breaks the window, and jumps out. From the Home of the Scholars, Equality 7-2521 starts running. He doesn't really know where he's going, he just knows he has to get the heck out of the City. Eventually, Equality 7-2521 realizes he's wound up in the Uncharted Forest. He falls upon the ground, embraces his light-box, and lies there for a good, long while. Equality 7-2521 goes further into the Forest. No one will follow him there. He realizes that by doing this, he has cut himself off from all of his "brothers." But he doesn't care. He didn't build the box for their sake anyway. Really, he built it for its own sake. Equality 7-2521 doesn't have any regrets about leaving the City. That is, he doesn't think he does, until he realizes he's left behind the Golden One .

The fearless confidence of Toby was contagious, and I began to adopt the Happar side of the question. I could not, however, overcome a certain feeling of trepidation as we made our way along these gloomy solitudes. Our progress, at first comparatively easy, became more and more difficult. The bed of the watercourse was covered with fragments of broken rocks, which had fallen from above, offering so many obstructions to the course of the rapid stream, which vexed and fretted about them,--forming at intervals small waterfalls, pouring over into deep basins, or splashing wildly upon heaps of stones. From the narrowness of the gorge, and the steepness of its sides, there was no mode of advancing but by wading through the water; stumbling every moment over the impediments which lay hidden under its surface, or tripping against the huge roots of trees. But the most annoying hindrance we encountered was from a multitude of crooked boughs, which, shooting out almost horizontally from the sides of the chasm, twisted themselves together in fantastic masses almost to the surface of the stream, affording us no passage except under the low arches which they formed. Under these we were obliged to crawl on our hands and feet, sliding along the oozy surface of the rocks, or slipping into the deep pools, and with scarce light enough to guide us. Occasionally we would strike our heads against some projecting limb of a tree; and while imprudently engaged in rubbing the injured part, would fall sprawling amongst flinty fragments, cutting and bruising ourselves, whilst the unpitying waters flowed over our prostrate bodies. Belzoni, worming himself through the subterranean passages of the Egyptian catacombs, could not have met with great impediments than those we here encountered. But we struggled against them manfully, well knowing our only hope lay in advancing. Towards sunset we halted at a spot where we made preparations for passing the night. Here we constructed a hut, in much the same way as before, and crawling into it, endeavoured to forget our sufferings. My companion, I believe, slept pretty soundly; but at day break, when we rolled out of our dwelling, I felt nearly disqualified for any further efforts. Toby prescribed as a remedy for my illness the contents of one of our little silk packages, to be taken at once in a single dose. To this species of medical treatment, however, I would by no means accede, much as he insisted upon it; and so we partook of our usual morsel, and silently resumed our journey. It was now the fourth day since we left Nukuheva, and the gnawings of hunger became painfully acute. We were fain to pacify them by chewing the tender bark of roots and twigs, which, if they did not afford us nourishment, were at least sweet and pleasant to the taste. Our progress along the steep watercourse was necessarily slow, and by noon we had not advanced more than a mile. It was somewhere near this part of the day that the noise of falling waters, which we had faintly caught in the early morning, became more distinct; and it was not long before we were arrested by a rocky precipice of nearly a hundred feet in depth, that extended all across the channel, and over which the wild stream poured in an unbroken leap. On each hand the walls of the ravine presented their overhanging sides both above and below the fall, affording no means whatever of avoiding the cataract by taking a circuit round it. 'What's to be done now, Toby?' said I. 'Why,' rejoined he, 'as we cannot retreat, I suppose we must keep shoving along.' 'Very true, my dear Toby; but how do you purpose accomplishing that desirable object?' 'By jumping from the top of the fall, if there be no other way,' unhesitatingly replied my companion: 'it will be much the quickest way of descent; but as you are not quite as active as I am, we will try some other way.' And, so saying, he crept cautiously along and peered over into the abyss, while I remained wondering by what possible means we could overcome this apparently insuperable obstruction. As soon as my companion had completed his survey, I eagerly inquired the result. 'The result of my observations you wish to know, do you?' began Toby, deliberately, with one of his odd looks: 'well, my lad, the result of my observations is very quickly imparted. It is at present uncertain which of our two necks will have the honour to be broken first; but about a hundred to one would be a fair bet in favour of the man who takes the first jump.' 'Then it is an impossible thing, is it?' inquired I gloomily. 'No, shipmate; on the contrary, it is the easiest thing in life: the only awkward point is the sort of usage which our unhappy limbs may receive when we arrive at the bottom, and what sort of travelling trim we shall be in afterwards. But follow me now, and I will show you the only chance we have.' With this he conducted me to the verge of the cataract, and pointed along the side of the ravine to a number of curious looking roots, some three or four inches in thickness, and several feet long, which, after twisting among the fissures of the rock, shot perpendicularly from it and ran tapering to a point in the air, hanging over the gulf like so many dark icicles. They covered nearly the entire surface of one side of the gorge, the lowest of them reaching even to the water. Many were moss grown and decayed, with their extremities snapped short off, and those in the immediate vicinity of the fall were slippery with moisture. Toby's scheme, and it was a desperate one, was to entrust ourselves to these treacherous-looking roots, and by slipping down from one to another to gain the bottom. 'Are you ready to venture it?' asked Toby, looking at me earnestly but without saying a word as to the practicability of the plan. 'I am,' was my reply; for I saw it was our only resource if we wished to advance, and as for retreating, all thoughts of that sort had been long abandoned. After I had signified my assent, Toby, without uttering a a single word, crawled along the dripping ledge until he gained a point from whence he could just reach one of the largest of the pendant roots; he shook it--it quivered in his grasp, and when he let it go it twanged in the air like a strong, wire sharply struck. Satisfied by his scrutiny, my light limbed companion swung himself nimbly upon it, and twisting his legs round it in sailor fashion, slipped down eight or ten feet, where his weight gave it a motion not un-like that of a pendulum. He could not venture to descend any further; so holding on with one hand, he with the other shook one by one all the slender roots around him, and at last, finding one which he thought trustworthy, shifted him self to it and continued his downward progress. So far so well; but I could not avoid comparing my heavier frame and disabled condition with his light figure and remarkable activity; but there was no help for it, and in less than a minute's time I was swinging directly over his head. As soon as his upturned eyes caught a glimpse of me, he exclaimed in his usual dry tone, for the danger did not seem to daunt him in the least, 'Mate, do me the kindness not to fall until I get out of your way;' and then swinging himself more on one side, he continued his descent. In the mean time I cautiously transferred myself from the limb down which I had been slipping to a couple of others that were near it, deeming two strings to my bow better than one, and taking care to test their strength before I trusted my weight to them. On arriving towards the end of the second stage in this vertical journey, and shaking the long roots which were round me, to my consternation they snapped off one after another like so many pipe stems, and fell in fragments against the side of the gulf, splashing at last into the waters beneath. As one after another the treacherous roots yielded to my grasp, and fell into the torrent, my heart sunk within me. The branches on which I was suspended over the yawning chasm swang to and fro in the air, and I expected them every moment to snap in twain. Appalled at the dreadful fate that menaced me, I clutched frantically at the only large root which remained near me, but in vain; I could not reach it, though my fingers were within a few inches of it. Again and again I tried to reach it, until at length, maddened with the thought of my situation, I swayed myself violently by striking my foot against the side of the rock, and at the instant that I approached the large root caught desperately at it, and transferred myself to it. It vibrated violently under the sudden weight, but fortunately did not give way. My brain grew dizzy with the idea of the frightful risk I had just run, and I involuntarily closed my eyes to shut out the view of the depth beneath me. For the instant I was safe, and I uttered a devout ejaculation of thanksgiving for my escape. 'Pretty well done,' shouted Toby underneath me; 'you are nimbler than I thought you to be--hopping about up there from root to root like any young squirrel. As soon as you have diverted yourself sufficiently, I would advise you to proceed.' 'Aye, aye, Toby, all in good time: two or three more such famous roots as this, and I shall be with you.' The residue of my downward progress was comparatively easy; the roots were in greater abundance, and in one or two places jutting out points of rock assisted me greatly. In a few moments I was standing by the side of my companion. Substituting a stout stick for the one I had thrown aside at the top of the precipice, we now continued our course along the bed of the ravine. Soon we were saluted by a sound in advance, that grew by degrees louder and louder, as the noise of the cataract we were leaving behind gradually died on our ears. 'Another precipice for us, Toby.' 'Very good; we can descend them, you know--come on.' Nothing indeed appeared to depress or intimidate this intrepid fellow. Typees or Niagaras, he was as ready to engage one as the other, and I could not avoid a thousand times congratulating myself upon having such a companion in an enterprise like the present. After an hour's painful progress, we reached the verge of another fall, still loftier than the preceding and flanked both above and below with the same steep masses of rock, presenting, however, here and there narrow irregular ledges, supporting a shallow soil, on which grew a variety of bushes and trees, whose bright verdure contrasted beautifully with the foamy waters that flowed between them. Toby, who invariably acted as pioneer, now proceeded to reconnoitre. On his return, he reported that the shelves of rock on our right would enable us to gain with little risk the bottom of the cataract. Accordingly, leaving the bed of the stream at the very point where it thundered down, we began crawling along one of those sloping ledges until it carried us to within a few feet of another that inclined downwards at a still sharper angle, and upon which, by assisting each other we managed to alight in safety. We warily crept along this, steadying ourselves by the naked roots of the shrubs that clung to every fissure. As we proceeded, the narrow path became still more contracted, rendering it difficult for us to maintain our footing, until suddenly, as we reached an angle of the wall of rock where we had expected it to widen, we perceived to our consternation that a yard or two further on it abruptly terminated at a place we could not possibly hope to pass. Toby as usual led the van, and in silence I waited to learn from him how he proposed to extricate us from this new difficulty. 'Well, my boy,' I exclaimed, after the expiration of several minutes, during which time my companion had not uttered a word, 'what's to be done now?' He replied in a tranquil tone, that probably the best thing we could do in our present strait was to get out of it as soon as possible. 'Yes, my dear Toby, but tell me how we are to get out of it.' 'Something in this sort of style,' he replied, and at the same moment to my horror he slipped sideways off the rocks and, as I then thought, by good fortune merely, alighted among the spreading branches of a species of palm tree, that shooting its hardy roots along a ledge below, curved its trunk upwards into the air, and presented a thick mass of foliage about twenty feet below the spot where we had thus suddenly been brought to a standstill. I involuntarily held my breath, expecting to see the form of my companion, after being sustained for a moment by the branches of the tree, sink through their frail support, and fall headlong to the bottom. To my surprise and joy, however, he recovered himself, and disentangling his limbs from the fractured branches, he peered out from his leafy bed, and shouted lustily, 'Come on, my hearty there is no other alternative!' and with this he ducked beneath the foliage, and slipping down the trunk, stood in a moment at least fifty feet beneath me, upon the broad shelf of rock from which sprung the tree he had descended. What would I not have given at that moment to have been by his side. The feat he had just accomplished seemed little less than miraculous, and I could hardly credit the evidence of my senses when I saw the wide distance that a single daring act had so suddenly placed between us. Toby's animating 'come on' again sounded in my ears, and dreading to lose all confidence in myself if I remained meditating upon the step, I once more gazed down to assure myself of the relative bearing of the tree and my own position, and then closing my eyes and uttering one comprehensive ejaculation of prayer, I inclined myself over towards the abyss, and after one breathless instant fell with a crash into the tree, the branches snapping and cracking with my weight, as I sunk lower and lower among them, until I was stopped by coming in contact with a sturdy limb. In a few moments I was standing at the foot of the tree manipulating myself all over with a view of ascertaining the extent of the injuries I had received. To my surprise the only effects of my feat were a few slight contusions too trifling to care about. The rest of our descent was easily accomplished, and in half an hour after regaining the ravine we had partaken of our evening morsel, built our hut as usual, and crawled under its shelter. The next morning, in spite of our debility and the agony of hunger under which we were now suffering, though neither of us confessed to the fact, we struggled along our dismal and still difficult and dangerous path, cheered by the hope of soon catching a glimpse of the valley before us, and towards evening the voice of a cataract which had for some time sounded like a low deep bass to the music of the smaller waterfalls, broke upon our ears in still louder tones, and assured us that we were approaching its vicinity. That evening we stood on the brink of a precipice, over which the dark stream bounded in one final leap of full 300 feet. The sheer descent terminated in the region we so long had sought. On each side of the fall, two lofty and perpendicular bluffs buttressed the sides of the enormous cliff, and projected into the sea of verdure with which the valley waved, and a range of similar projecting eminences stood disposed in a half circle about the head if the vale. A thick canopy of trees hung over the very verge of the fall, leaving an arched aperture for the passage of the waters, which imparted a strange picturesqueness to the scene. The valley was now before us; but instead of being conducted into its smiling bosom by the gradual descent of the deep watercourse we had thus far pursued, all our labours now appeared to have been rendered futile by its abrupt termination. But, bitterly disappointed, we did not entirely despair. As it was now near sunset we determined to pass the night where we were, and on the morrow, refreshed by sleep, and by eating at one meal all our stock of food, to accomplish a descent into the valley, or perish in the attempt. We laid ourselves down that night on a spot, the recollection of which still makes me shudder. A small table of rock which projected over the precipice on one side of the stream, and was drenched by the spray of the fall, sustained a huge trunk of a tree which must have been deposited there by some heavy freshet. It lay obliquely, with one end resting on the rock and the other supported by the side of the ravine. Against it we placed in a sloping direction a number of the half decayed boughs that were strewn about, and covering the whole with twigs and leaves, awaited the morning's light beneath such shelter as it afforded. During the whole of this night the continual roaring of the cataract--the dismal moaning of the gale through the trees--the pattering of the rain, and the profound darkness, affected my spirits to a degree which nothing had ever before produced. Wet, half famished, and chilled to the heart with the dampness of the place, and nearly wild with the pain I endured, I fairly cowered down to the earth under this multiplication of hardships, and abandoned myself to frightful anticipations of evil; and my companion, whose spirit at last was a good deal broken, scarcely uttered a word during the whole night. At length the day dawned upon us, and rising from our miserable pallet, we stretched our stiffened joints, and after eating all that remained of our bread, prepared for the last stage of our journey. I will not recount every hair-breadth escape, and every fearful difficulty that occurred before we succeeded in reaching the bosom of the valley. As I have already described similar scenes, it will be sufficient to say that at length, after great toil and great dangers, we both stood with no limbs broken at the head of that magnificent vale which five days before had so suddenly burst upon my sight, and almost beneath the shadow of those very cliffs from whose summits we had gazed upon the prospect.

The narrator picks up on Toby's enthusiasm at finding natives, and he temporarily forgets his fears about meeting cannibalistic savages. Their descent into the valley is difficult, though. Soon they come across an enormous ravine from which there is no path down, only a crashing waterfall. Toby determines that the only way down is by swinging on the thick roots of the plants that wind down the sides. Toby starts by grabbing one and transferring to another. The narrator is apprehensive as he is heavier than Toby, but he uses the roots to descend nonetheless. Except for a few moments when the roots give way and the narrator panics, all goes fine. At the bottom though, there still is another wall of rock to descend. They get down, as per Toby's instructions, by jumping directly onto a tree below them and end up getting caught in its branches. Toby manages to get out first and then the narrator frees himself. They now are fully in the valley

Scene II [Enter] DUCHESS, ANTONIO, and CARIOLA DUCHESS. Bring me the casket hither, and the glass.-- You get no lodging here to-night, my lord. ANTONIO. Indeed, I must persuade one. DUCHESS. Very good: I hope in time 'twill grow into a custom, That noblemen shall come with cap and knee To purchase a night's lodging of their wives. ANTONIO. I must lie here. DUCHESS. Must! You are a lord of mis-rule. ANTONIO. Indeed, my rule is only in the night. DUCHESS. I 'll stop your mouth. [Kisses him.] ANTONIO. Nay, that 's but one; Venus had two soft doves To draw her chariot; I must have another.-- [She kisses him again.] When wilt thou marry, Cariola? CARIOLA. Never, my lord. ANTONIO. O, fie upon this single life! forgo it. We read how Daphne, for her peevish [flight,][80] Became a fruitless bay-tree; Syrinx turn'd To the pale empty reed; Anaxarete Was frozen into marble: whereas those Which married, or prov'd kind unto their friends, Were by a gracious influence transhap'd Into the olive, pomegranate, mulberry, Became flowers, precious stones, or eminent stars. CARIOLA. This is a vain poetry: but I pray you, tell me, If there were propos'd me, wisdom, riches, and beauty, In three several young men, which should I choose? ANTONIO. 'Tis a hard question. This was Paris' case, And he was blind in 't, and there was a great cause; For how was 't possible he could judge right, Having three amorous goddesses in view, And they stark naked? 'Twas a motion Were able to benight the apprehension Of the severest counsellor of Europe. Now I look on both your faces so well form'd, It puts me in mind of a question I would ask. CARIOLA. What is 't? ANTONIO. I do wonder why hard-favour'd ladies, For the most part, keep worse-favour'd waiting-women To attend them, and cannot endure fair ones. DUCHESS. O, that 's soon answer'd. Did you ever in your life know an ill painter Desire to have his dwelling next door to the shop Of an excellent picture-maker? 'Twould disgrace His face-making, and undo him. I prithee, When were we so merry?--My hair tangles. ANTONIO. Pray thee, Cariola, let 's steal forth the room, And let her talk to herself: I have divers times Serv'd her the like, when she hath chaf'd extremely. I love to see her angry. Softly, Cariola. Exeunt [ANTONIO and CARIOLA.] DUCHESS. Doth not the colour of my hair 'gin to change? When I wax gray, I shall have all the court Powder their hair with arras,[81] to be like me. You have cause to love me; I ent'red you into my heart [Enter FERDINAND unseen] Before you would vouchsafe to call for the keys. We shall one day have my brothers take you napping. Methinks his presence, being now in court, Should make you keep your own bed; but you 'll say Love mix'd with fear is sweetest. I 'll assure you, You shall get no more children till my brothers Consent to be your gossips. Have you lost your tongue? 'Tis welcome: For know, whether I am doom'd to live or die, I can do both like a prince. FERDINAND. Die, then, quickly! Giving her a poniard. Virtue, where art thou hid? What hideous thing Is it that doth eclipse thee? DUCHESS. Pray, sir, hear me. FERDINAND. Or is it true thou art but a bare name, And no essential thing? DUCHESS. Sir---- FERDINAND. Do not speak. DUCHESS. No, sir: I will plant my soul in mine ears, to hear you. FERDINAND. O most imperfect light of human reason, That mak'st [us] so unhappy to foresee What we can least prevent! Pursue thy wishes, And glory in them: there 's in shame no comfort But to be past all bounds and sense of shame. DUCHESS. I pray, sir, hear me: I am married. FERDINAND. So! DUCHESS. Happily, not to your liking: but for that, Alas, your shears do come untimely now To clip the bird's wings that 's already flown! Will you see my husband? FERDINAND. Yes, if I could change Eyes with a basilisk. DUCHESS. Sure, you came hither By his confederacy. FERDINAND. The howling of a wolf Is music to thee, screech-owl: prithee, peace.-- Whate'er thou art that hast enjoy'd my sister, For I am sure thou hear'st me, for thine own sake Let me not know thee. I came hither prepar'd To work thy discovery; yet am now persuaded It would beget such violent effects As would damn us both. I would not for ten millions I had beheld thee: therefore use all means I never may have knowledge of thy name; Enjoy thy lust still, and a wretched life, On that condition.--And for thee, vile woman, If thou do wish thy lecher may grow old In thy embracements, I would have thee build Such a room for him as our anchorites To holier use inhabit. Let not the sun Shine on him till he 's dead; let dogs and monkeys Only converse with him, and such dumb things To whom nature denies use to sound his name; Do not keep a paraquito, lest she learn it; If thou do love him, cut out thine own tongue, Lest it bewray him. DUCHESS. Why might not I marry? I have not gone about in this to create Any new world or custom. FERDINAND. Thou art undone; And thou hast ta'en that massy sheet of lead That hid thy husband's bones, and folded it About my heart. DUCHESS. Mine bleeds for 't. FERDINAND. Thine! thy heart! What should I name 't unless a hollow bullet Fill'd with unquenchable wild-fire? DUCHESS. You are in this Too strict; and were you not my princely brother, I would say, too wilful: my reputation Is safe. FERDINAND. Dost thou know what reputation is? I 'll tell thee,--to small purpose, since the instruction Comes now too late. Upon a time Reputation, Love, and Death, Would travel o'er the world; and it was concluded That they should part, and take three several ways. Death told them, they should find him in great battles, Or cities plagu'd with plagues: Love gives them counsel To inquire for him 'mongst unambitious shepherds, Where dowries were not talk'd of, and sometimes 'Mongst quiet kindred that had nothing left By their dead parents: 'Stay,' quoth Reputation, 'Do not forsake me; for it is my nature, If once I part from any man I meet, I am never found again.' And so for you: You have shook hands with Reputation, And made him invisible. So, fare you well: I will never see you more. DUCHESS. Why should only I, Of all the other princes of the world, Be cas'd up, like a holy relic? I have youth And a little beauty. FERDINAND. So you have some virgins That are witches. I will never see thee more. Exit. Re-enter ANTONIO with a pistol, [and CARIOLA] DUCHESS. You saw this apparition? ANTONIO. Yes: we are Betray'd. How came he hither? I should turn This to thee, for that. CARIOLA. Pray, sir, do; and when That you have cleft my heart, you shall read there Mine innocence. DUCHESS. That gallery gave him entrance. ANTONIO. I would this terrible thing would come again, That, standing on my guard, I might relate My warrantable love.-- (She shows the poniard.) Ha! what means this? DUCHESS. He left this with me. ANTONIO. And it seems did wish You would use it on yourself. DUCHESS. His action seem'd To intend so much. ANTONIO. This hath a handle to 't, As well as a point: turn it towards him, and So fasten the keen edge in his rank gall. [Knocking within.] How now! who knocks? More earthquakes? DUCHESS. I stand As if a mine beneath my feet were ready To be blown up. CARIOLA. 'Tis Bosola. DUCHESS. Away! O misery! methinks unjust actions Should wear these masks and curtains, and not we. You must instantly part hence: I have fashion'd it already. Exit ANTONIO. Enter BOSOLA BOSOLA. The duke your brother is ta'en up in a whirlwind; Hath took horse, and 's rid post to Rome. DUCHESS. So late? BOSOLA. He told me, as he mounted into the saddle, You were undone. DUCHESS. Indeed, I am very near it. BOSOLA. What 's the matter? DUCHESS. Antonio, the master of our household, Hath dealt so falsely with me in 's accounts. My brother stood engag'd with me for money Ta'en up of certain Neapolitan Jews, And Antonio lets the bonds be forfeit. BOSOLA. Strange!--[Aside.] This is cunning. DUCHESS. And hereupon My brother's bills at Naples are protested Against.--Call up our officers. BOSOLA. I shall. Exit. [Re-enter ANTONIO] DUCHESS. The place that you must fly to is Ancona: Hire a house there; I 'll send after you My treasure and my jewels. Our weak safety Runs upon enginous wheels:[82] short syllables Must stand for periods. I must now accuse you Of such a feigned crime as Tasso calls Magnanima menzogna, a noble lie, 'Cause it must shield our honours.--Hark! they are coming. [Re-enter BOSOLA and Officers] ANTONIO. Will your grace hear me? DUCHESS. I have got well by you; you have yielded me A million of loss: I am like to inherit The people's curses for your stewardship. You had the trick in audit-time to be sick, Till I had sign'd your quietus;[83] and that cur'd you Without help of a doctor.--Gentlemen, I would have this man be an example to you all; So shall you hold my favour; I pray, let him; For h'as done that, alas, you would not think of, And, because I intend to be rid of him, I mean not to publish.--Use your fortune elsewhere. ANTONIO. I am strongly arm'd to brook my overthrow, As commonly men bear with a hard year. I will not blame the cause on 't; but do think The necessity of my malevolent star Procures this, not her humour. O, the inconstant And rotten ground of service! You may see, 'Tis even like him, that in a winter night, Takes a long slumber o'er a dying fire, A-loth to part from 't; yet parts thence as cold As when he first sat down. DUCHESS. We do confiscate, Towards the satisfying of your accounts, All that you have. ANTONIO. I am all yours; and 'tis very fit All mine should be so. DUCHESS. So, sir, you have your pass. ANTONIO. You may see, gentlemen, what 'tis to serve A prince with body and soul. Exit. BOSOLA. Here 's an example for extortion: what moisture is drawn out of the sea, when foul weather comes, pours down, and runs into the sea again. DUCHESS. I would know what are your opinions Of this Antonio. SECOND OFFICER. He could not abide to see a pig's head gaping: I thought your grace would find him a Jew. THIRD OFFICER. I would you had been his officer, for your own sake. FOURTH OFFICER. You would have had more money. FIRST OFFICER. He stopped his ears with black wool, and to those came to him for money said he was thick of hearing. SECOND OFFICER. Some said he was an hermaphrodite, for he could not abide a woman. FOURTH OFFICER. How scurvy proud he would look when the treasury was full! Well, let him go. FIRST OFFICER. Yes, and the chippings of the buttery fly after him, to scour his gold chain.[84] DUCHESS. Leave us. Exeunt [Officers.] What do you think of these? BOSOLA. That these are rogues that in 's prosperity, But to have waited on his fortune, could have wish'd His dirty stirrup riveted through their noses, And follow'd after 's mule, like a bear in a ring; Would have prostituted their daughters to his lust; Made their first-born intelligencers;[85] thought none happy But such as were born under his blest planet, And wore his livery: and do these lice drop off now? Well, never look to have the like again: He hath left a sort[86] of flattering rogues behind him; Their doom must follow. Princes pay flatterers In their own money: flatterers dissemble their vices, And they dissemble their lies; that 's justice. Alas, poor gentleman! DUCHESS. Poor! he hath amply fill'd his coffers. BOSOLA. Sure, he was too honest. Pluto,[87] the god of riches, When he 's sent by Jupiter to any man, He goes limping, to signify that wealth That comes on God's name comes slowly; but when he's sent On the devil's errand, he rides post and comes in by scuttles.[88] Let me show you what a most unvalu'd jewel You have in a wanton humour thrown away, To bless the man shall find him. He was an excellent Courtier and most faithful; a soldier that thought it As beastly to know his own value too little As devilish to acknowledge it too much. Both his virtue and form deserv'd a far better fortune: His discourse rather delighted to judge itself than show itself: His breast was fill'd with all perfection, And yet it seemed a private whisp'ring-room, It made so little noise of 't. DUCHESS. But he was basely descended. BOSOLA. Will you make yourself a mercenary herald, Rather to examine men's pedigrees than virtues? You shall want[89] him: For know an honest statesman to a prince Is like a cedar planted by a spring; The spring bathes the tree's root, the grateful tree Rewards it with his shadow: you have not done so. I would sooner swim to the Bermoothes on Two politicians' rotten bladders, tied Together with an intelligencer's heart-string, Than depend on so changeable a prince's favour. Fare thee well, Antonio! Since the malice of the world Would needs down with thee, it cannot be said yet That any ill happen'd unto thee, considering thy fall Was accompanied with virtue. DUCHESS. O, you render me excellent music! BOSOLA. Say you? DUCHESS. This good one that you speak of is my husband. BOSOLA. Do I not dream? Can this ambitious age Have so much goodness in 't as to prefer A man merely for worth, without these shadows Of wealth and painted honours? Possible? DUCHESS. I have had three children by him. BOSOLA. Fortunate lady! For you have made your private nuptial bed The humble and fair seminary of peace, No question but: many an unbenefic'd scholar Shall pray for you for this deed, and rejoice That some preferment in the world can yet Arise from merit. The virgins of your land That have no dowries shall hope your example Will raise them to rich husbands. Should you want Soldiers, 'twould make the very Turks and Moors Turn Christians, and serve you for this act. Last, the neglected poets of your time, In honour of this trophy of a man, Rais'd by that curious engine, your white hand, Shall thank you, in your grave, for 't; and make that More reverend than all the cabinets Of living princes. For Antonio, His fame shall likewise flow from many a pen, When heralds shall want coats to sell to men. DUCHESS. As I taste comfort in this friendly speech, So would I find concealment. BOSOLA. O, the secret of my prince, Which I will wear on th' inside of my heart! DUCHESS. You shall take charge of all my coin and jewels, And follow him; for he retires himself To Ancona. BOSOLA. So. DUCHESS. Whither, within few days, I mean to follow thee. BOSOLA. Let me think: I would wish your grace to feign a pilgrimage To our Lady of Loretto, scarce seven leagues ]From fair Ancona; so may you depart Your country with more honour, and your flight Will seem a princely progress, retaining Your usual train about you. DUCHESS. Sir, your direction Shall lead me by the hand. CARIOLA. In my opinion, She were better progress to the baths at Lucca, Or go visit the Spa In Germany; for, if you will believe me, I do not like this jesting with religion, This feigned pilgrimage. DUCHESS. Thou art a superstitious fool: Prepare us instantly for our departure. Past sorrows, let us moderately lament them, For those to come, seek wisely to prevent them. [Exeunt DUCHESS and CARIOLA.] BOSOLA. A politician is the devil's quilted anvil; He fashions all sins on him, and the blows Are never heard: he may work in a lady's chamber, As here for proof. What rests[90] but I reveal All to my lord? O, this base quality[91] Of intelligencer! Why, every quality i' the world Prefers but gain or commendation: Now, for this act I am certain to be rais'd, And men that paint weeds to the life are prais'd. [Exit.]

The Duchess is in her bedroom with Antonio and Cariola. She and Antonio tease each other and flirt as Cariola helps her prepare for bed. Honestly, if this scene doesn't convert you to Team Antonio and Duchess, you're probably evil. Or the Cardinal. Or Ferdinand. The three chat for a little while about marriage and sex and whatnot, when Antonio whispers to Cariola while the Duchess is distracted that they should leave the room and let the Duchess talk to herself. Antonio apparently finds this hilarious. We agree with Antonio. Except! In comes Ferdinand. The Duchess, still thinking she's talking to Antonio and Cariola, is all "oh, yes, my brothers, we really should hold off on that next child until you're BFF with them." She sees Ferdinand, and, to her great credit, doesn't flip out: "whether I am doomed to live, or die, / I can do both like a prince" . Ferdinand gives her his poniard again, and tells her to kill herself. Nice guy, that Ferdo. "Whoa, hold up, you've got the wrong idea: yeah, I have a few kids now, but I'm married! I mean, probably not to the guy you would have picked for me, but, still, married! Brazen Hussy I am not!" This doesn't calm Ferdinand down in the way the Duchess is hoping. He launches into a diatribe about how she'd better hide this guy really carefully, because when Ferdinand finds this husband of hers, he's going to kill him. The Duchess calls him out on how unreasonable this all seems: "Dude, people get remarried. Women get remarried. I got remarried. It's not just legal, it's totally normal, so what's the problem?" After furiously telling her that she has utterly destroyed her reputation, Ferdinand promises to never see her again and storms out. Antonio and Cariola, having heard what's gone down from their hiding spot, come back in. They have just enough time to communally decide that they're in real trouble before Bosola knocks, and Antonio once again hides. Bosola tells the Duchess that Ferdinand has just taken off for Rome, and wants to know what's up. The Duchess, again, is remarkably quick on the draw: Antonio, she says, has been mishandling her money, and as a result has really messed up her and Ferdinand's finances. A wee bit of misdirection, you see. After Bosola has left and Antonio once again comes out of hiding, the Duchess tells Antonio that he's got to high-tail it over to Ancona and lay low for a while. In the meanwhile, she explains, she's going to have to make it look like she's firing him for mishandling her accounts. Bosola and the other officers of the court come in, and the Duchess and Antonio play out a scene where she very dramatically accuses Antonio and then fires him, after which he leaves. The Duchess turns to her officers, and asks them what they think of Antonio. The officers, figuring that Antonio is not a guy to be siding with right now, all reply, "oh, yeah, that Antonio, I always knew he was a bad dude, coulda seen that coming a mile away." They leave, and she poses the question to Bosola. Those guys are unprincipled jerks, Bosola says: "Antonio was a good guy, a great steward, he always had your back, and that you just threw him under the bus means that you're just as bad as every other corrupt politician." The Duchess, although she draws out the charade for a little while, is thrilled to hear this. She figures that somebody who stands up for Antonio is worth trusting, and tells Bosola that Antonio is her husband. Bosola acts shocked and impressed that "some preferment in the world can yet / Arise from merit" . The Duchess swears him to secrecy, and asks him to take charge of all her money and jewels and to bring them to Antonio in Ancona. Uh oh. Bosola advises her to travel to Loretto, pretending that she's making a religious pilgrimage. The Duchess agrees, saying to Bosola, "your direction / shall lead me by the hand" . This is the point where the audience goes from Kind of Worried to Duchess, You In Danger, Girl. Cariola isn't on board with Bosola's plan, but the Duchess tells her she's being stupid and to go prepare for their departure. They leave. Bosola, now possessing the information he's been after for years and having finally won the Duchess's trust, announces that he must immediately update Ferdinand, and mentions his dissatisfaction with his job as a spy.

Enter Katherine Dowager, sicke, lead betweene Griffith, her Gentleman Vsher, and Patience her Woman. Grif. How do's your Grace? Kath. O Griffith, sicke to death: My Legges like loaden Branches bow to'th' Earth, Willing to leaue their burthen: Reach a Chaire, So now (me thinkes) I feele a little ease. Did'st thou not tell me Griffith, as thou lead'st mee, That the great Childe of Honor, Cardinall Wolsey Was dead? Grif. Yes Madam: but I thinke your Grace Out of the paine you suffer'd, gaue no eare too't Kath. Pre'thee good Griffith, tell me how he dy'de. If well, he stept before me happily For my example Grif. Well, the voyce goes Madam, For after the stout Earle Northumberland Arrested him at Yorke, and brought him forward As a man sorely tainted, to his Answer, He fell sicke sodainly, and grew so ill He could not sit his Mule Kath. Alas poore man Grif. At last, with easie Rodes, he came to Leicester, Lodg'd in the Abbey; where the reuerend Abbot With all his Couent, honourably receiu'd him; To whom he gaue these words. O Father Abbot, An old man, broken with the stormes of State, Is come to lay his weary bones among ye: Giue him a little earth for Charity. So went to bed; where eagerly his sicknesse Pursu'd him still, and three nights after this, About the houre of eight, which he himselfe Foretold should be his last, full of Repentance, Continuall Meditations, Teares, and Sorrowes, He gaue his Honors to the world agen, His blessed part to Heauen, and slept in peace Kath. So may he rest, His Faults lye gently on him: Yet thus farre Griffith, giue me leaue to speake him, And yet with Charity. He was a man Of an vnbounded stomacke, euer ranking Himselfe with Princes. One that by suggestion Ty'de all the Kingdome. Symonie, was faire play, His owne Opinion was his Law. I'th' presence He would say vntruths, and be euer double Both in his words, and meaning. He was neuer (But where he meant to Ruine) pittifull. His Promises, were as he then was, Mighty: But his performance, as he is now, Nothing: Of his owne body he was ill, and gaue The Clergy ill example Grif. Noble Madam: Mens euill manners, liue in Brasse, their Vertues We write in Water. May it please your Highnesse To heare me speake his good now? Kath. Yes good Griffith, I were malicious else Grif. This Cardinall, Though from an humble Stocke, vndoubtedly Was fashion'd to much Honor. From his Cradle He was a Scholler, and a ripe, and good one: Exceeding wise, faire spoken, and perswading: Lofty, and sowre to them that lou'd him not: But, to those men that sought him, sweet as Summer. And though he were vnsatisfied in getting, (Which was a sinne) yet in bestowing, Madam, He was most Princely: Euer witnesse for him Those twinnes of Learning, that he rais'd in you, Ipswich and Oxford: one of which, fell with him, Vnwilling to out-liue the good that did it. The other (though vnfinish'd) yet so Famous, So excellent in Art, and still so rising, That Christendome shall euer speake his Vertue. His Ouerthrow, heap'd Happinesse vpon him: For then, and not till then, he felt himselfe, And found the Blessednesse of being little. And to adde greater Honors to his Age Then man could giue him; he dy'de, fearing God Kath. After my death, I wish no other Herald, No other speaker of my liuing Actions, To keepe mine Honor, from Corruption, But such an honest Chronicler as Griffith. Whom I most hated Liuing, thou hast made mee With thy Religious Truth, and Modestie, (Now in his Ashes) Honor: Peace be with him. Patience, be neere me still, and set me lower, I haue not long to trouble thee. Good Griffith, Cause the Musitians play me that sad note I nam'd my Knell; whil'st I sit meditating On that Coelestiall Harmony I go too. Sad and solemne Musicke. Grif. She is asleep: Good wench, let's sit down quiet, For feare we wake her. Softly, gentle Patience. The Vision. Enter solemnely tripping one after another, sixe Personages, clad in white Robes, wearing on their heades Garlands of Bayes, and golden Vizards on their faces, Branches of Bayes or Palme in their hands. They first Conge vnto her, then Dance: and at certaine Changes, the first two hold a spare Garland ouer her Head, at which the other foure make reuerend Curtsies. Then the two that held the Garland, deliuer the same to the other next two, who obserue the same order in their Changes, and holding the Garland ouer her head. Which done, they deliuer the same Garland to the last two: who likewise obserue the same Order. At which (as it were by inspiration) she makes (in her sleepe) signes of reioycing, and holdeth vp her hands to heauen. And so, in their Dancing vanish, carrying the Garland with them. The Musicke continues. Kath. Spirits of peace, where are ye? Are ye all gone? And leaue me heere in wretchednesse, behinde ye? Grif. Madam, we are heere Kath. It is not you I call for, Saw ye none enter since I slept? Grif. None Madam Kath. No? Saw you not euen now a blessed Troope Inuite me to a Banquet, whose bright faces Cast thousand beames vpon me, like the Sun? They promis'd me eternall Happinesse, And brought me Garlands (Griffith) which I feele I am not worthy yet to weare: I shall assuredly Grif. I am most ioyfull Madam, such good dreames Possesse your Fancy Kath. Bid the Musicke leaue, They are harsh and heauy to me. Musicke ceases. Pati. Do you note How much her Grace is alter'd on the sodaine? How long her face is drawne? How pale she lookes, And of an earthy cold? Marke her eyes? Grif. She is going Wench. Pray, pray Pati. Heauen comfort her. Enter a Messenger. Mes. And't like your Grace - Kath. You are a sawcy Fellow, Deserue we no more Reuerence? Grif. You are too blame, Knowing she will not loose her wonted Greatnesse To vse so rude behauiour. Go too, kneele Mes. I humbly do entreat your Highnesse pardon, My hast made me vnmannerly. There is staying A Gentleman sent from the King, to see you Kath. Admit him entrance Griffith. But this Fellow Let me ne're see againe. Exit Messeng. Enter Lord Capuchius. If my sight faile not, You should be Lord Ambassador from the Emperor, My Royall Nephew, and your name Capuchius Cap. Madam the same. Your Seruant Kath. O my Lord, The Times and Titles now are alter'd strangely With me, since first you knew me. But I pray you, What is your pleasure with me? Cap. Noble Lady, First mine owne seruice to your Grace, the next The Kings request, that I would visit you, Who greeues much for your weaknesse, and by me Sends you his Princely Commendations, And heartily entreats you take good comfort Kath. O my good Lord, that comfort comes too late, 'Tis like a Pardon after Execution; That gentle Physicke giuen in time, had cur'd me: But now I am past all Comforts heere, but Prayers. How does his Highnesse? Cap. Madam, in good health Kath. So may he euer do, and euer flourish, When I shall dwell with Wormes, and my poore name Banish'd the Kingdome. Patience, is that Letter I caus'd you write, yet sent away? Pat. No Madam Kath. Sir, I most humbly pray you to deliuer This to my Lord the King Cap. Most willing Madam Kath. In which I haue commended to his goodnesse The Modell of our chaste loues: his yong daughter, The dewes of Heauen fall thicke in Blessings on her, Beseeching him to giue her vertuous breeding. She is yong, and of a Noble modest Nature, I hope she will deserue well; and a little To loue her for her Mothers sake, that lou'd him, Heauen knowes how deerely. My next poore Petition, Is, that his Noble Grace would haue some pittie Vpon my wretched women, that so long Haue follow'd both my Fortunes, faithfully, Of which there is not one, I dare auow (And now I should not lye) but will deserue For Vertue, and true Beautie of the Soule, For honestie, and decent Carriage A right good Husband (let him be a Noble) And sure those men are happy that shall haue 'em. The last is for my men, they are the poorest, (But pouerty could neuer draw 'em from me) That they may haue their wages, duly paid 'em, And something ouer to remember me by. If Heauen had pleas'd to haue giuen me longer life And able meanes, we had not parted thus. These are the whole Contents, and good my Lord, By that you loue the deerest in this world, As you wish Christian peace to soules departed, Stand these poore peoples Friend, and vrge the King To do me this last right Cap. By Heauen I will, Or let me loose the fashion of a man Kath. I thanke you honest Lord. Remember me In all humilitie vnto his Highnesse: Say his long trouble now is passing Out of this world. Tell him in death I blest him (For so I will) mine eyes grow dimme. Farewell My Lord. Griffith farewell. Nay Patience, You must not leaue me yet. I must to bed, Call in more women. When I am dead, good Wench, Let me be vs'd with Honor; strew me ouer With Maiden Flowers, that all the world may know I was a chaste Wife, to my Graue: Embalme me, Then lay me forth (although vnqueen'd) yet like A Queene, and Daughter to a King enterre me. I can no more. Exeunt. leading Katherine.

Over at Katherine's pad, her usher Griffith tells her about the death of Cardinal Wolsey. Once he was arrested, he got sick and died. Katherine is not one to hold a grudge, so she says she'll speak kindly of him, but she does note that his ambition caused major problems for England. Plus, he was just a bad example of a clergyman: he lied and took bribes, and that's just not right for a religious man to do. Griffith doesn't agree. He thinks Wolsey was a good man who came from a humble background but grew into a scholar. Sure, he made some mistakes, but who hasn't? Griffith also reminds Katherine that when Wolsey died, he was a God-fearing man. Griffith's little speech moves Katherine. She decides that when she dies, she wants Griffith to eulogize her because he talks so well. Katherine asks Griffith to get her musicians to play for her while she rests. Once she's asleep, Griffith, too, sits down patiently. That's when the nightmare begins. No, really: Katherine sees six people in white robes and golden masks carrying branches. They dance and curtsy to her, and then they give her a garland. Then they dance away. Wait, what? Katherine wakes up and is confused. She wants to understand what she saw, so she tells her dream to her servants. Griffith says he's happy Katherine is seeing such good dreams. Katherine orders the music to stop and questions what she saw. Then Griffith tells another servant named Patience that seeing such wild apparitions is a bad sign. Katherine must not have long to live. Just then, a messenger brings news of Capuchius's arrival. He's an ambassador from Spain, and he asks after Katherine's health for her dad. Katherine reports that she's weak but comforted by prayers. Then she remembers that she wrote a letter to Henry, and she asks Capuchius to deliver it to him. When Capuchius agrees, Katherine tells us what the letter says: she wants Henry to care for their daughter and her servants, even though he has remarried. Katherine also mentions that she'll die soon and won't be of any trouble to the king. Katherine asks Capuchius to remind Henry how humble she's been. Then she gets ready for bed.

Clare arose in the light of a dawn that was ashy and furtive, as though associated with crime. The fireplace confronted him with its extinct embers; the spread supper-table, whereon stood the two full glasses of untasted wine, now flat and filmy; her vacated seat and his own; the other articles of furniture, with their eternal look of not being able to help it, their intolerable inquiry what was to be done? From above there was no sound; but in a few minutes there came a knock at the door. He remembered that it would be the neighbouring cottager's wife, who was to minister to their wants while they remained here. The presence of a third person in the house would be extremely awkward just now, and, being already dressed, he opened the window and informed her that they could manage to shift for themselves that morning. She had a milk-can in her hand, which he told her to leave at the door. When the dame had gone away he searched in the back quarters of the house for fuel, and speedily lit a fire. There was plenty of eggs, butter, bread, and so on in the larder, and Clare soon had breakfast laid, his experiences at the dairy having rendered him facile in domestic preparations. The smoke of the kindled wood rose from the chimney without like a lotus-headed column; local people who were passing by saw it, and thought of the newly-married couple, and envied their happiness. Angel cast a final glance round, and then going to the foot of the stairs, called in a conventional voice-- "Breakfast is ready!" He opened the front door, and took a few steps in the morning air. When, after a short space, he came back she was already in the sitting-room mechanically readjusting the breakfast things. As she was fully attired, and the interval since his calling her had been but two or three minutes, she must have been dressed or nearly so before he went to summon her. Her hair was twisted up in a large round mass at the back of her head, and she had put on one of the new frocks--a pale blue woollen garment with neck-frillings of white. Her hands and face appeared to be cold, and she had possibly been sitting dressed in the bedroom a long time without any fire. The marked civility of Clare's tone in calling her seemed to have inspired her, for the moment, with a new glimmer of hope. But it soon died when she looked at him. The pair were, in truth, but the ashes of their former fires. To the hot sorrow of the previous night had succeeded heaviness; it seemed as if nothing could kindle either of them to fervour of sensation any more. He spoke gently to her, and she replied with a like undemonstrativeness. At last she came up to him, looking in his sharply-defined face as one who had no consciousness that her own formed a visible object also. "Angel!" she said, and paused, touching him with her fingers lightly as a breeze, as though she could hardly believe to be there in the flesh the man who was once her lover. Her eyes were bright, her pale cheek still showed its wonted roundness, though half-dried tears had left glistening traces thereon; and the usually ripe red mouth was almost as pale as her cheek. Throbbingly alive as she was still, under the stress of her mental grief the life beat so brokenly that a little further pull upon it would cause real illness, dull her characteristic eyes, and make her mouth thin. She looked absolutely pure. Nature, in her fantastic trickery, had set such a seal of maidenhood upon Tess's countenance that he gazed at her with a stupefied air. "Tess! Say it is not true! No, it is not true!" "It is true." "Every word?" "Every word." He looked at her imploringly, as if he would willingly have taken a lie from her lips, knowing it to be one, and have made of it, by some sort of sophistry, a valid denial. However, she only repeated-- "It is true." "Is he living?" Angel then asked. "The baby died." "But the man?" "He is alive." A last despair passed over Clare's face. "Is he in England?" "Yes." He took a few vague steps. "My position--is this," he said abruptly. "I thought--any man would have thought--that by giving up all ambition to win a wife with social standing, with fortune, with knowledge of the world, I should secure rustic innocence as surely as I should secure pink cheeks; but--However, I am no man to reproach you, and I will not." Tess felt his position so entirely that the remainder had not been needed. Therein lay just the distress of it; she saw that he had lost all round. "Angel--I should not have let it go on to marriage with you if I had not known that, after all, there was a last way out of it for you; though I hoped you would never--" Her voice grew husky. "A last way?" "I mean, to get rid of me. You CAN get rid of me." "How?" "By divorcing me." "Good heavens--how can you be so simple! How can I divorce you?" "Can't you--now I have told you? I thought my confession would give you grounds for that." "O Tess--you are too, too--childish--unformed--crude, I suppose! I don't know what you are. You don't understand the law--you don't understand!" "What--you cannot?" "Indeed I cannot." A quick shame mixed with the misery upon his listener's face. "I thought--I thought," she whispered. "O, now I see how wicked I seem to you! Believe me--believe me, on my soul, I never thought but that you could! I hoped you would not; yet I believed, without a doubt, that you could cast me off if you were determined, and didn't love me at--at--all!" "You were mistaken," he said. "O, then I ought to have done it, to have done it last night! But I hadn't the courage. That's just like me!" "The courage to do what?" As she did not answer he took her by the hand. "What were you thinking of doing?" he inquired. "Of putting an end to myself." "When?" She writhed under this inquisitorial manner of his. "Last night," she answered. "Where?" "Under your mistletoe." "My good--! How?" he asked sternly. "I'll tell you, if you won't be angry with me!" she said, shrinking. "It was with the cord of my box. But I could not--do the last thing! I was afraid that it might cause a scandal to your name." The unexpected quality of this confession, wrung from her, and not volunteered, shook him perceptibly. But he still held her, and, letting his glance fall from her face downwards, he said, "Now, listen to this. You must not dare to think of such a horrible thing! How could you! You will promise me as your husband to attempt that no more." "I am ready to promise. I saw how wicked it was." "Wicked! The idea was unworthy of you beyond description." "But, Angel," she pleaded, enlarging her eyes in calm unconcern upon him, "it was thought of entirely on your account--to set you free without the scandal of the divorce that I thought you would have to get. I should never have dreamt of doing it on mine. However, to do it with my own hand is too good for me, after all. It is you, my ruined husband, who ought to strike the blow. I think I should love you more, if that were possible, if you could bring yourself to do it, since there's no other way of escape for 'ee. I feel I am so utterly worthless! So very greatly in the way!" "Ssh!" "Well, since you say no, I won't. I have no wish opposed to yours." He knew this to be true enough. Since the desperation of the night her activities had dropped to zero, and there was no further rashness to be feared. Tess tried to busy herself again over the breakfast-table with more or less success, and they sat down both on the same side, so that their glances did not meet. There was at first something awkward in hearing each other eat and drink, but this could not be escaped; moreover, the amount of eating done was small on both sides. Breakfast over, he rose, and telling her the hour at which he might be expected to dinner, went off to the miller's in a mechanical pursuance of the plan of studying that business, which had been his only practical reason for coming here. When he was gone Tess stood at the window, and presently saw his form crossing the great stone bridge which conducted to the mill premises. He sank behind it, crossed the railway beyond, and disappeared. Then, without a sigh, she turned her attention to the room, and began clearing the table and setting it in order. The charwoman soon came. Her presence was at first a strain upon Tess, but afterwards an alleviation. At half-past twelve she left her assistant alone in the kitchen, and, returning to the sitting-room, waited for the reappearance of Angel's form behind the bridge. About one he showed himself. Her face flushed, although he was a quarter of a mile off. She ran to the kitchen to get the dinner served by the time he should enter. He went first to the room where they had washed their hands together the day before, and as he entered the sitting-room the dish-covers rose from the dishes as if by his own motion. "How punctual!" he said. "Yes. I saw you coming over the bridge," said she. The meal was passed in commonplace talk of what he had been doing during the morning at the Abbey Mill, of the methods of bolting and the old-fashioned machinery, which he feared would not enlighten him greatly on modern improved methods, some of it seeming to have been in use ever since the days it ground for the monks in the adjoining conventual buildings--now a heap of ruins. He left the house again in the course of an hour, coming home at dusk, and occupying himself through the evening with his papers. She feared she was in the way and, when the old woman was gone, retired to the kitchen, where she made herself busy as well as she could for more than an hour. Clare's shape appeared at the door. "You must not work like this," he said. "You are not my servant; you are my wife." She raised her eyes, and brightened somewhat. "I may think myself that--indeed?" she murmured, in piteous raillery. "You mean in name! Well, I don't want to be anything more." "You MAY think so, Tess! You are. What do you mean?" "I don't know," she said hastily, with tears in her accents. "I thought I--because I am not respectable, I mean. I told you I thought I was not respectable enough long ago--and on that account I didn't want to marry you, only--only you urged me!" She broke into sobs, and turned her back to him. It would almost have won round any man but Angel Clare. Within the remote depths of his constitution, so gentle and affectionate as he was in general, there lay hidden a hard logical deposit, like a vein of metal in a soft loam, which turned the edge of everything that attempted to traverse it. It had blocked his acceptance of the Church; it blocked his acceptance of Tess. Moreover, his affection itself was less fire than radiance, and, with regard to the other sex, when he ceased to believe he ceased to follow: contrasting in this with many impressionable natures, who remain sensuously infatuated with what they intellectually despise. He waited till her sobbing ceased. "I wish half the women in England were as respectable as you," he said, in an ebullition of bitterness against womankind in general. "It isn't a question of respectability, but one of principle!" He spoke such things as these and more of a kindred sort to her, being still swayed by the antipathetic wave which warps direct souls with such persistence when once their vision finds itself mocked by appearances. There was, it is true, underneath, a back current of sympathy through which a woman of the world might have conquered him. But Tess did not think of this; she took everything as her deserts, and hardly opened her mouth. The firmness of her devotion to him was indeed almost pitiful; quick-tempered as she naturally was, nothing that he could say made her unseemly; she sought not her own; was not provoked; thought no evil of his treatment of her. She might just now have been Apostolic Charity herself returned to a self-seeking modern world. This evening, night, and morning were passed precisely as the preceding ones had been passed. On one, and only one, occasion did she--the formerly free and independent Tess--venture to make any advances. It was on the third occasion of his starting after a meal to go out to the flour-mill. As he was leaving the table he said "Goodbye," and she replied in the same words, at the same time inclining her mouth in the way of his. He did not avail himself of the invitation, saying, as he turned hastily aside-- "I shall be home punctually." Tess shrank into herself as if she had been struck. Often enough had he tried to reach those lips against her consent--often had he said gaily that her mouth and breath tasted of the butter and eggs and milk and honey on which she mainly lived, that he drew sustenance from them, and other follies of that sort. But he did not care for them now. He observed her sudden shrinking, and said gently-- "You know, I have to think of a course. It was imperative that we should stay together a little while, to avoid the scandal to you that would have resulted from our immediate parting. But you must see it is only for form's sake." "Yes," said Tess absently. He went out, and on his way to the mill stood still, and wished for a moment that he had responded yet more kindly, and kissed her once at least. Thus they lived through this despairing day or two; in the same house, truly; but more widely apart than before they were lovers. It was evident to her that he was, as he had said, living with paralyzed activities in his endeavour to think of a plan of procedure. She was awe-stricken to discover such determination under such apparent flexibility. His consistency was, indeed, too cruel. She no longer expected forgiveness now. More than once she thought of going away from him during his absence at the mill; but she feared that this, instead of benefiting him, might be the means of hampering and humiliating him yet more if it should become known. Meanwhile Clare was meditating, verily. His thought had been unsuspended; he was becoming ill with thinking; eaten out with thinking, withered by thinking; scourged out of all his former pulsating, flexuous domesticity. He walked about saying to himself, "What's to be done--what's to be done?" and by chance she overheard him. It caused her to break the reserve about their future which had hitherto prevailed. "I suppose--you are not going to live with me--long, are you, Angel?" she asked, the sunk corners of her mouth betraying how purely mechanical were the means by which she retained that expression of chastened calm upon her face. "I cannot" he said, "without despising myself, and what is worse, perhaps, despising you. I mean, of course, cannot live with you in the ordinary sense. At present, whatever I feel, I do not despise you. And, let me speak plainly, or you may not see all my difficulties. How can we live together while that man lives?--he being your husband in nature, and not I. If he were dead it might be different... Besides, that's not all the difficulty; it lies in another consideration--one bearing upon the future of other people than ourselves. Think of years to come, and children being born to us, and this past matter getting known--for it must get known. There is not an uttermost part of the earth but somebody comes from it or goes to it from elsewhere. Well, think of wretches of our flesh and blood growing up under a taunt which they will gradually get to feel the full force of with their expanding years. What an awakening for them! What a prospect! Can you honestly say 'Remain' after contemplating this contingency? Don't you think we had better endure the ills we have than fly to others?" Her eyelids, weighted with trouble, continued drooping as before. "I cannot say 'Remain,'" she answered, "I cannot; I had not thought so far." Tess's feminine hope--shall we confess it?--had been so obstinately recuperative as to revive in her surreptitious visions of a domiciliary intimacy continued long enough to break down his coldness even against his judgement. Though unsophisticated in the usual sense, she was not incomplete; and it would have denoted deficiency of womanhood if she had not instinctively known what an argument lies in propinquity. Nothing else would serve her, she knew, if this failed. It was wrong to hope in what was of the nature of strategy, she said to herself: yet that sort of hope she could not extinguish. His last representation had now been made, and it was, as she said, a new view. She had truly never thought so far as that, and his lucid picture of possible offspring who would scorn her was one that brought deadly convictions to an honest heart which was humanitarian to its centre. Sheer experience had already taught her that in some circumstances there was one thing better than to lead a good life, and that was to be saved from leading any life whatever. Like all who have been previsioned by suffering, she could, in the words of M. Sully-Prudhomme, hear a penal sentence in the fiat, "You shall be born," particularly if addressed to potential issue of hers. Yet such is the vulpine slyness of Dame Nature, that, till now, Tess had been hoodwinked by her love for Clare into forgetting it might result in vitalizations that would inflict upon others what she had bewailed as misfortune to herself. She therefore could not withstand his argument. But with the self-combating proclivity of the supersensitive, an answer thereto arose in Clare's own mind, and he almost feared it. It was based on her exceptional physical nature; and she might have used it promisingly. She might have added besides: "On an Australian upland or Texan plain, who is to know or care about my misfortunes, or to reproach me or you?" Yet, like the majority of women, she accepted the momentary presentment as if it were the inevitable. And she may have been right. The intuitive heart of woman knoweth not only its own bitterness, but its husband's, and even if these assumed reproaches were not likely to be addressed to him or to his by strangers, they might have reached his ears from his own fastidious brain. It was the third day of the estrangement. Some might risk the odd paradox that with more animalism he would have been the nobler man. We do not say it. Yet Clare's love was doubtless ethereal to a fault, imaginative to impracticability. With these natures, corporal presence is something less appealing than corporal absence; the latter creating an ideal presence that conveniently drops the defects of the real. She found that her personality did not plead her cause so forcibly as she had anticipated. The figurative phrase was true: she was another woman than the one who had excited his desire. "I have thought over what you say," she remarked to him, moving her forefinger over the tablecloth, her other hand, which bore the ring that mocked them both, supporting her forehead. "It is quite true, all of it; it must be. You must go away from me." "But what can you do?" "I can go home." Clare had not thought of that. "Are you sure?" he inquired. "Quite sure. We ought to part, and we may as well get it past and done. You once said that I was apt to win men against their better judgement; and if I am constantly before your eyes I may cause you to change your plans in opposition to your reason and wish; and afterwards your repentance and my sorrow will be terrible." "And you would like to go home?" he asked. "I want to leave you, and go home." "Then it shall be so." Though she did not look up at him, she started. There was a difference between the proposition and the covenant, which she had felt only too quickly. "I feared it would come to this," she murmured, her countenance meekly fixed. "I don't complain, Angel, I--I think it best. What you said has quite convinced me. Yes, though nobody else should reproach me if we should stay together, yet somewhen, years hence, you might get angry with me for any ordinary matter, and knowing what you do of my bygones, you yourself might be tempted to say words, and they might be overheard, perhaps by my own children. O, what only hurts me now would torture and kill me then! I will go--to-morrow." "And I shall not stay here. Though I didn't like to initiate it, I have seen that it was advisable we should part--at least for a while, till I can better see the shape that things have taken, and can write to you." Tess stole a glance at her husband. He was pale, even tremulous; but, as before, she was appalled by the determination revealed in the depths of this gentle being she had married--the will to subdue the grosser to the subtler emotion, the substance to the conception, the flesh to the spirit. Propensities, tendencies, habits, were as dead leaves upon the tyrannous wind of his imaginative ascendency. He may have observed her look, for he explained-- "I think of people more kindly when I am away from them"; adding cynically, "God knows; perhaps we will shake down together some day, for weariness; thousands have done it!" That day he began to pack up, and she went upstairs and began to pack also. Both knew that it was in their two minds that they might part the next morning for ever, despite the gloss of assuaging conjectures thrown over their proceeding because they were of the sort to whom any parting which has an air of finality is a torture. He knew, and she knew, that, though the fascination which each had exercised over the other--on her part independently of accomplishments--would probably in the first days of their separation be even more potent than ever, time must attenuate that effect; the practical arguments against accepting her as a housemate might pronounce themselves more strongly in the boreal light of a remoter view. Moreover, when two people are once parted--have abandoned a common domicile and a common environment--new growths insensibly bud upward to fill each vacated place; unforeseen accidents hinder intentions, and old plans are forgotten.

Angel arises at dawn; the neighboring cottager's wife knocks on the door, but he sends her away because her presence is awkward. Angel prepares breakfast, and the two behave civilly to one another, although the pair are "but ashes of their former fires. Angel asks again if it is true, and he asks if the man is still in England. Tess says that he can get rid of her by divorcing her; her confession has given him adequate grounds for that. She tells him that she thought of putting an end to herself under the mistletoe, but did not because she felt it would cause scandal. Tess continues to do chores around the house for Angel while he visits a local miller, but he scolds her for behaving as a servant and not a wife. Tess breaks into tears, claiming that she had told him that she was not respectable enough to marry him, but he urged her. Her tears would have broken any man but Angel Clare, whose affection masks a hard, logical deposit like a vein of metal that blocks his acceptance of Tess as it blocked his acceptance of the Church. He tells her that it is not a question of respectability, but one of principle. Angel tells Tess that it is imperative that they should stay together to avoid scandal, but it is only for the sake of form. Angel tells Tess that he cannot live with Tess without despising himself and despising her. He considers what their possible children may think. She considers arguing that in Texas or Australia, nobody will know about her misfortunes, but she accepts the momentary sentiment as inevitable. Angel's love is doubtless ethereal to a fault, imaginative to impracticability. He orders her to go away from him, and she says that she can go home. She claims that she has convinced him and that she thinks it best.

Cyrano, De Guiche. DE GUICHE (who enters, masked, feeling his way in the dark): What can that cursed Friar be about? CYRANO: The devil!. . .If he knows my voice! (Letting go with one hand, he pretends to turn an invisible key. Solemnly): Cric! Crac! Assume thou, Cyrano, to serve the turn, The accent of thy native Bergerac!. . . DE GUICHE (looking at the house): 'Tis there. I see dim,--this mask hinders me! (He is about to enter, when Cyrano leaps from the balcony, holding on to the branch, which bends, dropping him between the door and De Guiche; he pretends to fall heavily, as from a great height, and lies flat on the ground, motionless, as if stunned. De Guiche starts back): What's this? (When he looks up, the branch has sprung back into its place. He sees only the sky, and is lost in amazement): Where fell that man from? CYRANO (sitting up, and speaking with a Gascon accent): From the moon! DE GUICHE: From?. . . CYRANO (in a dreamy voice): What's o'clock? DE GUICHE: He's lost his mind, for sure! CYRANO: What hour? What country this? What month? What day? DE GUICHE: But. . . CYRANO: I am stupefied! DE GUICHE: Sir! CYRANO: Like a bomb I fell from the moon! DE GUICHE (impatiently): Come now! CYRANO (rising, in a terrible voice): I say,--the moon! DE GUICHE (recoiling): Good, good! let it be so!. . .He's raving mad! CYRANO (walking up to him): I say from the moon! I mean no metaphor!. . . DE GUICHE: But. . . CYRANO: Was't a hundred years--a minute, since? --I cannot guess what time that fall embraced!-- That I was in that saffron-colored ball? DE GUICHE (shrugging his shoulders): Good! let me pass! CYRANO (intercepting him): Where am I? Tell the truth! Fear not to tell! Oh, spare me not! Where? where? Have I fallen like a shooting star? DE GUICHE: Morbleu! CYRANO: The fall was lightning-quick! no time to choose Where I should fall--I know not where it be! Oh, tell me! Is it on a moon or earth, that my posterior weight has landed me? DE GUICHE: I tell you, Sir. . . CYRANO (with a screech of terror, which makes De Guiche start back): No? Can it be? I'm on A planet where men have black faces? DE GUICHE (putting a hand to his face): What? CYRANO (feigning great alarm): Am I in Africa? A native you? DE GUICHE (who has remembered his mask): This mask of mine. . . CYRANO (pretending to be reassured): In Venice? ha!--or Rome? DE GUICHE (trying to pass): A lady waits. . CYRANO (quite reassured): Oh-ho! I am in Paris! DE GUICHE (smiling in spite of himself): The fool is comical! CYRANO: You laugh? DE GUICHE: I laugh, But would get by! CYRANO (beaming with joy): I have shot back to Paris! (Quite at ease, laughing, dusting himself, bowing): Come--pardon me--by the last water-spout, Covered with ether,--accident of travel! My eyes still full of star-dust, and my spurs Encumbered by the planets' filaments! (Picking something off his sleeve): Ha! on my doublet?--ah, a comet's hair!. . . (He puffs as if to blow it away.) DE GUICHE (beside himself): Sir!. . . CYRANO (just as he is about to pass, holds out his leg as if to show him something and stops him): In my leg--the calf--there is a tooth Of the Great Bear, and, passing Neptune close, I would avoid his trident's point, and fell, Thus sitting, plump, right in the Scales! My weight Is marked, still registered, up there in heaven! (Hurriedly preventing De Guiche from passing, and detaining him by the button of his doublet): I swear to you that if you squeezed my nose It would spout milk! DE GUICHE: Milk? CYRANO: From the Milky Way! DE GUICHE: Oh, go to hell! CYRANO (crossing his arms): I fall, Sir, out of heaven! Now, would you credit it, that as I fell I saw that Sirius wears a nightcap? True! (Confidentially): The other Bear is still too small to bite. (Laughing): I went through the Lyre, but I snapped a cord; (Grandiloquent): I mean to write the whole thing in a book; The small gold stars, that, wrapped up in my cloak, I carried safe away at no small risks, Will serve for asterisks i' the printed page! DE GUICHE: Come, make an end! I want. . . CYRANO: Oh-ho! You are sly! DE GUICHE: Sir! CYRANO: You would worm all out of me!--the way The moon is made, and if men breathe and live In its rotund cucurbita? DE GUICHE (angrily): No, no! I want. . . CYRANO: Ha, ha!--to know how I got up? Hark, it was by a method all my own. DE GUICHE (wearied): He's mad! CYRANO(contemptuously): No! not for me the stupid eagle Of Regiomontanus, nor the timid Pigeon of Archytas--neither of those! DE GUICHE: Ay, 'tis a fool! But 'tis a learned fool! CYRANO: No imitator I of other men! (De Guiche has succeeded in getting by, and goes toward Roxane's door. Cyrano follows him, ready to stop him by force): Six novel methods, all, this brain invented! DE GUICHE (turning round): Six? CYRANO (volubly): First, with body naked as your hand, Festooned about with crystal flacons, full O' th' tears the early morning dew distils; My body to the sun's fierce rays exposed To let it suck me up, as 't sucks the dew! DE GUICHE (surprised, making one step toward Cyrano): Ah! that makes one! CYRANO (stepping back, and enticing him further away): And then, the second way, To generate wind--for my impetus-- To rarefy air, in a cedar case, By mirrors placed icosahedron-wise. DE GUICHE (making another step): Two! CYRANO (still stepping backward): Or--for I have some mechanic skill-- To make a grasshopper, with springs of steel, And launch myself by quick succeeding fires Saltpeter-fed to the stars' pastures blue! DE GUICHE (unconsciously following him and counting on his fingers): Three! CYRANO: Or (since fumes have property to mount)-- To charge a globe with fumes, sufficiently To carry me aloft! DE GUICHE (same play, more and more astonished): Well, that makes four! CYRANO: Or smear myself with marrow from a bull, Since, at the lowest point of Zodiac, Phoebus well loves to suck that marrow up! DE GUICHE (amazed): Five! CYRANO (who, while speaking, had drawn him to the other side of the square near a bench): Sitting on an iron platform--thence To throw a magnet in the air. This is A method well conceived--the magnet flown, Infallibly the iron will pursue: Then quick! relaunch your magnet, and you thus Can mount and mount unmeasured distances! DE GUICHE: Here are six excellent expedients! Which of the six chose you? CYRANO: Why, none!--a seventh! DE GUICHE: Astonishing! What was it? CYRANO: I'll recount. DE GUICHE: This wild eccentric becomes interesting! CYRANO (making a noise like the waves, with weird gestures): Houuh! Houuh! DE GUICHE: Well. CYRANO: You have guessed? DE GUICHE: Not I! CYRANO: The tide! I' th' witching hour when the moon woos the wave, I laid me, fresh from a sea-bath, on the shore-- And, failing not to put head foremost--for The hair holds the sea-water in its mesh-- I rose in air, straight! straight! like angel's flight, And mounted, mounted, gently, effortless,. . . When lo! a sudden shock! Then. . . DE GUICHE (overcome by curiosity, sitting down on the bench): Then? CYRANO: Oh! then. . . (Suddenly returning to his natural voice): The quarter's gone--I'll hinder you no more: The marriage-vows are made. DE GUICHE (springing up): What? Am I mad? That voice? (The house-door opens. Lackeys appear carrying lighted candelabra. Light. Cyrano gracefully uncovers): That nose--Cyrano? CYRANO (bowing): Cyrano. While we were chatting, they have plighted troth. DE GUICHE: Who? (He turns round. Tableau. Behind the lackeys appear Roxane and Christian, holding each other by the hand. The friar follows them, smiling. Ragueneau also holds a candlestick. The duenna closes the rear, bewildered, having made a hasty toilet): Heavens!

When Roxane opens the window again, Cyrano resumes talking in Christian's voice, giving a charming dissertation on a kiss. Roxane is so stirred by the words that she wants Christian to immediately come up and give her that "matchless flower... of communion." Cyrano pushes Christian up towards the balcony so Christian can kiss the true love of them both. Cyrano interrupts Roxane and Christian, for the monk is returning, as signaled by the pages. Roxane offers to come down and see the monk, who is angry for being misled by Cyrano. The monk has been trying to find Roxane, for he has a letter for her, written and sent by De Guiche. Roxane reads the letter. De Guiche explains that he has not gone to Arras; instead, he has stayed behind in order to visit with Roxane, who is horrified at the news. She decides to do something rash. She will take advantage of the moment and the monk's presence. She tells the monk that the letter instructs him to marry her to Christian at once, for Cardinal Richelieu has ordered it. She pretends to oppose the idea and seems to be reluctant to go into the house to be married. Of course, she has really masterminded the whole thing. As she enters the house for the wedding, Roxane turns to Cyrano and asks him to delay De Guiche's arrival.

On the evening of the day of Alexandra's call at the Shabatas', a heavy rain set in. Frank sat up until a late hour reading the Sunday newspapers. One of the Goulds was getting a divorce, and Frank took it as a personal affront. In printing the story of the young man's marital troubles, the knowing editor gave a sufficiently colored account of his career, stating the amount of his income and the manner in which he was supposed to spend it. Frank read English slowly, and the more he read about this divorce case, the angrier he grew. At last he threw down the page with a snort. He turned to his farm-hand who was reading the other half of the paper. "By God! if I have that young feller in de hayfield once, I show him someting. Listen here what he do wit his money." And Frank began the catalogue of the young man's reputed extravagances. Marie sighed. She thought it hard that the Goulds, for whom she had nothing but good will, should make her so much trouble. She hated to see the Sunday newspapers come into the house. Frank was always reading about the doings of rich people and feeling outraged. He had an inexhaustible stock of stories about their crimes and follies, how they bribed the courts and shot down their butlers with impunity whenever they chose. Frank and Lou Bergson had very similar ideas, and they were two of the political agitators of the county. The next morning broke clear and brilliant, but Frank said the ground was too wet to plough, so he took the cart and drove over to Sainte-Agnes to spend the day at Moses Marcel's saloon. After he was gone, Marie went out to the back porch to begin her butter-making. A brisk wind had come up and was driving puffy white clouds across the sky. The orchard was sparkling and rippling in the sun. Marie stood looking toward it wistfully, her hand on the lid of the churn, when she heard a sharp ring in the air, the merry sound of the whetstone on the scythe. That invitation decided her. She ran into the house, put on a short skirt and a pair of her husband's boots, caught up a tin pail and started for the orchard. Emil had already begun work and was mowing vigorously. When he saw her coming, he stopped and wiped his brow. His yellow canvas leggings and khaki trousers were splashed to the knees. "Don't let me disturb you, Emil. I'm going to pick cherries. Isn't everything beautiful after the rain? Oh, but I'm glad to get this place mowed! When I heard it raining in the night, I thought maybe you would come and do it for me to-day. The wind wakened me. Didn't it blow dreadfully? Just smell the wild roses! They are always so spicy after a rain. We never had so many of them in here before. I suppose it's the wet season. Will you have to cut them, too?" "If I cut the grass, I will," Emil said teasingly. "What's the matter with you? What makes you so flighty?" "Am I flighty? I suppose that's the wet season, too, then. It's exciting to see everything growing so fast,--and to get the grass cut! Please leave the roses till last, if you must cut them. Oh, I don't mean all of them, I mean that low place down by my tree, where there are so many. Aren't you splashed! Look at the spider-webs all over the grass. Good-bye. I'll call you if I see a snake." She tripped away and Emil stood looking after her. In a few moments he heard the cherries dropping smartly into the pail, and he began to swing his scythe with that long, even stroke that few American boys ever learn. Marie picked cherries and sang softly to herself, stripping one glittering branch after another, shivering when she caught a shower of raindrops on her neck and hair. And Emil mowed his way slowly down toward the cherry trees. That summer the rains had been so many and opportune that it was almost more than Shabata and his man could do to keep up with the corn; the orchard was a neglected wilderness. All sorts of weeds and herbs and flowers had grown up there; splotches of wild larkspur, pale green-and-white spikes of hoarhound, plantations of wild cotton, tangles of foxtail and wild wheat. South of the apricot trees, cornering on the wheatfield, was Frank's alfalfa, where myriads of white and yellow butterflies were always fluttering above the purple blossoms. When Emil reached the lower corner by the hedge, Marie was sitting under her white mulberry tree, the pailful of cherries beside her, looking off at the gentle, tireless swelling of the wheat. "Emil," she said suddenly--he was mowing quietly about under the tree so as not to disturb her--"what religion did the Swedes have away back, before they were Christians?" Emil paused and straightened his back. "I don't know. About like the Germans', wasn't it?" Marie went on as if she had not heard him. "The Bohemians, you know, were tree worshipers before the missionaries came. Father says the people in the mountains still do queer things, sometimes,--they believe that trees bring good or bad luck." Emil looked superior. "Do they? Well, which are the lucky trees? I'd like to know." "I don't know all of them, but I know lindens are. The old people in the mountains plant lindens to purify the forest, and to do away with the spells that come from the old trees they say have lasted from heathen times. I'm a good Catholic, but I think I could get along with caring for trees, if I hadn't anything else." "That's a poor saying," said Emil, stooping over to wipe his hands in the wet grass. "Why is it? If I feel that way, I feel that way. I like trees because they seem more resigned to the way they have to live than other things do. I feel as if this tree knows everything I ever think of when I sit here. When I come back to it, I never have to remind it of anything; I begin just where I left off." Emil had nothing to say to this. He reached up among the branches and began to pick the sweet, insipid fruit,--long ivory-colored berries, tipped with faint pink, like white coral, that fall to the ground unheeded all summer through. He dropped a handful into her lap. "Do you like Mr. Linstrum?" Marie asked suddenly. "Yes. Don't you?" "Oh, ever so much; only he seems kind of staid and school-teachery. But, of course, he is older than Frank, even. I'm sure I don't want to live to be more than thirty, do you? Do you think Alexandra likes him very much?" "I suppose so. They were old friends." "Oh, Emil, you know what I mean!" Marie tossed her head impatiently. "Does she really care about him? When she used to tell me about him, I always wondered whether she wasn't a little in love with him." "Who, Alexandra?" Emil laughed and thrust his hands into his trousers pockets. "Alexandra's never been in love, you crazy!" He laughed again. "She wouldn't know how to go about it. The idea!" Marie shrugged her shoulders. "Oh, you don't know Alexandra as well as you think you do! If you had any eyes, you would see that she is very fond of him. It would serve you all right if she walked off with Carl. I like him because he appreciates her more than you do." Emil frowned. "What are you talking about, Marie? Alexandra's all right. She and I have always been good friends. What more do you want? I like to talk to Carl about New York and what a fellow can do there." "Oh, Emil! Surely you are not thinking of going off there?" "Why not? I must go somewhere, mustn't I?" The young man took up his scythe and leaned on it. "Would you rather I went off in the sand hills and lived like Ivar?" Marie's face fell under his brooding gaze. She looked down at his wet leggings. "I'm sure Alexandra hopes you will stay on here," she murmured. "Then Alexandra will be disappointed," the young man said roughly. "What do I want to hang around here for? Alexandra can run the farm all right, without me. I don't want to stand around and look on. I want to be doing something on my own account." "That's so," Marie sighed. "There are so many, many things you can do. Almost anything you choose." "And there are so many, many things I can't do." Emil echoed her tone sarcastically. "Sometimes I don't want to do anything at all, and sometimes I want to pull the four corners of the Divide together,"--he threw out his arm and brought it back with a jerk,--"so, like a table-cloth. I get tired of seeing men and horses going up and down, up and down." Marie looked up at his defiant figure and her face clouded. "I wish you weren't so restless, and didn't get so worked up over things," she said sadly. "Thank you," he returned shortly. She sighed despondently. "Everything I say makes you cross, don't it? And you never used to be cross to me." Emil took a step nearer and stood frowning down at her bent head. He stood in an attitude of self-defense, his feet well apart, his hands clenched and drawn up at his sides, so that the cords stood out on his bare arms. "I can't play with you like a little boy any more," he said slowly. "That's what you miss, Marie. You'll have to get some other little boy to play with." He stopped and took a deep breath. Then he went on in a low tone, so intense that it was almost threatening: "Sometimes you seem to understand perfectly, and then sometimes you pretend you don't. You don't help things any by pretending. It's then that I want to pull the corners of the Divide together. If you WON'T understand, you know, I could make you!" Marie clasped her hands and started up from her seat. She had grown very pale and her eyes were shining with excitement and distress. "But, Emil, if I understand, then all our good times are over, we can never do nice things together any more. We shall have to behave like Mr. Linstrum. And, anyhow, there's nothing to understand!" She struck the ground with her little foot fiercely. "That won't last. It will go away, and things will be just as they used to. I wish you were a Catholic. The Church helps people, indeed it does. I pray for you, but that's not the same as if you prayed yourself." She spoke rapidly and pleadingly, looked entreatingly into his face. Emil stood defiant, gazing down at her. "I can't pray to have the things I want," he said slowly, "and I won't pray not to have them, not if I'm damned for it." Marie turned away, wringing her hands. "Oh, Emil, you won't try! Then all our good times are over." "Yes; over. I never expect to have any more." Emil gripped the hand-holds of his scythe and began to mow. Marie took up her cherries and went slowly toward the house, crying bitterly.

Later in the evening, on the same day of Alexandra's visit to the Shabatas', Frank stays up late reading the newspaper, obsessed with thestory printed about a divorce in the community. The article lists all the extravagant expenses accrued by the husband, and Frank becomes outraged. Marie hates it when Frank reads the paper and gets so worked up about the affairs of the rich. Frank is obsessed with these stories. Like Lou, he is also a political agitator. It's been raining, and it's too wet to plough the next day. Frank heads over to a saloon in another town, while Marie stays home to churn butter. She hears Emil sharpening his scythe in her orchard. She goes down to meet him, saying she's there to pick cherries. Marie stops to talk swiftly about the rain and the wild roses, giving him instructions not to cut them. Then she runs down to pick cherries and Emil goes back to mowing. The narrator takes to describing the orchard. It's rained a lot this season, and the corn is abundant. The orchard has become totally overgrown with all sorts of weeds and wildflowers and butterflies fluttering about. Marie, who is sitting beneath the white mulberry tree, asks Emil what religion the Swedes practiced before Christianity. When he answers that he's not sure, Marie goes on to tell him that the ancient Bohemians worshipped trees, and that some rural folk still do. They believe certain trees bring good or bad luck. Marie says she thinks the linden trees are lucky. Though she's a good Catholic, she could picture herself worshipping trees. Emil doesn't think much of what she's saying, but she continues. She says she likes trees because of how resigned they are to their existence, and because of the knowledge they seem to have. Emil picks a handful of mulberries and drops them in Marie's lap. They start talking about Carl. Marie wonders whether Alexandra has feelings for him. Emil laughs at the idea, saying he doesn't think Alexandra even knows how to love. Marie disagrees. She says she can tell that Alexandra is in love. She adds that she likes Carl because he appreciates Alexandra more than Emil does. Emil scoffs. He and Alexandra are good friends, and he's not sure what else Marie expects. Plus, he likes Carl and enjoys talking to him about New York. Marie begs Emil not to think about moving away to the city. Emil says he has to go somewhere, and he's definitely not thinking about hanging around the farm. Emil starts to get angry with Marie as the conversation continues. Sometimes, he tells her, he wishes the Divide would just disappear. He's frustrated by his lack of skills and experience. Marie is hurt by his tone. Emil tells her in no uncertain terms that he's not a little boy anymore, and that she shouldn't mess around with him. He tells her to stop pretending--and if she doesn't try to understand what he means, he'll make her understand. Marie gets up, pale, and tells him that as far as she understands what he's saying, then their good times are over. But she insists that this will pass and that things will go back to the way they used to be . She tells him she wishes he were Catholic, since the church could help him. Emil says he'll never pray not to have what he wants, even if it means he'll be damned for it. Marie leaves crying, saying their good times are over. Emil announces that they're definitely over, and that he doesn't expect to have any more of them.

Having mounted beside her, Alec d'Urberville drove rapidly along the crest of the first hill, chatting compliments to Tess as they went, the cart with her box being left far behind. Rising still, an immense landscape stretched around them on every side; behind, the green valley of her birth, before, a gray country of which she knew nothing except from her first brief visit to Trantridge. Thus they reached the verge of an incline down which the road stretched in a long straight descent of nearly a mile. Ever since the accident with her father's horse Tess Durbeyfield, courageous as she naturally was, had been exceedingly timid on wheels; the least irregularity of motion startled her. She began to get uneasy at a certain recklessness in her conductor's driving. "You will go down slow, sir, I suppose?" she said with attempted unconcern. D'Urberville looked round upon her, nipped his cigar with the tips of his large white centre-teeth, and allowed his lips to smile slowly of themselves. "Why, Tess," he answered, after another whiff or two, "it isn't a brave bouncing girl like you who asks that? Why, I always go down at full gallop. There's nothing like it for raising your spirits." "But perhaps you need not now?" "Ah," he said, shaking his head, "there are two to be reckoned with. It is not me alone. Tib has to be considered, and she has a very queer temper." "Who?" "Why, this mare. I fancy she looked round at me in a very grim way just then. Didn't you notice it?" "Don't try to frighten me, sir," said Tess stiffly. "Well, I don't. If any living man can manage this horse I can: I won't say any living man can do it--but if such has the power, I am he." "Why do you have such a horse?" "Ah, well may you ask it! It was my fate, I suppose. Tib has killed one chap; and just after I bought her she nearly killed me. And then, take my word for it, I nearly killed her. But she's touchy still, very touchy; and one's life is hardly safe behind her sometimes." They were just beginning to descend; and it was evident that the horse, whether of her own will or of his (the latter being the more likely), knew so well the reckless performance expected of her that she hardly required a hint from behind. Down, down, they sped, the wheels humming like a top, the dog-cart rocking right and left, its axis acquiring a slightly oblique set in relation to the line of progress; the figure of the horse rising and falling in undulations before them. Sometimes a wheel was off the ground, it seemed, for many yards; sometimes a stone was sent spinning over the hedge, and flinty sparks from the horse's hoofs outshone the daylight. The aspect of the straight road enlarged with their advance, the two banks dividing like a splitting stick; one rushing past at each shoulder. The wind blew through Tess's white muslin to her very skin, and her washed hair flew out behind. She was determined to show no open fear, but she clutched d'Urberville's rein-arm. "Don't touch my arm! We shall be thrown out if you do! Hold on round my waist!" She grasped his waist, and so they reached the bottom. "Safe, thank God, in spite of your fooling!" said she, her face on fire. "Tess--fie! that's temper!" said d'Urberville. "'Tis truth." "Well, you need not let go your hold of me so thanklessly the moment you feel yourself our of danger." She had not considered what she had been doing; whether he were man or woman, stick or stone, in her involuntary hold on him. Recovering her reserve, she sat without replying, and thus they reached the summit of another declivity. "Now then, again!" said d'Urberville. "No, no!" said Tess. "Show more sense, do, please." "But when people find themselves on one of the highest points in the county, they must get down again," he retorted. He loosened rein, and away they went a second time. D'Urberville turned his face to her as they rocked, and said, in playful raillery: "Now then, put your arms round my waist again, as you did before, my Beauty." "Never!" said Tess independently, holding on as well as she could without touching him. "Let me put one little kiss on those holmberry lips, Tess, or even on that warmed cheek, and I'll stop--on my honour, I will!" Tess, surprised beyond measure, slid farther back still on her seat, at which he urged the horse anew, and rocked her the more. "Will nothing else do?" she cried at length, in desperation, her large eyes staring at him like those of a wild animal. This dressing her up so prettily by her mother had apparently been to lamentable purpose. "Nothing, dear Tess," he replied. "Oh, I don't know--very well; I don't mind!" she panted miserably. He drew rein, and as they slowed he was on the point of imprinting the desired salute, when, as if hardly yet aware of her own modesty, she dodged aside. His arms being occupied with the reins there was left him no power to prevent her manoeuvre. "Now, damn it--I'll break both our necks!" swore her capriciously passionate companion. "So you can go from your word like that, you young witch, can you?" "Very well," said Tess, "I'll not move since you be so determined! But I--thought you would be kind to me, and protect me, as my kinsman!" "Kinsman be hanged! Now!" "But I don't want anybody to kiss me, sir!" she implored, a big tear beginning to roll down her face, and the corners of her mouth trembling in her attempts not to cry. "And I wouldn't ha' come if I had known!" He was inexorable, and she sat still, and d'Urberville gave her the kiss of mastery. No sooner had he done so than she flushed with shame, took out her handkerchief, and wiped the spot on her cheek that had been touched by his lips. His ardour was nettled at the sight, for the act on her part had been unconsciously done. "You are mighty sensitive for a cottage girl!" said the young man. Tess made no reply to this remark, of which, indeed, she did not quite comprehend the drift, unheeding the snub she had administered by her instinctive rub upon her cheek. She had, in fact, undone the kiss, as far as such a thing was physically possible. With a dim sense that he was vexed she looked steadily ahead as they trotted on near Melbury Down and Wingreen, till she saw, to her consternation, that there was yet another descent to be undergone. "You shall be made sorry for that!" he resumed, his injured tone still remaining, as he flourished the whip anew. "Unless, that is, you agree willingly to let me do it again, and no handkerchief." She sighed. "Very well, sir!" she said. "Oh--let me get my hat!" At the moment of speaking her hat had blown off into the road, their present speed on the upland being by no means slow. D'Urberville pulled up, and said he would get it for her, but Tess was down on the other side. She turned back and picked up the article. "You look prettier with it off, upon my soul, if that's possible," he said, contemplating her over the back of the vehicle. "Now then, up again! What's the matter?" The hat was in place and tied, but Tess had not stepped forward. "No, sir," she said, revealing the red and ivory of her mouth as her eye lit in defiant triumph; "not again, if I know it!" "What--you won't get up beside me?" "No; I shall walk." "'Tis five or six miles yet to Trantridge." "I don't care if 'tis dozens. Besides, the cart is behind." "You artful hussy! Now, tell me--didn't you make that hat blow off on purpose? I'll swear you did!" Her strategic silence confirmed his suspicion. Then d'Urberville cursed and swore at her, and called her everything he could think of for the trick. Turning the horse suddenly he tried to drive back upon her, and so hem her in between the gig and the hedge. But he could not do this short of injuring her. "You ought to be ashamed of yourself for using such wicked words!" cried Tess with spirit, from the top of the hedge into which she had scrambled. "I don't like 'ee at all! I hate and detest you! I'll go back to mother, I will!" D'Urberville's bad temper cleared up at sight of hers; and he laughed heartily. "Well, I like you all the better," he said. "Come, let there be peace. I'll never do it any more against your will. My life upon it now!" Still Tess could not be induced to remount. She did not, however, object to his keeping his gig alongside her; and in this manner, at a slow pace, they advanced towards the village of Trantridge. From time to time d'Urberville exhibited a sort of fierce distress at the sight of the tramping he had driven her to undertake by his misdemeanour. She might in truth have safely trusted him now; but he had forfeited her confidence for the time, and she kept on the ground progressing thoughtfully, as if wondering whether it would be wiser to return home. Her resolve, however, had been taken, and it seemed vacillating even to childishness to abandon it now, unless for graver reasons. How could she face her parents, get back her box, and disconcert the whole scheme for the rehabilitation of her family on such sentimental grounds? A few minutes later the chimneys of The Slopes appeared in view, and in a snug nook to the right the poultry-farm and cottage of Tess' destination.

As Alec and Tess drive the carriage toward Trantridge, Tess becomes frightened by the quick movement of the horse as they go down the hill. She grasps Alec's arm, but he tells her to grasp his waist so that he can still control the horse. When the horse becomes calm, she reprimands him for driving so recklessly, but he tells her to put her arms around his waist again. She says never, but he persists. She says that she thought that he would be kind to her as her kinsman. He calls her rather sensitive for a cottage girl, and calls her an artful hussy.

There were moments of waiting. The youth thought of the village street at home before the arrival of the circus parade on a day in the spring. He remembered how he had stood, a small, thrillful boy, prepared to follow the dingy lady upon the white horse, or the band in its faded chariot. He saw the yellow road, the lines of expectant people, and the sober houses. He particularly remembered an old fellow who used to sit upon a cracker box in front of the store and feign to despise such exhibitions. A thousand details of color and form surged in his mind. The old fellow upon the cracker box appeared in middle prominence. Some one cried, "Here they come!" There was rustling and muttering among the men. They displayed a feverish desire to have every possible cartridge ready to their hands. The boxes were pulled around into various positions, and adjusted with great care. It was as if seven hundred new bonnets were being tried on. The tall soldier, having prepared his rifle, produced a red handkerchief of some kind. He was engaged in knitting it about his throat with exquisite attention to its position, when the cry was repeated up and down the line in a muffled roar of sound. "Here they come! Here they come!" Gun locks clicked. Across the smoke-infested fields came a brown swarm of running men who were giving shrill yells. They came on, stooping and swinging their rifles at all angles. A flag, tilted forward, sped near the front. As he caught sight of them the youth was momentarily startled by a thought that perhaps his gun was not loaded. He stood trying to rally his faltering intellect so that he might recollect the moment when he had loaded, but he could not. A hatless general pulled his dripping horse to a stand near the colonel of the 304th. He shook his fist in the other's face. "You 've got to hold 'em back!" he shouted, savagely; "you 've got to hold 'em back!" In his agitation the colonel began to stammer. "A-all r-right, General, all right, by Gawd! We--we'll do our--we-we'll d-d-do--do our best, General." The general made a passionate gesture and galloped away. The colonel, perchance to relieve his feelings, began to scold like a wet parrot. The youth, turning swiftly to make sure that the rear was unmolested, saw the commander regarding his men in a highly regretful manner, as if he regretted above everything his association with them. The man at the youth's elbow was mumbling, as if to himself: "Oh, we 're in for it now! oh, we 're in for it now!" The captain of the company had been pacing excitedly to and fro in the rear. He coaxed in schoolmistress fashion, as to a congregation of boys with primers. His talk was an endless repetition. "Reserve your fire, boys--don't shoot till I tell you--save your fire--wait till they get close up--don't be damned fools--" Perspiration streamed down the youth's face, which was soiled like that of a weeping urchin. He frequently, with a nervous movement, wiped his eyes with his coat sleeve. His mouth was still a little ways open. He got the one glance at the foe-swarming field in front of him, and instantly ceased to debate the question of his piece being loaded. Before he was ready to begin--before he had announced to himself that he was about to fight--he threw the obedient, well-balanced rifle into position and fired a first wild shot. Directly he was working at his weapon like an automatic affair. He suddenly lost concern for himself, and forgot to look at a menacing fate. He became not a man but a member. He felt that something of which he was a part--a regiment, an army, a cause, or a country--was in a crisis. He was welded into a common personality which was dominated by a single desire. For some moments he could not flee no more than a little finger can commit a revolution from a hand. If he had thought the regiment was about to be annihilated perhaps he could have amputated himself from it. But its noise gave him assurance. The regiment was like a firework that, once ignited, proceeds superior to circumstances until its blazing vitality fades. It wheezed and banged with a mighty power. He pictured the ground before it as strewn with the discomfited. There was a consciousness always of the presence of his comrades about him. He felt the subtle battle brotherhood more potent even than the cause for which they were fighting. It was a mysterious fraternity born of the smoke and danger of death. He was at a task. He was like a carpenter who has made many boxes, making still another box, only there was furious haste in his movements. He, in his thought, was careering off in other places, even as the carpenter who as he works whistles and thinks of his friend or his enemy, his home or a saloon. And these jolted dreams were never perfect to him afterward, but remained a mass of blurred shapes. Presently he began to feel the effects of the war atmosphere--a blistering sweat, a sensation that his eyeballs were about to crack like hot stones. A burning roar filled his ears. Following this came a red rage. He developed the acute exasperation of a pestered animal, a well-meaning cow worried by dogs. He had a mad feeling against his rifle, which could only be used against one life at a time. He wished to rush forward and strangle with his fingers. He craved a power that would enable him to make a world-sweeping gesture and brush all back. His impotency appeared to him, and made his rage into that of a driven beast. Buried in the smoke of many rifles his anger was directed not so much against the men whom he knew were rushing toward him as against the swirling battle phantoms which were choking him, stuffing their smoke robes down his parched throat. He fought frantically for respite for his senses, for air, as a babe being smothered attacks the deadly blankets. There was a blare of heated rage mingled with a certain expression of intentness on all faces. Many of the men were making low-toned noises with their mouths, and these subdued cheers, snarls, imprecations, prayers, made a wild, barbaric song that went as an undercurrent of sound, strange and chantlike with the resounding chords of the war march. The man at the youth's elbow was babbling. In it there was something soft and tender like the monologue of a babe. The tall soldier was swearing in a loud voice. From his lips came a black procession of curious oaths. Of a sudden another broke out in a querulous way like a man who has mislaid his hat. "Well, why don't they support us? Why don't they send supports? Do they think--" The youth in his battle sleep heard this as one who dozes hears. There was a singular absence of heroic poses. The men bending and surging in their haste and rage were in every impossible attitude. The steel ramrods clanked and clanged with incessant din as the men pounded them furiously into the hot rifle barrels. The flaps of the cartridge boxes were all unfastened, and bobbed idiotically with each movement. The rifles, once loaded, were jerked to the shoulder and fired without apparent aim into the smoke or at one of the blurred and shifting forms which upon the field before the regiment had been growing larger and larger like puppets under a magician's hand. The officers, at their intervals, rearward, neglected to stand in picturesque attitudes. They were bobbing to and fro roaring directions and encouragements. The dimensions of their howls were extraordinary. They expended their lungs with prodigal wills. And often they nearly stood upon their heads in their anxiety to observe the enemy on the other side of the tumbling smoke. The lieutenant of the youth's company had encountered a soldier who had fled screaming at the first volley of his comrades. Behind the lines these two were acting a little isolated scene. The man was blubbering and staring with sheeplike eyes at the lieutenant, who had seized him by the collar and was pommeling him. He drove him back into the ranks with many blows. The soldier went mechanically, dully, with his animal-like eyes upon the officer. Perhaps there was to him a divinity expressed in the voice of the other--stern, hard, with no reflection of fear in it. He tried to reload his gun, but his shaking hands prevented. The lieutenant was obliged to assist him. The men dropped here and there like bundles. The captain of the youth's company had been killed in an early part of the action. His body lay stretched out in the position of a tired man resting, but upon his face there was an astonished and sorrowful look, as if he thought some friend had done him an ill turn. The babbling man was grazed by a shot that made the blood stream widely down his face. He clapped both hands to his head. "Oh!" he said, and ran. Another grunted suddenly as if he had been struck by a club in the stomach. He sat down and gazed ruefully. In his eyes there was mute, indefinite reproach. Farther up the line a man, standing behind a tree, had had his knee joint splintered by a ball. Immediately he had dropped his rifle and gripped the tree with both arms. And there he remained, clinging desperately and crying for assistance that he might withdraw his hold upon the tree. At last an exultant yell went along the quivering line. The firing dwindled from an uproar to a last vindictive popping. As the smoke slowly eddied away, the youth saw that the charge had been repulsed. The enemy were scattered into reluctant groups. He saw a man climb to the top of the fence, straddle the rail, and fire a parting shot. The waves had receded, leaving bits of dark debris upon the ground. Some in the regiment began to whoop frenziedly. Many were silent. Apparently they were trying to contemplate themselves. After the fever had left his veins, the youth thought that at last he was going to suffocate. He became aware of the foul atmosphere in which he had been struggling. He was grimy and dripping like a laborer in a foundry. He grasped his canteen and took a long swallow of the warmed water. A sentence with variations went up and down the line. "Well, we 've helt 'em back. We 've helt 'em back; derned if we haven't." The men said it blissfully, leering at each other with dirty smiles. The youth turned to look behind him and off to the right and off to the left. He experienced the joy of a man who at last finds leisure in which to look about him. Under foot there were a few ghastly forms motionless. They lay twisted in fantastic contortions. Arms were bent and heads were turned in incredible ways. It seemed that the dead men must have fallen from some great height to get into such positions. They looked to be dumped out upon the ground from the sky. From a position in the rear of the grove a battery was throwing shells over it. The flash of the guns startled the youth at first. He thought they were aimed directly at him. Through the trees he watched the black figures of the gunners as they worked swiftly and intently. Their labor seemed a complicated thing. He wondered how they could remember its formula in the midst of confusion. The guns squatted in a row like savage chiefs. They argued with abrupt violence. It was a grim pow-wow. Their busy servants ran hither and thither. A small procession of wounded men were going drearily toward the rear. It was a flow of blood from the torn body of the brigade. To the right and to the left were the dark lines of other troops. Far in front he thought he could see lighter masses protruding in points from the forest. They were suggestive of unnumbered thousands. Once he saw a tiny battery go dashing along the line of the horizon. The tiny riders were beating the tiny horses. From a sloping hill came the sound of cheerings and clashes. Smoke welled slowly through the leaves. Batteries were speaking with thunderous oratorical effort. Here and there were flags, the red in the stripes dominating. They splashed bits of warm color upon the dark lines of troops. The youth felt the old thrill at the sight of the emblem. They were like beautiful birds strangely undaunted in a storm. As he listened to the din from the hillside, to a deep pulsating thunder that came from afar to the left, and to the lesser clamors which came from many directions, it occurred to him that they were fighting, too, over there, and over there, and over there. Heretofore he had supposed that all the battle was directly under his nose. As he gazed around him the youth felt a flash of astonishment at the blue, pure sky and the sun gleamings on the trees and fields. It was surprising that Nature had gone tranquilly on with her golden process in the midst of so much devilment.

Suddenly someone yells, "Here they come!" And sure enough, the Confederates rush at Henry's group of soldiers. Henry surprises himself by totally forgetting his own fear. He shoots and reloads like a madman. He feels as if he is a part of something large and multi-bodied . There are many excellent descriptions of the injured dead and dying. Really gruesomely gorgeous stuff. When one soldier tries to run away, the lieutenant beats him up. When it is over, Henry feels weary, but proud at seeing the Union flag still flying. He is also amazed to see that the sun is still shining; that nature takes no notice of the bloody deeds done on its tranquil soil.

ACT IV. SCENE I. The forest Enter ROSALIND, CELIA, and JAQUES JAQUES. I prithee, pretty youth, let me be better acquainted with thee. ROSALIND. They say you are a melancholy fellow. JAQUES. I am so; I do love it better than laughing. ROSALIND. Those that are in extremity of either are abominable fellows, and betray themselves to every modern censure worse than drunkards. JAQUES. Why, 'tis good to be sad and say nothing. ROSALIND. Why then, 'tis good to be a post. JAQUES. I have neither the scholar's melancholy, which is emulation; nor the musician's, which is fantastical; nor the courtier's, which is proud; nor the soldier's, which is ambitious; nor the lawyer's, which is politic; nor the lady's, which is nice; nor the lover's, which is all these; but it is a melancholy of mine own, compounded of many simples, extracted from many objects, and, indeed, the sundry contemplation of my travels; in which my often rumination wraps me in a most humorous sadness. ROSALIND. A traveller! By my faith, you have great reason to be sad. I fear you have sold your own lands to see other men's; then to have seen much and to have nothing is to have rich eyes and poor hands. JAQUES. Yes, I have gain'd my experience. Enter ORLANDO ROSALIND. And your experience makes you sad. I had rather have a fool to make me merry than experience to make me sad- and to travel for it too. ORLANDO. Good day, and happiness, dear Rosalind! JAQUES. Nay, then, God buy you, an you talk in blank verse. ROSALIND. Farewell, Monsieur Traveller; look you lisp and wear strange suits, disable all the benefits of your own country, be out of love with your nativity, and almost chide God for making you that countenance you are; or I will scarce think you have swam in a gondola. [Exit JAQUES] Why, how now, Orlando! where have you been all this while? You a lover! An you serve me such another trick, never come in my sight more. ORLANDO. My fair Rosalind, I come within an hour of my promise. ROSALIND. Break an hour's promise in love! He that will divide a minute into a thousand parts, and break but a part of the thousand part of a minute in the affairs of love, it may be said of him that Cupid hath clapp'd him o' th' shoulder, but I'll warrant him heart-whole. ORLANDO. Pardon me, dear Rosalind. ROSALIND. Nay, an you be so tardy, come no more in my sight. I had as lief be woo'd of a snail. ORLANDO. Of a snail! ROSALIND. Ay, of a snail; for though he comes slowly, he carries his house on his head- a better jointure, I think, than you make a woman; besides, he brings his destiny with him. ORLANDO. What's that? ROSALIND. Why, horns; which such as you are fain to be beholding to your wives for; but he comes armed in his fortune, and prevents the slander of his wife. ORLANDO. Virtue is no horn-maker; and my Rosalind is virtuous. ROSALIND. And I am your Rosalind. CELIA. It pleases him to call you so; but he hath a Rosalind of a better leer than you. ROSALIND. Come, woo me, woo me; for now I am in a holiday humour, and like enough to consent. What would you say to me now, an I were your very very Rosalind? ORLANDO. I would kiss before I spoke. ROSALIND. Nay, you were better speak first; and when you were gravell'd for lack of matter, you might take occasion to kiss. Very good orators, when they are out, they will spit; and for lovers lacking- God warn us!- matter, the cleanliest shift is to kiss. ORLANDO. How if the kiss be denied? ROSALIND. Then she puts you to entreaty, and there begins new matter. ORLANDO. Who could be out, being before his beloved mistress? ROSALIND. Marry, that should you, if I were your mistress; or I should think my honesty ranker than my wit. ORLANDO. What, of my suit? ROSALIND. Not out of your apparel, and yet out of your suit. Am not I your Rosalind? ORLANDO. I take some joy to say you are, because I would be talking of her. ROSALIND. Well, in her person, I say I will not have you. ORLANDO. Then, in mine own person, I die. ROSALIND. No, faith, die by attorney. The poor world is almost six thousand years old, and in all this time there was not any man died in his own person, videlicet, in a love-cause. Troilus had his brains dash'd out with a Grecian club; yet he did what he could to die before, and he is one of the patterns of love. Leander, he would have liv'd many a fair year, though Hero had turn'd nun, if it had not been for a hot midsummer night; for, good youth, he went but forth to wash him in the Hellespont, and, being taken with the cramp, was drown'd; and the foolish chroniclers of that age found it was- Hero of Sestos. But these are all lies: men have died from time to time, and worms have eaten them, but not for love. ORLANDO. I would not have my right Rosalind of this mind; for, I protest, her frown might kill me. ROSALIND. By this hand, it will not kill a fly. But come, now I will be your Rosalind in a more coming-on disposition; and ask me what you will, I will grant it. ORLANDO. Then love me, Rosalind. ROSALIND. Yes, faith, will I, Fridays and Saturdays, and all. ORLANDO. And wilt thou have me? ROSALIND. Ay, and twenty such. ORLANDO. What sayest thou? ROSALIND. Are you not good? ORLANDO. I hope so. ROSALIND. Why then, can one desire too much of a good thing? Come, sister, you shall be the priest, and marry us. Give me your hand, Orlando. What do you say, sister? ORLANDO. Pray thee, marry us. CELIA. I cannot say the words. ROSALIND. You must begin 'Will you, Orlando'- CELIA. Go to. Will you, Orlando, have to wife this Rosalind? ORLANDO. I will. ROSALIND. Ay, but when? ORLANDO. Why, now; as fast as she can marry us. ROSALIND. Then you must say 'I take thee, Rosalind, for wife.' ORLANDO. I take thee, Rosalind, for wife. ROSALIND. I might ask you for your commission; but- I do take thee, Orlando, for my husband. There's a girl goes before the priest; and, certainly, a woman's thought runs before her actions. ORLANDO. So do all thoughts; they are wing'd. ROSALIND. Now tell me how long you would have her, after you have possess'd her. ORLANDO. For ever and a day. ROSALIND. Say 'a day' without the 'ever.' No, no, Orlando; men are April when they woo, December when they wed: maids are May when they are maids, but the sky changes when they are wives. I will be more jealous of thee than a Barbary cock-pigeon over his hen, more clamorous than a parrot against rain, more new-fangled than an ape, more giddy in my desires than a monkey. I will weep for nothing, like Diana in the fountain, and I will do that when you are dispos'd to be merry; I will laugh like a hyen, and that when thou are inclin'd to sleep. ORLANDO. But will my Rosalind do so? ROSALIND. By my life, she will do as I do. ORLANDO. O, but she is wise. ROSALIND. Or else she could not have the wit to do this. The wiser, the waywarder. Make the doors upon a woman's wit, and it will out at the casement; shut that, and 'twill out at the key-hole; stop that, 'twill fly with the smoke out at the chimney. ORLANDO. A man that had a wife with such a wit, he might say 'Wit, whither wilt?' ROSALIND. Nay, you might keep that check for it, till you met your wife's wit going to your neighbour's bed. ORLANDO. And what wit could wit have to excuse that? ROSALIND. Marry, to say she came to seek you there. You shall never take her without her answer, unless you take her without her tongue. O, that woman that cannot make her fault her husband's occasion, let her never nurse her child herself, for she will breed it like a fool! ORLANDO. For these two hours, Rosalind, I will leave thee. ROSALIND. Alas, dear love, I cannot lack thee two hours! ORLANDO. I must attend the Duke at dinner; by two o'clock I will be with thee again. ROSALIND. Ay, go your ways, go your ways. I knew what you would prove; my friends told me as much, and I thought no less. That flattering tongue of yours won me. 'Tis but one cast away, and so, come death! Two o'clock is your hour? ORLANDO. Ay, sweet Rosalind. ROSALIND. By my troth, and in good earnest, and so God mend me, and by all pretty oaths that are not dangerous, if you break one jot of your promise, or come one minute behind your hour, I will think you the most pathetical break-promise, and the most hollow lover, and the most unworthy of her you call Rosalind, that may be chosen out of the gross band of the unfaithful. Therefore beware my censure, and keep your promise. ORLANDO. With no less religion than if thou wert indeed my Rosalind; so, adieu. ROSALIND. Well, Time is the old justice that examines all such offenders, and let Time try. Adieu. Exit ORLANDO CELIA. You have simply misus'd our sex in your love-prate. We must have your doublet and hose pluck'd over your head, and show the world what the bird hath done to her own nest. ROSALIND. O coz, coz, coz, my pretty little coz, that thou didst know how many fathom deep I am in love! But it cannot be sounded; my affection hath an unknown bottom, like the Bay of Portugal. CELIA. Or rather, bottomless; that as fast as you pour affection in, it runs out. ROSALIND. No; that same wicked bastard of Venus, that was begot of thought, conceiv'd of spleen, and born of madness; that blind rascally boy, that abuses every one's eyes, because his own are out- let him be judge how deep I am in love. I'll tell thee, Aliena, I cannot be out of the sight of Orlando. I'll go find a shadow, and sigh till he come. CELIA. And I'll sleep. Exeunt

While Celia listens to their arguing, Rosalind and Jaques banter about his melancholy; Jaques maintains that it is "good to be sad and say nothing," while Rosalind maintains that if one is sad and silent, one might as well "be a post." When Orlando finally arrives , Jaques bids Ganymede goodbye. Turning to Orlando, Ganymede berates him for his tardiness, then lovingly invites him to woo Ganymede as if he were Orlando's beloved Rosalind; in turn, Ganymede will tease and taunt Orlando as if he were Rosalind. Ganymede wittily instructs Orlando thus in the wily ways of love and women. "You shall never take her without her answer, unless you take her without her tongue," Orlando is warned. At this point, Orlando says that he must leave to attend Duke Senior at dinner, but he promises to return at two o'clock. After he has gone, Celia accuses Rosalind of speaking ill of women; she suggests that perhaps Rosalind should have her doublet and hose "plucked over head in order to show the world what the bird hath done to her own nest." Rosalind, in answer, says that love has made her a bit mad; she has such a love for Orlando that she cannot bear to be out of his sight. With that, she leaves and goes to "find a shadow and sigh till he come." Celia decides to take a nap.

Elinor saw, with great uneasiness the low spirits of her friend. His visit afforded her but a very partial satisfaction, while his own enjoyment in it appeared so imperfect. It was evident that he was unhappy; she wished it were equally evident that he still distinguished her by the same affection which once she had felt no doubt of inspiring; but hitherto the continuance of his preference seemed very uncertain; and the reservedness of his manner towards her contradicted one moment what a more animated look had intimated the preceding one. He joined her and Marianne in the breakfast-room the next morning before the others were down; and Marianne, who was always eager to promote their happiness as far as she could, soon left them to themselves. But before she was half way upstairs she heard the parlour door open, and, turning round, was astonished to see Edward himself come out. "I am going into the village to see my horses," said he, "as you are not yet ready for breakfast; I shall be back again presently." *** Edward returned to them with fresh admiration of the surrounding country; in his walk to the village, he had seen many parts of the valley to advantage; and the village itself, in a much higher situation than the cottage, afforded a general view of the whole, which had exceedingly pleased him. This was a subject which ensured Marianne's attention, and she was beginning to describe her own admiration of these scenes, and to question him more minutely on the objects that had particularly struck him, when Edward interrupted her by saying, "You must not enquire too far, Marianne--remember I have no knowledge in the picturesque, and I shall offend you by my ignorance and want of taste if we come to particulars. I shall call hills steep, which ought to be bold; surfaces strange and uncouth, which ought to be irregular and rugged; and distant objects out of sight, which ought only to be indistinct through the soft medium of a hazy atmosphere. You must be satisfied with such admiration as I can honestly give. I call it a very fine country--the hills are steep, the woods seem full of fine timber, and the valley looks comfortable and snug--with rich meadows and several neat farm houses scattered here and there. It exactly answers my idea of a fine country, because it unites beauty with utility--and I dare say it is a picturesque one too, because you admire it; I can easily believe it to be full of rocks and promontories, grey moss and brush wood, but these are all lost on me. I know nothing of the picturesque." "I am afraid it is but too true," said Marianne; "but why should you boast of it?" "I suspect," said Elinor, "that to avoid one kind of affectation, Edward here falls into another. Because he believes many people pretend to more admiration of the beauties of nature than they really feel, and is disgusted with such pretensions, he affects greater indifference and less discrimination in viewing them himself than he possesses. He is fastidious and will have an affectation of his own." "It is very true," said Marianne, "that admiration of landscape scenery is become a mere jargon. Every body pretends to feel and tries to describe with the taste and elegance of him who first defined what picturesque beauty was. I detest jargon of every kind, and sometimes I have kept my feelings to myself, because I could find no language to describe them in but what was worn and hackneyed out of all sense and meaning." "I am convinced," said Edward, "that you really feel all the delight in a fine prospect which you profess to feel. But, in return, your sister must allow me to feel no more than I profess. I like a fine prospect, but not on picturesque principles. I do not like crooked, twisted, blasted trees. I admire them much more if they are tall, straight, and flourishing. I do not like ruined, tattered cottages. I am not fond of nettles or thistles, or heath blossoms. I have more pleasure in a snug farm-house than a watch-tower--and a troop of tidy, happy villages please me better than the finest banditti in the world." Marianne looked with amazement at Edward, with compassion at her sister. Elinor only laughed. The subject was continued no farther; and Marianne remained thoughtfully silent, till a new object suddenly engaged her attention. She was sitting by Edward, and in taking his tea from Mrs. Dashwood, his hand passed so directly before her, as to make a ring, with a plait of hair in the centre, very conspicuous on one of his fingers. "I never saw you wear a ring before, Edward," she cried. "Is that Fanny's hair? I remember her promising to give you some. But I should have thought her hair had been darker." Marianne spoke inconsiderately what she really felt--but when she saw how much she had pained Edward, her own vexation at her want of thought could not be surpassed by his. He coloured very deeply, and giving a momentary glance at Elinor, replied, "Yes; it is my sister's hair. The setting always casts a different shade on it, you know." Elinor had met his eye, and looked conscious likewise. That the hair was her own, she instantaneously felt as well satisfied as Marianne; the only difference in their conclusions was, that what Marianne considered as a free gift from her sister, Elinor was conscious must have been procured by some theft or contrivance unknown to herself. She was not in a humour, however, to regard it as an affront, and affecting to take no notice of what passed, by instantly talking of something else, she internally resolved henceforward to catch every opportunity of eyeing the hair and of satisfying herself, beyond all doubt, that it was exactly the shade of her own. Edward's embarrassment lasted some time, and it ended in an absence of mind still more settled. He was particularly grave the whole morning. Marianne severely censured herself for what she had said; but her own forgiveness might have been more speedy, had she known how little offence it had given her sister. Before the middle of the day, they were visited by Sir John and Mrs. Jennings, who, having heard of the arrival of a gentleman at the cottage, came to take a survey of the guest. With the assistance of his mother-in-law, Sir John was not long in discovering that the name of Ferrars began with an F. and this prepared a future mine of raillery against the devoted Elinor, which nothing but the newness of their acquaintance with Edward could have prevented from being immediately sprung. But, as it was, she only learned, from some very significant looks, how far their penetration, founded on Margaret's instructions, extended. Sir John never came to the Dashwoods without either inviting them to dine at the park the next day, or to drink tea with them that evening. On the present occasion, for the better entertainment of their visitor, towards whose amusement he felt himself bound to contribute, he wished to engage them for both. "You MUST drink tea with us to night," said he, "for we shall be quite alone--and tomorrow you must absolutely dine with us, for we shall be a large party." Mrs. Jennings enforced the necessity. "And who knows but you may raise a dance," said she. "And that will tempt YOU, Miss Marianne." "A dance!" cried Marianne. "Impossible! Who is to dance?" "Who! why yourselves, and the Careys, and Whitakers to be sure.--What! you thought nobody could dance because a certain person that shall be nameless is gone!" "I wish with all my soul," cried Sir John, "that Willoughby were among us again." This, and Marianne's blushing, gave new suspicions to Edward. "And who is Willoughby?" said he, in a low voice, to Miss Dashwood, by whom he was sitting. She gave him a brief reply. Marianne's countenance was more communicative. Edward saw enough to comprehend, not only the meaning of others, but such of Marianne's expressions as had puzzled him before; and when their visitors left them, he went immediately round her, and said, in a whisper, "I have been guessing. Shall I tell you my guess?" "What do you mean?" "Shall I tell you." "Certainly." "Well then; I guess that Mr. Willoughby hunts." Marianne was surprised and confused, yet she could not help smiling at the quiet archness of his manner, and after a moment's silence, said, "Oh, Edward! How can you?--But the time will come I hope...I am sure you will like him." "I do not doubt it," replied he, rather astonished at her earnestness and warmth; for had he not imagined it to be a joke for the good of her acquaintance in general, founded only on a something or a nothing between Mr. Willoughby and herself, he would not have ventured to mention it.

Edward's reticence became more noticeable as his visit continued. On one occasion Marianne attempted to leave the couple alone together and met with the speedy withdrawal of Edward from the room where she had left them. One day when the sisters and Edward were having breakfast, Marianne noticed "a ring, with a plait of hair in the centre," on one of Edward's fingers. She asked him if it was Fanny's, and Edward answered in the affirmative. Elinor and Marianne, however, believed it was Elinor's, although while Marianne thought it was freely given, Elinor was "conscious it must have been procured by some theft or contrivance unknown to herself." At noon, Sir John and Mrs. Jennings arrived, curious about the guest at the cottage. Realizing that he was the mysterious man with a name beginning with "F," Sir John insisted that they must "drink tea" at Barton Park that night and dine there the following day.

The month, as I have said, was not yet out, but it was already far through August, and beautiful warm weather, with every sign of an early and great harvest, when I was pronounced able for my journey. Our money was now run to so low an ebb that we must think first of all on speed; for if we came not soon to Mr. Rankeillor's, or if when we came there he should fail to help me, we must surely starve. In Alan's view, besides, the hunt must have now greatly slackened; and the line of the Forth and even Stirling Bridge, which is the main pass over that river, would be watched with little interest. "It's a chief principle in military affairs," said he, "to go where ye are least expected. Forth is our trouble; ye ken the saying, 'Forth bridles the wild Hielandman.' Well, if we seek to creep round about the head of that river and come down by Kippen or Balfron, it's just precisely there that they'll be looking to lay hands on us. But if we stave on straight to the auld Brig of Stirling, I'll lay my sword they let us pass unchallenged." The first night, accordingly, we pushed to the house of a Maclaren in Strathire, a friend of Duncan's, where we slept the twenty-first of the month, and whence we set forth again about the fall of night to make another easy stage. The twenty-second we lay in a heather bush on the hillside in Uam Var, within view of a herd of deer, the happiest ten hours of sleep in a fine, breathing sunshine and on bone-dry ground, that I have ever tasted. That night we struck Allan Water, and followed it down; and coming to the edge of the hills saw the whole Carse of Stirling underfoot, as flat as a pancake, with the town and castle on a hill in the midst of it, and the moon shining on the Links of Forth. "Now," said Alan, "I kenna if ye care, but ye're in your own land again. We passed the Hieland Line in the first hour; and now if we could but pass yon crooked water, we might cast our bonnets in the air." In Allan Water, near by where it falls into the Forth, we found a little sandy islet, overgrown with burdock, butterbur and the like low plants, that would just cover us if we lay flat. Here it was we made our camp, within plain view of Stirling Castle, whence we could hear the drums beat as some part of the garrison paraded. Shearers worked all day in a field on one side of the river, and we could hear the stones going on the hooks and the voices and even the words of the men talking. It behoved to lie close and keep silent. But the sand of the little isle was sun-warm, the green plants gave us shelter for our heads, we had food and drink in plenty; and to crown all, we were within sight of safety. As soon as the shearers quit their work and the dusk began to fall, we waded ashore and struck for the Bridge of Stirling, keeping to the fields and under the field fences. The bridge is close under the castle hill, an old, high, narrow bridge with pinnacles along the parapet; and you may conceive with how much interest I looked upon it, not only as a place famous in history, but as the very doors of salvation to Alan and myself. The moon was not yet up when we came there; a few lights shone along the front of the fortress, and lower down a few lighted windows in the town; but it was all mighty still, and there seemed to be no guard upon the passage. I was for pushing straight across; but Alan was more wary. "It looks unco' quiet," said he; "but for all that we'll lie down here cannily behind a dyke, and make sure." So we lay for about a quarter of an hour, whiles whispering, whiles lying still and hearing nothing earthly but the washing of the water on the piers. At last there came by an old, hobbling woman with a crutch stick; who first stopped a little, close to where we lay, and bemoaned herself and the long way she had travelled; and then set forth again up the steep spring of the bridge. The woman was so little, and the night still so dark, that we soon lost sight of her; only heard the sound of her steps, and her stick, and a cough that she had by fits, draw slowly farther away. "She's bound to be across now," I whispered. "Na," said Alan, "her foot still sounds boss* upon the bridge." * Hollow. And just then--"Who goes?" cried a voice, and we heard the butt of a musket rattle on the stones. I must suppose the sentry had been sleeping, so that had we tried, we might have passed unseen; but he was awake now, and the chance forfeited. "This'll never do," said Alan. "This'll never, never do for us, David." And without another word, he began to crawl away through the fields; and a little after, being well out of eye-shot, got to his feet again, and struck along a road that led to the eastward. I could not conceive what he was doing; and indeed I was so sharply cut by the disappointment, that I was little likely to be pleased with anything. A moment back and I had seen myself knocking at Mr. Rankeillor's door to claim my inheritance, like a hero in a ballad; and here was I back again, a wandering, hunted blackguard, on the wrong side of Forth. "Well?" said I. "Well," said Alan, "what would ye have? They're none such fools as I took them for. We have still the Forth to pass, Davie--weary fall the rains that fed and the hillsides that guided it!" "And why go east?" said I. "Ou, just upon the chance!" said he. "If we cannae pass the river, we'll have to see what we can do for the firth." "There are fords upon the river, and none upon the firth," said I. "To be sure there are fords, and a bridge forbye," quoth Alan; "and of what service, when they are watched?" "Well," said I, "but a river can be swum." "By them that have the skill of it," returned he; "but I have yet to hear that either you or me is much of a hand at that exercise; and for my own part, I swim like a stone." "I'm not up to you in talking back, Alan," I said; "but I can see we're making bad worse. If it's hard to pass a river, it stands to reason it must be worse to pass a sea." "But there's such a thing as a boat," says Alan, "or I'm the more deceived." "Ay, and such a thing as money," says I. "But for us that have neither one nor other, they might just as well not have been invented." "Ye think so?" said Alan. "I do that," said I. "David," says he, "ye're a man of small invention and less faith. But let me set my wits upon the hone, and if I cannae beg, borrow, nor yet steal a boat, I'll make one!" "I think I see ye!" said I. "And what's more than all that: if ye pass a bridge, it can tell no tales; but if we pass the firth, there's the boat on the wrong side--somebody must have brought it--the country-side will all be in a bizz---" "Man!" cried Alan, "if I make a boat, I'll make a body to take it back again! So deave me with no more of your nonsense, but walk (for that's what you've got to do)--and let Alan think for ye." All night, then, we walked through the north side of the Carse under the high line of the Ochil mountains; and by Alloa and Clackmannan and Culross, all of which we avoided: and about ten in the morning, mighty hungry and tired, came to the little clachan of Limekilns. This is a place that sits near in by the water-side, and looks across the Hope to the town of the Queensferry. Smoke went up from both of these, and from other villages and farms upon all hands. The fields were being reaped; two ships lay anchored, and boats were coming and going on the Hope. It was altogether a right pleasant sight to me; and I could not take my fill of gazing at these comfortable, green, cultivated hills and the busy people both of the field and sea. For all that, there was Mr. Rankeillor's house on the south shore, where I had no doubt wealth awaited me; and here was I upon the north, clad in poor enough attire of an outlandish fashion, with three silver shillings left to me of all my fortune, a price set upon my head, and an outlawed man for my sole company. "O, Alan!" said I, "to think of it! Over there, there's all that heart could want waiting me; and the birds go over, and the boats go over--all that please can go, but just me only! O, man, but it's a heart-break!" In Limekilns we entered a small change-house, which we only knew to be a public by the wand over the door, and bought some bread and cheese from a good-looking lass that was the servant. This we carried with us in a bundle, meaning to sit and eat it in a bush of wood on the sea-shore, that we saw some third part of a mile in front. As we went, I kept looking across the water and sighing to myself; and though I took no heed of it, Alan had fallen into a muse. At last he stopped in the way. "Did ye take heed of the lass we bought this of?" says he, tapping on the bread and cheese. "To be sure," said I, "and a bonny lass she was." "Ye thought that?" cries he. "Man, David, that's good news." "In the name of all that's wonderful, why so?" says I. "What good can that do?" "Well," said Alan, with one of his droll looks, "I was rather in hopes it would maybe get us that boat." "If it were the other way about, it would be liker it," said I. "That's all that you ken, ye see," said Alan. "I don't want the lass to fall in love with ye, I want her to be sorry for ye, David; to which end there is no manner of need that she should take you for a beauty. Let me see" (looking me curiously over). "I wish ye were a wee thing paler; but apart from that ye'll do fine for my purpose--ye have a fine, hang-dog, rag-and-tatter, clappermaclaw kind of a look to ye, as if ye had stolen the coat from a potato-bogle. Come; right about, and back to the change-house for that boat of ours." I followed him, laughing. "David Balfour," said he, "ye're a very funny gentleman by your way of it, and this is a very funny employ for ye, no doubt. For all that, if ye have any affection for my neck (to say nothing of your own) ye will perhaps be kind enough to take this matter responsibly. I am going to do a bit of play-acting, the bottom ground of which is just exactly as serious as the gallows for the pair of us. So bear it, if ye please, in mind, and conduct yourself according." "Well, well," said I, "have it as you will." As we got near the clachan, he made me take his arm and hang upon it like one almost helpless with weariness; and by the time he pushed open the change-house door, he seemed to be half carrying me. The maid appeared surprised (as well she might be) at our speedy return; but Alan had no words to spare for her in explanation, helped me to a chair, called for a tass of brandy with which he fed me in little sips, and then breaking up the bread and cheese helped me to eat it like a nursery-lass; the whole with that grave, concerned, affectionate countenance, that might have imposed upon a judge. It was small wonder if the maid were taken with the picture we presented, of a poor, sick, overwrought lad and his most tender comrade. She drew quite near, and stood leaning with her back on the next table. "What's like wrong with him?" said she at last. Alan turned upon her, to my great wonder, with a kind of fury. "Wrong?" cries he. "He's walked more hundreds of miles than he has hairs upon his chin, and slept oftener in wet heather than dry sheets. Wrong, quo' she! Wrong enough, I would think! Wrong, indeed!" and he kept grumbling to himself as he fed me, like a man ill-pleased. "He's young for the like of that," said the maid. "Ower young," said Alan, with his back to her. "He would be better riding," says she. "And where could I get a horse to him?" cried Alan, turning on her with the same appearance of fury. "Would ye have me steal?" I thought this roughness would have sent her off in dudgeon, as indeed it closed her mouth for the time. But my companion knew very well what he was doing; and for as simple as he was in some things of life, had a great fund of roguishness in such affairs as these. "Ye neednae tell me," she said at last--"ye're gentry." "Well," said Alan, softened a little (I believe against his will) by this artless comment, "and suppose we were? Did ever you hear that gentrice put money in folk's pockets?" She sighed at this, as if she were herself some disinherited great lady. "No," says she, "that's true indeed." I was all this while chafing at the part I played, and sitting tongue-tied between shame and merriment; but somehow at this I could hold in no longer, and bade Alan let me be, for I was better already. My voice stuck in my throat, for I ever hated to take part in lies; but my very embarrassment helped on the plot, for the lass no doubt set down my husky voice to sickness and fatigue. "Has he nae friends?" said she, in a tearful voice. "That has he so!" cried Alan, "if we could but win to them!--friends and rich friends, beds to lie in, food to eat, doctors to see to him--and here he must tramp in the dubs and sleep in the heather like a beggarman." "And why that?" says the lass. "My dear," said Alan, "I cannae very safely say; but I'll tell ye what I'll do instead," says he, "I'll whistle ye a bit tune." And with that he leaned pretty far over the table, and in a mere breath of a whistle, but with a wonderful pretty sentiment, gave her a few bars of "Charlie is my darling." "Wheesht," says she, and looked over her shoulder to the door. "That's it," said Alan. "And him so young!" cries the lass. "He's old enough to----" and Alan struck his forefinger on the back part of his neck, meaning that I was old enough to lose my head. "It would be a black shame," she cried, flushing high. "It's what will be, though," said Alan, "unless we manage the better." At this the lass turned and ran out of that part of the house, leaving us alone together. Alan in high good humour at the furthering of his schemes, and I in bitter dudgeon at being called a Jacobite and treated like a child. "Alan," I cried, "I can stand no more of this." "Ye'll have to sit it then, Davie," said he. "For if ye upset the pot now, ye may scrape your own life out of the fire, but Alan Breck is a dead man." This was so true that I could only groan; and even my groan served Alan's purpose, for it was overheard by the lass as she came flying in again with a dish of white puddings and a bottle of strong ale. "Poor lamb!" says she, and had no sooner set the meat before us, than she touched me on the shoulder with a little friendly touch, as much as to bid me cheer up. Then she told us to fall to, and there would be no more to pay; for the inn was her own, or at least her father's, and he was gone for the day to Pittencrieff. We waited for no second bidding, for bread and cheese is but cold comfort and the puddings smelt excellently well; and while we sat and ate, she took up that same place by the next table, looking on, and thinking, and frowning to herself, and drawing the string of her apron through her hand. "I'm thinking ye have rather a long tongue," she said at last to Alan. "Ay" said Alan; "but ye see I ken the folk I speak to." "I would never betray ye," said she, "if ye mean that." "No," said he, "ye're not that kind. But I'll tell ye what ye would do, ye would help." "I couldnae," said she, shaking her head. "Na, I couldnae." "No," said he, "but if ye could?" She answered him nothing. "Look here, my lass," said Alan, "there are boats in the Kingdom of Fife, for I saw two (no less) upon the beach, as I came in by your town's end. Now if we could have the use of a boat to pass under cloud of night into Lothian, and some secret, decent kind of a man to bring that boat back again and keep his counsel, there would be two souls saved--mine to all likelihood--his to a dead surety. If we lack that boat, we have but three shillings left in this wide world; and where to go, and how to do, and what other place there is for us except the chains of a gibbet--I give you my naked word, I kenna! Shall we go wanting, lassie? Are ye to lie in your warm bed and think upon us, when the wind gowls in the chimney and the rain tirls on the roof? Are ye to eat your meat by the cheeks of a red fire, and think upon this poor sick lad of mine, biting his finger ends on a blae muir for cauld and hunger? Sick or sound, he must aye be moving; with the death grapple at his throat he must aye be trailing in the rain on the lang roads; and when he gants his last on a rickle of cauld stanes, there will be nae friends near him but only me and God." At this appeal, I could see the lass was in great trouble of mind, being tempted to help us, and yet in some fear she might be helping malefactors; and so now I determined to step in myself and to allay her scruples with a portion of the truth. "Did ever you hear," said I, "of Mr. Rankeillor of the Ferry?" "Rankeillor the writer?" said she. "I daur say that!" "Well," said I, "it's to his door that I am bound, so you may judge by that if I am an ill-doer; and I will tell you more, that though I am indeed, by a dreadful error, in some peril of my life, King George has no truer friend in all Scotland than myself." Her face cleared up mightily at this, although Alan's darkened. "That's more than I would ask," said she. "Mr. Rankeillor is a kennt man." And she bade us finish our meat, get clear of the clachan as soon as might be, and lie close in the bit wood on the sea-beach. "And ye can trust me," says she, "I'll find some means to put you over." At this we waited for no more, but shook hands with her upon the bargain, made short work of the puddings, and set forth again from Limekilns as far as to the wood. It was a small piece of perhaps a score of elders and hawthorns and a few young ashes, not thick enough to veil us from passersby upon the road or beach. Here we must lie, however, making the best of the brave warm weather and the good hopes we now had of a deliverance, and planing more particularly what remained for us to do. We had but one trouble all day; when a strolling piper came and sat in the same wood with us; a red-nosed, bleareyed, drunken dog, with a great bottle of whisky in his pocket, and a long story of wrongs that had been done him by all sorts of persons, from the Lord President of the Court of Session, who had denied him justice, down to the Bailies of Inverkeithing who had given him more of it than he desired. It was impossible but he should conceive some suspicion of two men lying all day concealed in a thicket and having no business to allege. As long as he stayed there he kept us in hot water with prying questions; and after he was gone, as he was a man not very likely to hold his tongue, we were in the greater impatience to be gone ourselves. The day came to an end with the same brightness; the night fell quiet and clear; lights came out in houses and hamlets and then, one after another, began to be put out; but it was past eleven, and we were long since strangely tortured with anxieties, before we heard the grinding of oars upon the rowing-pins. At that, we looked out and saw the lass herself coming rowing to us in a boat. She had trusted no one with our affairs, not even her sweetheart, if she had one; but as soon as her father was asleep, had left the house by a window, stolen a neighbour's boat, and come to our assistance single-handed. I was abashed how to find expression for my thanks; but she was no less abashed at the thought of hearing them; begged us to lose no time and to hold our peace, saying (very properly) that the heart of our matter was in haste and silence; and so, what with one thing and another, she had set us on the Lothian shore not far from Carriden, had shaken hands with us, and was out again at sea and rowing for Limekilns, before there was one word said either of her service or our gratitude. Even after she was gone, we had nothing to say, as indeed nothing was enough for such a kindness. Only Alan stood a great while upon the shore shaking his head. "It is a very fine lass," he said at last. "David, it is a very fine lass." And a matter of an hour later, as we were lying in a den on the sea-shore and I had been already dozing, he broke out again in commendations of her character. For my part, I could say nothing, she was so simple a creature that my heart smote me both with remorse and fear: remorse because we had traded upon her ignorance; and fear lest we should have anyway involved her in the dangers of our situation.

In less than a month, David was pronounced well again and he and Alan prepared for their journey. In Alan's eyes, the hunt for them had likely slackened. They would be nearing the Forth, a river just south of the border between the Highlands and the Lowlands. If they went directly over the bridge, Alan hoped, they could possibly pass unnoticed. The less obvious routes would be watched more. Thus they set out toward Stirling Bridge. They followed Alan Water until it flowed into the Forth and then hid close to Sterling Castle. David pressed for crossly the bridge directly but Alan was wary. There seemed to be no guard but Alan advised that they lay low. Later that night they watched a small woman waddle across the bridge. She went unbothered until suddenly a guard, likely awakened, stopped her. They had no chance to get across with the guard awake. Alan crawled further away from the bridge and David, forced to follow, saw his meeting with Mr. Rankeillor further postponed. When they reached a road, they began arguing over the next step. David thought it best to find a way to cross the river, whereas Alan figured they had a better chance crossing the sea in a boat. David argued they did not have the money. Alan persisted that he would find a way. They walked all through the night until reaching the town of Limekilns. In the morning, they bought cheese and bread. After they had left, Alan asked David about the lass who had served them. Alan was glad that David found her pretty and devised a plan to make her feel sorry for David so that she would help them get a boat. David did not want to trick her but finally agreed. Alan told the girl how ill David was and how much they needed to cross the river because they were in trouble. The girl felt very sorry for David but was not convinced to help until David told her how he wanted to see Mr. Rankeillor. He also mentioned that he was loyal to King George. With these two references, the lass decided he was a good person and agreed to help. She told them to hide down by the water. The men left for that spot and were only troubled during the day by a piper who saw them and asked too many questions. Finally, late at night, they noticed a boat coming toward them, rowed by the lass herself. She had trusted no one else, but waited until her father was asleep and took them across the river. She would accept no thank you, but dropped them off on the opposite shore and paddled quickly back.

THAT same Thursday morning, as Arthur Donnithorne was moving about in his dressing-room seeing his well-looking British person reflected in the old-fashioned mirrors, and stared at, from a dingy olive-green piece of tapestry, by Pharaoh's daughter and her maidens, who ought to have been minding the infant Moses, he was holding a discussion with himself, which, by the time his valet was tying the black silk sling over his shoulder, had issued in a distinct practical resolution. "I mean to go to Eagledale and fish for a week or so," he said aloud. "I shall take you with me, Pym, and set off this morning; so be ready by half-past eleven." The low whistle, which had assisted him in arriving at this resolution, here broke out into his loudest ringing tenor, and the corridor, as he hurried along it, echoed to his favourite song from the Beggar's Opera, "When the heart of a man is oppressed with care." Not an heroic strain; nevertheless Arthur felt himself very heroic as he strode towards the stables to give his orders about the horses. His own approbation was necessary to him, and it was not an approbation to be enjoyed quite gratuitously; it must be won by a fair amount of merit. He had never yet forfeited that approbation, and he had considerable reliance on his own virtues. No young man could confess his faults more candidly; candour was one of his favourite virtues; and how can a man's candour be seen in all its lustre unless he has a few failings to talk of? But he had an agreeable confidence that his faults were all of a generous kind--impetuous, warm-blooded, leonine; never crawling, crafty, reptilian. It was not possible for Arthur Donnithorne to do anything mean, dastardly, or cruel. "No! I'm a devil of a fellow for getting myself into a hobble, but I always take care the load shall fall on my own shoulders." Unhappily, there is no inherent poetical justice in hobbles, and they will sometimes obstinately refuse to inflict their worst consequences on the prime offender, in spite of his loudly expressed wish. It was entirely owing to this deficiency in the scheme of things that Arthur had ever brought any one into trouble besides himself. He was nothing if not good-natured; and all his pictures of the future, when he should come into the estate, were made up of a prosperous, contented tenantry, adoring their landlord, who would be the model of an English gentleman--mansion in first-rate order, all elegance and high taste--jolly housekeeping, finest stud in Loamshire--purse open to all public objects--in short, everything as different as possible from what was now associated with the name of Donnithorne. And one of the first good actions he would perform in that future should be to increase Irwine's income for the vicarage of Hayslope, so that he might keep a carriage for his mother and sisters. His hearty affection for the rector dated from the age of frocks and trousers. It was an affection partly filial, partly fraternal--fraternal enough to make him like Irwine's company better than that of most younger men, and filial enough to make him shrink strongly from incurring Irwine's disapprobation. You perceive that Arthur Donnithorne was "a good fellow"--all his college friends thought him such. He couldn't bear to see any one uncomfortable; he would have been sorry even in his angriest moods for any harm to happen to his grandfather; and his Aunt Lydia herself had the benefit of that soft-heartedness which he bore towards the whole sex. Whether he would have self-mastery enough to be always as harmless and purely beneficent as his good-nature led him to desire, was a question that no one had yet decided against him; he was but twenty-one, you remember, and we don't inquire too closely into character in the case of a handsome generous young fellow, who will have property enough to support numerous peccadilloes--who, if he should unfortunately break a man's legs in his rash driving, will be able to pension him handsomely; or if he should happen to spoil a woman's existence for her, will make it up to her with expensive bon-bons, packed up and directed by his own hand. It would be ridiculous to be prying and analytic in such cases, as if one were inquiring into the character of a confidential clerk. We use round, general, gentlemanly epithets about a young man of birth and fortune; and ladies, with that fine intuition which is the distinguishing attribute of their sex, see at once that he is "nice." The chances are that he will go through life without scandalizing any one; a seaworthy vessel that no one would refuse to insure. Ships, certainly, are liable to casualties, which sometimes make terribly evident some flaw in their construction that would never have been discoverable in smooth water; and many a "good fellow," through a disastrous combination of circumstances, has undergone a like betrayal. But we have no fair ground for entertaining unfavourable auguries concerning Arthur Donnithorne, who this morning proves himself capable of a prudent resolution founded on conscience. One thing is clear: Nature has taken care that he shall never go far astray with perfect comfort and satisfaction to himself; he will never get beyond that border-land of sin, where he will be perpetually harassed by assaults from the other side of the boundary. He will never be a courtier of Vice, and wear her orders in his button-hole. It was about ten o'clock, and the sun was shining brilliantly; everything was looking lovelier for the yesterday's rain. It is a pleasant thing on such a morning to walk along the well-rolled gravel on one's way to the stables, meditating an excursion. But the scent of the stables, which, in a natural state of things, ought to be among the soothing influences of a man's life, always brought with it some irritation to Arthur. There was no having his own way in the stables; everything was managed in the stingiest fashion. His grandfather persisted in retaining as head groom an old dolt whom no sort of lever could move out of his old habits, and who was allowed to hire a succession of raw Loamshire lads as his subordinates, one of whom had lately tested a new pair of shears by clipping an oblong patch on Arthur's bay mare. This state of things is naturally embittering; one can put up with annoyances in the house, but to have the stable made a scene of vexation and disgust is a point beyond what human flesh and blood can be expected to endure long together without danger of misanthropy. Old John's wooden, deep-wrinkled face was the first object that met Arthur's eyes as he entered the stable-yard, and it quite poisoned for him the bark of the two bloodhounds that kept watch there. He could never speak quite patiently to the old blockhead. "You must have Meg saddled for me and brought to the door at half-past eleven, and I shall want Rattler saddled for Pym at the same time. Do you hear?" "Yes, I hear, I hear, Cap'n," said old John very deliberately, following the young master into the stable. John considered a young master as the natural enemy of an old servant, and young people in general as a poor contrivance for carrying on the world. Arthur went in for the sake of patting Meg, declining as far as possible to see anything in the stables, lest he should lose his temper before breakfast. The pretty creature was in one of the inner stables, and turned her mild head as her master came beside her. Little Trot, a tiny spaniel, her inseparable companion in the stable, was comfortably curled up on her back. "Well, Meg, my pretty girl," said Arthur, patting her neck, "we'll have a glorious canter this morning." "Nay, your honour, I donna see as that can be," said John. "Not be? Why not?" "Why, she's got lamed." "Lamed, confound you! What do you mean?" "Why, th' lad took her too close to Dalton's hosses, an' one on 'em flung out at her, an' she's got her shank bruised o' the near foreleg." The judicious historian abstains from narrating precisely what ensued. You understand that there was a great deal of strong language, mingled with soothing "who-ho's" while the leg was examined; that John stood by with quite as much emotion as if he had been a cunningly carved crab-tree walking-stick, and that Arthur Donnithorne presently repassed the iron gates of the pleasure-ground without singing as he went. He considered himself thoroughly disappointed and annoyed. There was not another mount in the stable for himself and his servant besides Meg and Rattler. It was vexatious; just when he wanted to get out of the way for a week or two. It seemed culpable in Providence to allow such a combination of circumstances. To be shut up at the Chase with a broken arm when every other fellow in his regiment was enjoying himself at Windsor--shut up with his grandfather, who had the same sort of affection for him as for his parchment deeds! And to be disgusted at every turn with the management of the house and the estate! In such circumstances a man necessarily gets in an ill humour, and works off the irritation by some excess or other. "Salkeld would have drunk a bottle of port every day," he muttered to himself, "but I'm not well seasoned enough for that. Well, since I can't go to Eagledale, I'll have a gallop on Rattler to Norburne this morning, and lunch with Gawaine." Behind this explicit resolution there lay an implicit one. If he lunched with Gawaine and lingered chatting, he should not reach the Chase again till nearly five, when Hetty would be safe out of his sight in the housekeeper's room; and when she set out to go home, it would be his lazy time after dinner, so he should keep out of her way altogether. There really would have been no harm in being kind to the little thing, and it was worth dancing with a dozen ballroom belles only to look at Hetty for half an hour. But perhaps he had better not take any more notice of her; it might put notions into her head, as Irwine had hinted; though Arthur, for his part, thought girls were not by any means so soft and easily bruised; indeed, he had generally found them twice as cool and cunning as he was himself. As for any real harm in Hetty's case, it was out of the question: Arthur Donnithorne accepted his own bond for himself with perfect confidence. So the twelve o'clock sun saw him galloping towards Norburne; and by good fortune Halsell Common lay in his road and gave him some fine leaps for Rattler. Nothing like "taking" a few bushes and ditches for exorcising a demon; and it is really astonishing that the Centaurs, with their immense advantages in this way, have left so bad a reputation in history. After this, you will perhaps be surprised to hear that although Gawaine was at home, the hand of the dial in the courtyard had scarcely cleared the last stroke of three when Arthur returned through the entrance-gates, got down from the panting Rattler, and went into the house to take a hasty luncheon. But I believe there have been men since his day who have ridden a long way to avoid a rencontre, and then galloped hastily back lest they should miss it. It is the favourite stratagem of our passions to sham a retreat, and to turn sharp round upon us at the moment we have made up our minds that the day is our own. "The cap'n's been ridin' the devil's own pace," said Dalton the coachman, whose person stood out in high relief as he smoked his pipe against the stable wall, when John brought up Rattler. "An' I wish he'd get the devil to do's grooming for'n," growled John. "Aye; he'd hev a deal haimabler groom nor what he has now," observed Dalton--and the joke appeared to him so good that, being left alone upon the scene, he continued at intervals to take his pipe from his mouth in order to wink at an imaginary audience and shake luxuriously with a silent, ventral laughter, mentally rehearsing the dialogue from the beginning, that he might recite it with effect in the servants' hall. When Arthur went up to his dressing-room again after luncheon, it was inevitable that the debate he had had with himself there earlier in the day should flash across his mind; but it was impossible for him now to dwell on the remembrance--impossible to recall the feelings and reflections which had been decisive with him then, any more than to recall the peculiar scent of the air that had freshened him when he first opened his window. The desire to see Hetty had rushed back like an ill-stemmed current; he was amazed himself at the force with which this trivial fancy seemed to grasp him: he was even rather tremulous as he brushed his hair--pooh! it was riding in that break-neck way. It was because he had made a serious affair of an idle matter, by thinking of it as if it were of any consequence. He would amuse himself by seeing Hetty to-day, and get rid of the whole thing from his mind. It was all Irwine's fault. "If Irwine had said nothing, I shouldn't have thought half so much of Hetty as of Meg's lameness." However, it was just the sort of day for lolling in the Hermitage, and he would go and finish Dr. Moore's Zeluco there before dinner. The Hermitage stood in Fir-tree Grove--the way Hetty was sure to come in walking from the Hall Farm. So nothing could be simpler and more natural: meeting Hetty was a mere circumstance of his walk, not its object. Arthur's shadow flitted rather faster among the sturdy oaks of the Chase than might have been expected from the shadow of a tired man on a warm afternoon, and it was still scarcely four o'clock when he stood before the tall narrow gate leading into the delicious labyrinthine wood which skirted one side of the Chase, and which was called Fir-tree Grove, not because the firs were many, but because they were few. It was a wood of beeches and limes, with here and there a light silver-stemmed birch--just the sort of wood most haunted by the nymphs: you see their white sunlit limbs gleaming athwart the boughs, or peeping from behind the smooth-sweeping outline of a tall lime; you hear their soft liquid laughter--but if you look with a too curious sacrilegious eye, they vanish behind the silvery beeches, they make you believe that their voice was only a running brooklet, perhaps they metamorphose themselves into a tawny squirrel that scampers away and mocks you from the topmost bough. It was not a grove with measured grass or rolled gravel for you to tread upon, but with narrow, hollow-shaped, earthy paths, edged with faint dashes of delicate moss--paths which look as if they were made by the free will of the trees and underwood, moving reverently aside to look at the tall queen of the white-footed nymphs. It was along the broadest of these paths that Arthur Donnithorne passed, under an avenue of limes and beeches. It was a still afternoon--the golden light was lingering languidly among the upper boughs, only glancing down here and there on the purple pathway and its edge of faintly sprinkled moss: an afternoon in which destiny disguises her cold awful face behind a hazy radiant veil, encloses us in warm downy wings, and poisons us with violet-scented breath. Arthur strolled along carelessly, with a book under his arm, but not looking on the ground as meditative men are apt to do; his eyes WOULD fix themselves on the distant bend in the road round which a little figure must surely appear before long. Ah! There she comes. First a bright patch of colour, like a tropic bird among the boughs; then a tripping figure, with a round hat on, and a small basket under her arm; then a deep-blushing, almost frightened, but bright-smiling girl, making her curtsy with a fluttered yet happy glance, as Arthur came up to her. If Arthur had had time to think at all, he would have thought it strange that he should feel fluttered too, be conscious of blushing too--in fact, look and feel as foolish as if he had been taken by surprise instead of meeting just what he expected. Poor things! It was a pity they were not in that golden age of childhood when they would have stood face to face, eyeing each other with timid liking, then given each other a little butterfly kiss, and toddled off to play together. Arthur would have gone home to his silk-curtained cot, and Hetty to her home-spun pillow, and both would have slept without dreams, and to-morrow would have been a life hardly conscious of a yesterday. Arthur turned round and walked by Hetty's side without giving a reason. They were alone together for the first time. What an overpowering presence that first privacy is! He actually dared not look at this little butter-maker for the first minute or two. As for Hetty, her feet rested on a cloud, and she was borne along by warm zephyrs; she had forgotten her rose-coloured ribbons; she was no more conscious of her limbs than if her childish soul had passed into a water-lily, resting on a liquid bed and warmed by the midsummer sun-beams. It may seem a contradiction, but Arthur gathered a certain carelessness and confidence from his timidity: it was an entirely different state of mind from what he had expected in such a meeting with Hetty; and full as he was of vague feeling, there was room, in those moments of silence, for the thought that his previous debates and scruples were needless. "You are quite right to choose this way of coming to the Chase," he said at last, looking down at Hetty; "it is so much prettier as well as shorter than coming by either of the lodges." "Yes, sir," Hetty answered, with a tremulous, almost whispering voice. She didn't know one bit how to speak to a gentleman like Mr. Arthur, and her very vanity made her more coy of speech. "Do you come every week to see Mrs. Pomfret?" "Yes, sir, every Thursday, only when she's got to go out with Miss Donnithorne." "And she's teaching you something, is she?" "Yes, sir, the lace-mending as she learnt abroad, and the stocking-mending--it looks just like the stocking, you can't tell it's been mended; and she teaches me cutting-out too." "What! are YOU going to be a lady's maid?" "I should like to be one very much indeed." Hetty spoke more audibly now, but still rather tremulously; she thought, perhaps she seemed as stupid to Captain Donnithorne as Luke Britton did to her. "I suppose Mrs. Pomfret always expects you at this time?" "She expects me at four o'clock. I'm rather late to-day, because my aunt couldn't spare me; but the regular time is four, because that gives us time before Miss Donnithorne's bell rings." "Ah, then, I must not keep you now, else I should like to show you the Hermitage. Did you ever see it?" "No, sir." "This is the walk where we turn up to it. But we must not go now. I'll show it you some other time, if you'd like to see it." "Yes, please, sir." "Do you always come back this way in the evening, or are you afraid to come so lonely a road?" "Oh no, sir, it's never late; I always set out by eight o'clock, and it's so light now in the evening. My aunt would be angry with me if I didn't get home before nine." "Perhaps Craig, the gardener, comes to take care of you?" A deep blush overspread Hetty's face and neck. "I'm sure he doesn't; I'm sure he never did; I wouldn't let him; I don't like him," she said hastily, and the tears of vexation had come so fast that before she had done speaking a bright drop rolled down her hot cheek. Then she felt ashamed to death that she was crying, and for one long instant her happiness was all gone. But in the next she felt an arm steal round her, and a gentle voice said, "Why, Hetty, what makes you cry? I didn't mean to vex you. I wouldn't vex you for the world, you little blossom. Come, don't cry; look at me, else I shall think you won't forgive me." Arthur had laid his hand on the soft arm that was nearest to him, and was stooping towards Hetty with a look of coaxing entreaty. Hetty lifted her long dewy lashes, and met the eyes that were bent towards her with a sweet, timid, beseeching look. What a space of time those three moments were while their eyes met and his arms touched her! Love is such a simple thing when we have only one-and-twenty summers and a sweet girl of seventeen trembles under our glance, as if she were a bud first opening her heart with wondering rapture to the morning. Such young unfurrowed souls roll to meet each other like two velvet peaches that touch softly and are at rest; they mingle as easily as two brooklets that ask for nothing but to entwine themselves and ripple with ever-interlacing curves in the leafiest hiding-places. While Arthur gazed into Hetty's dark beseeching eyes, it made no difference to him what sort of English she spoke; and even if hoops and powder had been in fashion, he would very likely not have been sensible just then that Hetty wanted those signs of high breeding. But they started asunder with beating hearts: something had fallen on the ground with a rattling noise; it was Hetty's basket; all her little workwoman's matters were scattered on the path, some of them showing a capability of rolling to great lengths. There was much to be done in picking up, and not a word was spoken; but when Arthur hung the basket over her arm again, the poor child felt a strange difference in his look and manner. He just pressed her hand, and said, with a look and tone that were almost chilling to her, "I have been hindering you; I must not keep you any longer now. You will be expected at the house. Good-bye." Without waiting for her to speak, he turned away from her and hurried back towards the road that led to the Hermitage, leaving Hetty to pursue her way in a strange dream that seemed to have begun in bewildering delight and was now passing into contrarieties and sadness. Would he meet her again as she came home? Why had he spoken almost as if he were displeased with her? And then run away so suddenly? She cried, hardly knowing why. Arthur too was very uneasy, but his feelings were lit up for him by a more distinct consciousness. He hurried to the Hermitage, which stood in the heart of the wood, unlocked the door with a hasty wrench, slammed it after him, pitched Zeluco into the most distant corner, and thrusting his right hand into his pocket, first walked four or five times up and down the scanty length of the little room, and then seated himself on the ottoman in an uncomfortable stiff way, as we often do when we wish not to abandon ourselves to feeling. He was getting in love with Hetty--that was quite plain. He was ready to pitch everything else--no matter where--for the sake of surrendering himself to this delicious feeling which had just disclosed itself. It was no use blinking the fact now--they would get too fond of each other, if he went on taking notice of her--and what would come of it? He should have to go away in a few weeks, and the poor little thing would be miserable. He MUST NOT see her alone again; he must keep out of her way. What a fool he was for coming back from Gawaine's! He got up and threw open the windows, to let in the soft breath of the afternoon, and the healthy scent of the firs that made a belt round the Hermitage. The soft air did not help his resolution, as he leaned out and looked into the leafy distance. But he considered his resolution sufficiently fixed: there was no need to debate with himself any longer. He had made up his mind not to meet Hetty again; and now he might give himself up to thinking how immensely agreeable it would be if circumstances were different--how pleasant it would have been to meet her this evening as she came back, and put his arm round her again and look into her sweet face. He wondered if the dear little thing were thinking of him too--twenty to one she was. How beautiful her eyes were with the tear on their lashes! He would like to satisfy his soul for a day with looking at them, and he MUST see her again--he must see her, simply to remove any false impression from her mind about his manner to her just now. He would behave in a quiet, kind way to her--just to prevent her from going home with her head full of wrong fancies. Yes, that would be the best thing to do after all. It was a long while--more than an hour before Arthur had brought his meditations to this point; but once arrived there, he could stay no longer at the Hermitage. The time must be filled up with movement until he should see Hetty again. And it was already late enough to go and dress for dinner, for his grandfather's dinner-hour was six.

Captain Donnithorne dresses for the day and decides not to be at home when Hetty arrives to see the housekeeper. Resolving to go on a trip, he goes to the stable to order his horse ready but learns that she is lame. Then the captain chooses to visit a friend for lunch and not be back until after Hetty has left. After lunch with his friend, he changes his mind about seeing Hetty. Galloping back as fast as he can, Captain Donnithorne tries to catch Hetty when she walks through the woods on the way to the house. He meets her in the woods and speaks with her. When he mentions another of her suitors, Hetty begins to cry, and Captain Donnithorne is so moved by her distress that he puts his arm around her. He quickly recovers himself, however, when Hetty drops her basket, and he rudely and abruptly leaves her, at first vowing not to see her again when she walks back that evening. After thinking alone for an hour, however, Captain Donnithorne decides that he must see her after all, to correct the impression he gave her that afternoon, when he may have seemed to be a lover

"Piacer e popone Vuol la sua stagione." --Italian Proverb. Mr. Casaubon, as might be expected, spent a great deal of his time at the Grange in these weeks, and the hindrance which courtship occasioned to the progress of his great work--the Key to all Mythologies--naturally made him look forward the more eagerly to the happy termination of courtship. But he had deliberately incurred the hindrance, having made up his mind that it was now time for him to adorn his life with the graces of female companionship, to irradiate the gloom which fatigue was apt to hang over the intervals of studious labor with the play of female fancy, and to secure in this, his culminating age, the solace of female tendance for his declining years. Hence he determined to abandon himself to the stream of feeling, and perhaps was surprised to find what an exceedingly shallow rill it was. As in droughty regions baptism by immersion could only be performed symbolically, Mr. Casaubon found that sprinkling was the utmost approach to a plunge which his stream would afford him; and he concluded that the poets had much exaggerated the force of masculine passion. Nevertheless, he observed with pleasure that Miss Brooke showed an ardent submissive affection which promised to fulfil his most agreeable previsions of marriage. It had once or twice crossed his mind that possibly there was some deficiency in Dorothea to account for the moderation of his abandonment; but he was unable to discern the deficiency, or to figure to himself a woman who would have pleased him better; so that there was clearly no reason to fall back upon but the exaggerations of human tradition. "Could I not be preparing myself now to be more useful?" said Dorothea to him, one morning, early in the time of courtship; "could I not learn to read Latin and Greek aloud to you, as Milton's daughters did to their father, without understanding what they read?" "I fear that would be wearisome to you," said Mr. Casaubon, smiling; "and, indeed, if I remember rightly, the young women you have mentioned regarded that exercise in unknown tongues as a ground for rebellion against the poet." "Yes; but in the first place they were very naughty girls, else they would have been proud to minister to such a father; and in the second place they might have studied privately and taught themselves to understand what they read, and then it would have been interesting. I hope you don't expect me to be naughty and stupid?" "I expect you to be all that an exquisite young lady can be in every possible relation of life. Certainly it might be a great advantage if you were able to copy the Greek character, and to that end it were well to begin with a little reading." Dorothea seized this as a precious permission. She would not have asked Mr. Casaubon at once to teach her the languages, dreading of all things to be tiresome instead of helpful; but it was not entirely out of devotion to her future husband that she wished to know Latin and Greek. Those provinces of masculine knowledge seemed to her a standing-ground from which all truth could be seen more truly. As it was, she constantly doubted her own conclusions, because she felt her own ignorance: how could she be confident that one-roomed cottages were not for the glory of God, when men who knew the classics appeared to conciliate indifference to the cottages with zeal for the glory? Perhaps even Hebrew might be necessary--at least the alphabet and a few roots--in order to arrive at the core of things, and judge soundly on the social duties of the Christian. And she had not reached that point of renunciation at which she would have been satisfied with having a wise husband: she wished, poor child, to be wise herself. Miss Brooke was certainly very naive with all her alleged cleverness. Celia, whose mind had never been thought too powerful, saw the emptiness of other people's pretensions much more readily. To have in general but little feeling, seems to be the only security against feeling too much on any particular occasion. However, Mr. Casaubon consented to listen and teach for an hour together, like a schoolmaster of little boys, or rather like a lover, to whom a mistress's elementary ignorance and difficulties have a touching fitness. Few scholars would have disliked teaching the alphabet under such circumstances. But Dorothea herself was a little shocked and discouraged at her own stupidity, and the answers she got to some timid questions about the value of the Greek accents gave her a painful suspicion that here indeed there might be secrets not capable of explanation to a woman's reason. Mr. Brooke had no doubt on that point, and expressed himself with his usual strength upon it one day that he came into the library while the reading was going forward. "Well, but now, Casaubon, such deep studies, classics, mathematics, that kind of thing, are too taxing for a woman--too taxing, you know." "Dorothea is learning to read the characters simply," said Mr. Casaubon, evading the question. "She had the very considerate thought of saving my eyes." "Ah, well, without understanding, you know--that may not be so bad. But there is a lightness about the feminine mind--a touch and go--music, the fine arts, that kind of thing--they should study those up to a certain point, women should; but in a light way, you know. A woman should be able to sit down and play you or sing you a good old English tune. That is what I like; though I have heard most things--been at the opera in Vienna: Gluck, Mozart, everything of that sort. But I'm a conservative in music--it's not like ideas, you know. I stick to the good old tunes." "Mr. Casaubon is not fond of the piano, and I am very glad he is not," said Dorothea, whose slight regard for domestic music and feminine fine art must be forgiven her, considering the small tinkling and smearing in which they chiefly consisted at that dark period. She smiled and looked up at her betrothed with grateful eyes. If he had always been asking her to play the "Last Rose of Summer," she would have required much resignation. "He says there is only an old harpsichord at Lowick, and it is covered with books." "Ah, there you are behind Celia, my dear. Celia, now, plays very prettily, and is always ready to play. However, since Casaubon does not like it, you are all right. But it's a pity you should not have little recreations of that sort, Casaubon: the bow always strung--that kind of thing, you know--will not do." "I never could look on it in the light of a recreation to have my ears teased with measured noises," said Mr. Casaubon. "A tune much iterated has the ridiculous effect of making the words in my mind perform a sort of minuet to keep time--an effect hardly tolerable, I imagine, after boyhood. As to the grander forms of music, worthy to accompany solemn celebrations, and even to serve as an educating influence according to the ancient conception, I say nothing, for with these we are not immediately concerned." "No; but music of that sort I should enjoy," said Dorothea. "When we were coming home from Lausanne my uncle took us to hear the great organ at Freiberg, and it made me sob." "That kind of thing is not healthy, my dear," said Mr. Brooke. "Casaubon, she will be in your hands now: you must teach my niece to take things more quietly, eh, Dorothea?" He ended with a smile, not wishing to hurt his niece, but really thinking that it was perhaps better for her to be early married to so sober a fellow as Casaubon, since she would not hear of Chettam. "It is wonderful, though," he said to himself as he shuffled out of the room--"it is wonderful that she should have liked him. However, the match is good. I should have been travelling out of my brief to have hindered it, let Mrs. Cadwallader say what she will. He is pretty certain to be a bishop, is Casaubon. That was a very seasonable pamphlet of his on the Catholic Question:--a deanery at least. They owe him a deanery." And here I must vindicate a claim to philosophical reflectiveness, by remarking that Mr. Brooke on this occasion little thought of the Radical speech which, at a later period, he was led to make on the incomes of the bishops. What elegant historian would neglect a striking opportunity for pointing out that his heroes did not foresee the history of the world, or even their own actions?--For example, that Henry of Navarre, when a Protestant baby, little thought of being a Catholic monarch; or that Alfred the Great, when he measured his laborious nights with burning candles, had no idea of future gentlemen measuring their idle days with watches. Here is a mine of truth, which, however vigorously it may be worked, is likely to outlast our coal. But of Mr. Brooke I make a further remark perhaps less warranted by precedent--namely, that if he had foreknown his speech, it might not have made any great difference. To think with pleasure of his niece's husband having a large ecclesiastical income was one thing--to make a Liberal speech was another thing; and it is a narrow mind which cannot look at a subject from various points of view.

Mr. Casaubon, having spent most of his life alone, now looks forward to his marriage and "the graces of female companionship and support. But while Dorothea is whole hearted in her affection, he cannot find the same intensity in himself. He concludes, "the poets had much exaggerated the force of masculine passion." Dorothea now eagerly asks to be taught Greek, so that she may help him by reading aloud from the scriptures, as "Miltons daughters did to their father." Casaubon is skeptical, as he knows of the revolt by the blind poets daughters. Yet, overcome by her zest, he agrees to teach her Greek for an hour each day. Dorothea seizes the opportunity for two reasons; she longs to help him; she seeks "these provinces of masculine knowledge seemed... a standing ground from which all truth could be seen more truly." Brooke disapproves, convinced that "deep studies...are too taxing for a woman." He would prefer his niece to "play some good old English tune" on the piano. Dorothea, not interested in the "small tinkling" which such feminine talents were confined to is happy when Casaubon supports her. Brooke consoles himself with the thought that Dorotheas extreme enthusiasm will be contained by Casaubons sobriety.

SCENE IV. The same. A Room of state in the Palace. A banquet prepared. [Enter Macbeth, Lady Macbeth, Ross, Lennox, Lords, and Attendants.] MACBETH. You know your own degrees: sit down. At first And last the hearty welcome. LORDS. Thanks to your majesty. MACBETH. Ourself will mingle with society, And play the humble host. Our hostess keeps her state; but, in best time, We will require her welcome. LADY MACBETH. Pronounce it for me, sir, to all our friends; For my heart speaks they are welcome. MACBETH. See, they encounter thee with their hearts' thanks.-- Both sides are even: here I'll sit i' the midst: [Enter first Murderer to the door.] Be large in mirth; anon we'll drink a measure The table round.--There's blood upon thy face. MURDERER. 'Tis Banquo's then. MACBETH. 'Tis better thee without than he within. Is he despatch'd? MURDERER. My lord, his throat is cut; that I did for him. MACBETH. Thou art the best o' the cut-throats; yet he's good That did the like for Fleance: if thou didst it, Thou art the nonpareil. MURDERER. Most royal sir, Fleance is 'scap'd. MACBETH. Then comes my fit again: I had else been perfect; Whole as the marble, founded as the rock; As broad and general as the casing air: But now I am cabin'd, cribb'd, confin'd, bound in To saucy doubts and fears. But Banquo's safe? MURDERER. Ay, my good lord: safe in a ditch he bides, With twenty trenched gashes on his head; The least a death to nature. MACBETH. Thanks for that: There the grown serpent lies; the worm that's fled Hath nature that in time will venom breed, No teeth for the present.--Get thee gone; to-morrow We'll hear, ourselves, again. [Exit Murderer.] LADY MACBETH. My royal lord, You do not give the cheer: the feast is sold That is not often vouch'd, while 'tis a-making, 'Tis given with welcome; to feed were best at home; From thence the sauce to meat is ceremony; Meeting were bare without it. MACBETH. Sweet remembrancer!-- Now, good digestion wait on appetite, And health on both! LENNOX. May't please your highness sit. [The Ghost of Banquo rises, and sits in Macbeth's place.] MACBETH. Here had we now our country's honor roof'd, Were the grac'd person of our Banquo present; Who may I rather challenge for unkindness Than pity for mischance! ROSS. His absence, sir, Lays blame upon his promise. Please't your highness To grace us with your royal company? MACBETH. The table's full. LENNOX. Here is a place reserv'd, sir. MACBETH. Where? LENNOX. Here, my good lord. What is't that moves your highness? MACBETH. Which of you have done this? LORDS. What, my good lord? MACBETH. Thou canst not say I did it: never shake Thy gory locks at me. ROSS. Gentlemen, rise; his highness is not well. LADY MACBETH. Sit, worthy friends:--my lord is often thus, And hath been from his youth: pray you, keep seat; The fit is momentary; upon a thought He will again be well: if much you note him, You shall offend him, and extend his passion: Feed, and regard him not.--Are you a man? MACBETH. Ay, and a bold one, that dare look on that Which might appal the devil. LADY MACBETH. O proper stuff! This is the very painting of your fear: This is the air-drawn dagger which, you said, Led you to Duncan. O, these flaws, and starts,-- Impostors to true fear,--would well become A woman's story at a winter's fire, Authoriz'd by her grandam. Shame itself! Why do you make such faces? When all's done, You look but on a stool. MACBETH. Pr'ythee, see there! behold! look! lo! how say you?-- Why, what care I? If thou canst nod, speak too.-- If charnel houses and our graves must send Those that we bury back, our monuments Shall be the maws of kites. [Ghost disappears.] LADY MACBETH. What, quite unmann'd in folly? MACBETH. If I stand here, I saw him. LADY MACBETH. Fie, for shame! MACBETH. Blood hath been shed ere now, i' the olden time, Ere humane statute purg'd the gentle weal; Ay, and since too, murders have been perform'd Too terrible for the ear: the time has been, That, when the brains were out, the man would die, And there an end; but now they rise again, With twenty mortal murders on their crowns, And push us from our stools: this is more strange Than such a murder is. LADY MACBETH. My worthy lord, Your noble friends do lack you. MACBETH. I do forget:-- Do not muse at me, my most worthy friends; I have a strange infirmity, which is nothing To those that know me. Come, love and health to all; Then I'll sit down.--Give me some wine, fill full.-- I drink to the general joy o' the whole table, And to our dear friend Banquo, whom we miss: Would he were here! to all, and him, we thirst, And all to all. LORDS. Our duties, and the pledge. [Ghost rises again.] MACBETH. Avaunt! and quit my sight! let the earth hide thee! Thy bones are marrowless, thy blood is cold; Thou hast no speculation in those eyes Which thou dost glare with! LADY MACBETH. Think of this, good peers, But as a thing of custom: 'tis no other, Only it spoils the pleasure of the time. MACBETH. What man dare, I dare: Approach thou like the rugged Russian bear, The arm'd rhinoceros, or the Hyrcan tiger; Take any shape but that, and my firm nerves Shall never tremble: or be alive again, And dare me to the desert with thy sword; If trembling I inhabit then, protest me The baby of a girl. Hence, horrible shadow! Unreal mockery, hence! [Ghost disappears.] Why, so;--being gone, I am a man again.--Pray you, sit still. LADY MACBETH. You have displaced the mirth, broke the good meeting, With most admir'd disorder. MACBETH. Can such things be, And overcome us like a summer's cloud, Without our special wonder? You make me strange Even to the disposition that I owe, When now I think you can behold such sights, And keep the natural ruby of your cheeks, When mine are blanch'd with fear. ROSS. What sights, my lord? LADY MACBETH. I pray you, speak not; he grows worse and worse; Question enrages him: at once, good-night:-- Stand not upon the order of your going, But go at once. LENNOX. Good-night; and better health Attend his majesty! LADY MACBETH. A kind good-night to all! [Exeunt all Lords and Atendants.] MACBETH. It will have blood; they say, blood will have blood: Stones have been known to move, and trees to speak; Augurs, and understood relations, have By magot-pies, and choughs, and rooks, brought forth The secret'st man of blood.--What is the night? LADY MACBETH. Almost at odds with morning, which is which. MACBETH. How say'st thou, that Macduff denies his person At our great bidding? LADY MACBETH. Did you send to him, sir? MACBETH. I hear it by the way; but I will send: There's not a one of them but in his house I keep a servant fee'd. I will to-morrow, (And betimes I will) to the weird sisters: More shall they speak; for now I am bent to know, By the worst means, the worst. For mine own good, All causes shall give way: I am in blood Step't in so far that, should I wade no more, Returning were as tedious as go o'er: Strange things I have in head, that will to hand; Which must be acted ere they may be scann'd. LADY MACBETH. You lack the season of all natures, sleep. MACBETH. Come, we'll to sleep. My strange and self-abuse Is the initiate fear that wants hard use:-- We are yet but young in deed. [Exeunt.]

This scene opens the next morning outside Macbeths's castle with Ross and an old man conversing about the tragedy that occurred in the last scene. The old man states that in his seventy years he has never known such dreadful times. Ross agrees and adds that heaven is showing its displeasure with mankind, for even though it is morning, "darkness does the face of earth entomb, when living light should kiss it." The old man agrees that the darkness is unnatural, just like the murder. He then adds that many other strange signs have been happening. Just last Tuesday a proud falcon was killed by a weaker mousing owl . Ross adds that also Duncan's tame, royal horses "turned wild in nature...as they would make war with mankind" . As this conversation goes on, Macduff enters and says that, like the weather, he is in a dark and dismal mood . When asked if anything else is known about the murder, Macduff says it is believed that the servants who killed the king were hired to do so, and Malcolm and Donaldbain are suspected since they have fled the country. Ross comments that for a son to kill his father is the most unnatural event. Then Macduff reveals that Macbeth has been chosen king and is already at Scone for his coronation, and Duncan's body has been taken to Colmekill, "the sacred storehouse of this predecessors" to be buried. Macduff is going home to Fife, but Ross plans to go to Scone for the coronation. Macduff departs saying "our old robes sit easier than our new!" He is obviously wary about Macbeth's being king. The old man closes the scene with a blessing, "God's benison go with you, and with those that would make good of bad and friends of foes!"

CHAPTER IV. RENEWAL OF OLD ACQUAINTANCE. "How do you do, Mr. Roberts?" "Eh?" "Don't you know me?" "No, certainly." The crowd about the captain's office, having in good time melted away, the above encounter took place in one of the side balconies astern, between a man in mourning clean and respectable, but none of the glossiest, a long weed on his hat, and the country-merchant before-mentioned, whom, with the familiarity of an old acquaintance, the former had accosted. "Is it possible, my dear sir," resumed he with the weed, "that you do not recall my countenance? why yours I recall distinctly as if but half an hour, instead of half an age, had passed since I saw you. Don't you recall me, now? Look harder." "In my conscience--truly--I protest," honestly bewildered, "bless my soul, sir, I don't know you--really, really. But stay, stay," he hurriedly added, not without gratification, glancing up at the crape on the stranger's hat, "stay--yes--seems to me, though I have not the pleasure of personally knowing you, yet I am pretty sure I have at least _heard_ of you, and recently too, quite recently. A poor negro aboard here referred to you, among others, for a character, I think." "Oh, the cripple. Poor fellow. I know him well. They found me. I have said all I could for him. I think I abated their distrust. Would I could have been of more substantial service. And apropos, sir," he added, "now that it strikes me, allow me to ask, whether the circumstance of one man, however humble, referring for a character to another man, however afflicted, does not argue more or less of moral worth in the latter?" The good merchant looked puzzled. "Still you don't recall my countenance?" "Still does truth compel me to say that I cannot, despite my best efforts," was the reluctantly-candid reply. "Can I be so changed? Look at me. Or is it I who am mistaken?--Are you not, sir, Henry Roberts, forwarding merchant, of Wheeling, Pennsylvania? Pray, now, if you use the advertisement of business cards, and happen to have one with you, just look at it, and see whether you are not the man I take you for." "Why," a bit chafed, perhaps, "I hope I know myself." "And yet self-knowledge is thought by some not so easy. Who knows, my dear sir, but for a time you may have taken yourself for somebody else? Stranger things have happened." The good merchant stared. "To come to particulars, my dear sir, I met you, now some six years back, at Brade Brothers & Co's office, I think. I was traveling for a Philadelphia house. The senior Brade introduced us, you remember; some business-chat followed, then you forced me home with you to a family tea, and a family time we had. Have you forgotten about the urn, and what I said about Werter's Charlotte, and the bread and butter, and that capital story you told of the large loaf. A hundred times since, I have laughed over it. At least you must recall my name--Ringman, John Ringman." "Large loaf? Invited you to tea? Ringman? Ringman? Ring? Ring?" "Ah sir," sadly smiling, "don't ring the changes that way. I see you have a faithless memory, Mr. Roberts. But trust in the faithfulness of mine." "Well, to tell the truth, in some things my memory aint of the very best," was the honest rejoinder. "But still," he perplexedly added, "still I----" "Oh sir, suffice it that it is as I say. Doubt not that we are all well acquainted." "But--but I don't like this going dead against my own memory; I----" "But didn't you admit, my dear sir, that in some things this memory of yours is a little faithless? Now, those who have faithless memories, should they not have some little confidence in the less faithless memories of others?" "But, of this friendly chat and tea, I have not the slightest----" "I see, I see; quite erased from the tablet. Pray, sir," with a sudden illumination, "about six years back, did it happen to you to receive any injury on the head? Surprising effects have arisen from such a cause. Not alone unconsciousness as to events for a greater or less time immediately subsequent to the injury, but likewise--strange to add--oblivion, entire and incurable, as to events embracing a longer or shorter period immediately preceding it; that is, when the mind at the time was perfectly sensible of them, and fully competent also to register them in the memory, and did in fact so do; but all in vain, for all was afterwards bruised out by the injury." After the first start, the merchant listened with what appeared more than ordinary interest. The other proceeded: "In my boyhood I was kicked by a horse, and lay insensible for a long time. Upon recovering, what a blank! No faintest trace in regard to how I had come near the horse, or what horse it was, or where it was, or that it was a horse at all that had brought me to that pass. For the knowledge of those particulars I am indebted solely to my friends, in whose statements, I need not say, I place implicit reliance, since particulars of some sort there must have been, and why should they deceive me? You see sir, the mind is ductile, very much so: but images, ductilely received into it, need a certain time to harden and bake in their impressions, otherwise such a casualty as I speak of will in an instant obliterate them, as though they had never been. We are but clay, sir, potter's clay, as the good book says, clay, feeble, and too-yielding clay. But I will not philosophize. Tell me, was it your misfortune to receive any concussion upon the brain about the period I speak of? If so, I will with pleasure supply the void in your memory by more minutely rehearsing the circumstances of our acquaintance." The growing interest betrayed by the merchant had not relaxed as the other proceeded. After some hesitation, indeed, something more than hesitation, he confessed that, though he had never received any injury of the sort named, yet, about the time in question, he had in fact been taken with a brain fever, losing his mind completely for a considerable interval. He was continuing, when the stranger with much animation exclaimed: "There now, you see, I was not wholly mistaken. That brain fever accounts for it all." "Nay; but----" "Pardon me, Mr. Roberts," respectfully interrupting him, "but time is short, and I have something private and particular to say to you. Allow me." Mr. Roberts, good man, could but acquiesce, and the two having silently walked to a less public spot, the manner of the man with the weed suddenly assumed a seriousness almost painful. What might be called a writhing expression stole over him. He seemed struggling with some disastrous necessity inkept. He made one or two attempts to speak, but words seemed to choke him. His companion stood in humane surprise, wondering what was to come. At length, with an effort mastering his feelings, in a tolerably composed tone he spoke: "If I remember, you are a mason, Mr. Roberts?" "Yes, yes." Averting himself a moment, as to recover from a return of agitation, the stranger grasped the other's hand; "and would you not loan a brother a shilling if he needed it?" The merchant started, apparently, almost as if to retreat. "Ah, Mr. Roberts, I trust you are not one of those business men, who make a business of never having to do with unfortunates. For God's sake don't leave me. I have something on my heart--on my heart. Under deplorable circumstances thrown among strangers, utter strangers. I want a friend in whom I may confide. Yours, Mr. Roberts, is almost the first known face I've seen for many weeks." It was so sudden an outburst; the interview offered such a contrast to the scene around, that the merchant, though not used to be very indiscreet, yet, being not entirely inhumane, remained not entirely unmoved. The other, still tremulous, resumed: "I need not say, sir, how it cuts me to the soul, to follow up a social salutation with such words as have just been mine. I know that I jeopardize your good opinion. But I can't help it: necessity knows no law, and heeds no risk. Sir, we are masons, one more step aside; I will tell you my story." In a low, half-suppressed tone, he began it. Judging from his auditor's expression, it seemed to be a tale of singular interest, involving calamities against which no integrity, no forethought, no energy, no genius, no piety, could guard. At every disclosure, the hearer's commiseration increased. No sentimental pity. As the story went on, he drew from his wallet a bank note, but after a while, at some still more unhappy revelation, changed it for another, probably of a somewhat larger amount; which, when the story was concluded, with an air studiously disclamatory of alms-giving, he put into the stranger's hands; who, on his side, with an air studiously disclamatory of alms-taking, put it into his pocket. Assistance being received, the stranger's manner assumed a kind and degree of decorum which, under the circumstances, seemed almost coldness. After some words, not over ardent, and yet not exactly inappropriate, he took leave, making a bow which had one knows not what of a certain chastened independence about it; as if misery, however burdensome, could not break down self-respect, nor gratitude, however deep, humiliate a gentleman. He was hardly yet out of sight, when he paused as if thinking; then with hastened steps returning to the merchant, "I am just reminded that the president, who is also transfer-agent, of the Black Rapids Coal Company, happens to be on board here, and, having been subpoenaed as witness in a stock case on the docket in Kentucky, has his transfer-book with him. A month since, in a panic contrived by artful alarmists, some credulous stock-holders sold out; but, to frustrate the aim of the alarmists, the Company, previously advised of their scheme, so managed it as to get into its own hands those sacrificed shares, resolved that, since a spurious panic must be, the panic-makers should be no gainers by it. The Company, I hear, is now ready, but not anxious, to redispose of those shares; and having obtained them at their depressed value, will now sell them at par, though, prior to the panic, they were held at a handsome figure above. That the readiness of the Company to do this is not generally known, is shown by the fact that the stock still stands on the transfer-book in the Company's name, offering to one in funds a rare chance for investment. For, the panic subsiding more and more every day, it will daily be seen how it originated; confidence will be more than restored; there will be a reaction; from the stock's descent its rise will be higher than from no fall, the holders trusting themselves to fear no second fate." Having listened at first with curiosity, at last with interest, the merchant replied to the effect, that some time since, through friends concerned with it, he had heard of the company, and heard well of it, but was ignorant that there had latterly been fluctuations. He added that he was no speculator; that hitherto he had avoided having to do with stocks of any sort, but in the present case he really felt something like being tempted. "Pray," in conclusion, "do you think that upon a pinch anything could be transacted on board here with the transfer-agent? Are you acquainted with him?" "Not personally. I but happened to hear that he was a passenger. For the rest, though it might be somewhat informal, the gentleman might not object to doing a little business on board. Along the Mississippi, you know, business is not so ceremonious as at the East." "True," returned the merchant, and looked down a moment in thought, then, raising his head quickly, said, in a tone not so benign as his wonted one, "This would seem a rare chance, indeed; why, upon first hearing it, did you not snatch at it? I mean for yourself!" "I?--would it had been possible!" Not without some emotion was this said, and not without some embarrassment was the reply. "Ah, yes, I had forgotten." Upon this, the stranger regarded him with mild gravity, not a little disconcerting; the more so, as there was in it what seemed the aspect not alone of the superior, but, as it were, the rebuker; which sort of bearing, in a beneficiary towards his benefactor, looked strangely enough; none the less, that, somehow, it sat not altogether unbecomingly upon the beneficiary, being free from anything like the appearance of assumption, and mixed with a kind of painful conscientiousness, as though nothing but a proper sense of what he owed to himself swayed him. At length he spoke: "To reproach a penniless man with remissness in not availing himself of an opportunity for pecuniary investment--but, no, no; it was forgetfulness; and this, charity will impute to some lingering effect of that unfortunate brain-fever, which, as to occurrences dating yet further back, disturbed Mr. Roberts's memory still more seriously." "As to that," said the merchant, rallying, "I am not----" "Pardon me, but you must admit, that just now, an unpleasant distrust, however vague, was yours. Ah, shallow as it is, yet, how subtle a thing is suspicion, which at times can invade the humanest of hearts and wisest of heads. But, enough. My object, sir, in calling your attention to this stock, is by way of acknowledgment of your goodness. I but seek to be grateful; if my information leads to nothing, you must remember the motive." He bowed, and finally retired, leaving Mr. Roberts not wholly without self-reproach, for having momentarily indulged injurious thoughts against one who, it was evident, was possessed of a self-respect which forbade his indulging them himself.

In a balcony on the side of the ship, there's a brief Q&A between our country merchant, apparently named Mr. Roberts, and a man dressed all in black with a long weed pinned to his hat. Weeds, as we'll fondly think of him for now, is certain that he knows Mr. Roberts, but Roberts is pretty sure he'd remember him if they'd met. Besides, even though he doesn't know Weeds, he recalls that Weeds is one of the guys described in the previous chapter by the man who cannot walk as a character witness. Turns out, Weeds showed up and vouched for the coin-catching object of ire. Now he wants Mr. Roberts to remember him. Weeds tells Mr. Roberts that they met once, that they're both masons, that they drank tea together, and that they had great chats, for Pete's sake. How could Roberts forget him so easily? The tea, man. The tea. Mr. Roberts is unconvinced. Weeds continues by asking if Mr. Roberts ever had a brain injury that messed with his memory, because, you know, that's a normal how-do-you-do sort of greeting. Kind of. Sort of. Not really. Mr. Roberts gives Weeds the old that's cray look, so Weeds talks about his own memories of, umm, memory loss. Apparently he had a farming accident, and his friends had to fill in the pieces. Come to think of it, Mr. Roberts decides, there was that brain-fever that one time. Weeds, jumps in--Yes! The brain fever! That's why you forgot all about the tea! We're so over this tea. Story time: we're not privy to what Weeds says here, but he tells Mr. Roberts all about his misfortune as a fellow mason. Mr. Roberts drops some money to help him out. Weeds goes all stoic and pulls on some self-respect like it's a slick fur coat after pocketing the money. He's dignified, after all. Right. Before he leaves, Weeds indulges in a little insider trading and gives Mr. Roberts some secret stock tips on the Black Rapids Coal Company. The country merchant is so down to play the market on the DL, but he wants to know why Weeds didn't just buy some himself if this tip is so great. Cold. Ice Cold. 30 below is the temperature of the stare Weeds gives Mr. Roberts for that question. When Weeds speaks next, it is one world-class guilt trip about Mr. Roberts's faulty memory--because how could someone down and out capitalize on this secret knowledge? This country merchant feels bad.

"L' altra vedete ch'ha fatto alla guancia Della sua palma, sospirando, letto." --Purgatorio, vii. When George the Fourth was still reigning over the privacies of Windsor, when the Duke of Wellington was Prime Minister, and Mr. Vincy was mayor of the old corporation in Middlemarch, Mrs. Casaubon, born Dorothea Brooke, had taken her wedding journey to Rome. In those days the world in general was more ignorant of good and evil by forty years than it is at present. Travellers did not often carry full information on Christian art either in their heads or their pockets; and even the most brilliant English critic of the day mistook the flower-flushed tomb of the ascended Virgin for an ornamental vase due to the painter's fancy. Romanticism, which has helped to fill some dull blanks with love and knowledge, had not yet penetrated the times with its leaven and entered into everybody's food; it was fermenting still as a distinguishable vigorous enthusiasm in certain long-haired German artists at Rome, and the youth of other nations who worked or idled near them were sometimes caught in the spreading movement. One fine morning a young man whose hair was not immoderately long, but abundant and curly, and who was otherwise English in his equipment, had just turned his back on the Belvedere Torso in the Vatican and was looking out on the magnificent view of the mountains from the adjoining round vestibule. He was sufficiently absorbed not to notice the approach of a dark-eyed, animated German who came up to him and placing a hand on his shoulder, said with a strong accent, "Come here, quick! else she will have changed her pose." Quickness was ready at the call, and the two figures passed lightly along by the Meleager, towards the hall where the reclining Ariadne, then called the Cleopatra, lies in the marble voluptuousness of her beauty, the drapery folding around her with a petal-like ease and tenderness. They were just in time to see another figure standing against a pedestal near the reclining marble: a breathing blooming girl, whose form, not shamed by the Ariadne, was clad in Quakerish gray drapery; her long cloak, fastened at the neck, was thrown backward from her arms, and one beautiful ungloved hand pillowed her cheek, pushing somewhat backward the white beaver bonnet which made a sort of halo to her face around the simply braided dark-brown hair. She was not looking at the sculpture, probably not thinking of it: her large eyes were fixed dreamily on a streak of sunlight which fell across the floor. But she became conscious of the two strangers who suddenly paused as if to contemplate the Cleopatra, and, without looking at them, immediately turned away to join a maid-servant and courier who were loitering along the hall at a little distance off. "What do you think of that for a fine bit of antithesis?" said the German, searching in his friend's face for responding admiration, but going on volubly without waiting for any other answer. "There lies antique beauty, not corpse-like even in death, but arrested in the complete contentment of its sensuous perfection: and here stands beauty in its breathing life, with the consciousness of Christian centuries in its bosom. But she should be dressed as a nun; I think she looks almost what you call a Quaker; I would dress her as a nun in my picture. However, she is married; I saw her wedding-ring on that wonderful left hand, otherwise I should have thought the sallow Geistlicher was her father. I saw him parting from her a good while ago, and just now I found her in that magnificent pose. Only think! he is perhaps rich, and would like to have her portrait taken. Ah! it is no use looking after her--there she goes! Let us follow her home!" "No, no," said his companion, with a little frown. "You are singular, Ladislaw. You look struck together. Do you know her?" "I know that she is married to my cousin," said Will Ladislaw, sauntering down the hall with a preoccupied air, while his German friend kept at his side and watched him eagerly. "What! the Geistlicher? He looks more like an uncle--a more useful sort of relation." "He is not my uncle. I tell you he is my second cousin," said Ladislaw, with some irritation. "Schon, schon. Don't be snappish. You are not angry with me for thinking Mrs. Second-Cousin the most perfect young Madonna I ever saw?" "Angry? nonsense. I have only seen her once before, for a couple of minutes, when my cousin introduced her to me, just before I left England. They were not married then. I didn't know they were coming to Rome." "But you will go to see them now--you will find out what they have for an address--since you know the name. Shall we go to the post? And you could speak about the portrait." "Confound you, Naumann! I don't know what I shall do. I am not so brazen as you." "Bah! that is because you are dilettantish and amateurish. If you were an artist, you would think of Mistress Second-Cousin as antique form animated by Christian sentiment--a sort of Christian Antigone--sensuous force controlled by spiritual passion." "Yes, and that your painting her was the chief outcome of her existence--the divinity passing into higher completeness and all but exhausted in the act of covering your bit of canvas. I am amateurish if you like: I do _not_ think that all the universe is straining towards the obscure significance of your pictures." "But it is, my dear!--so far as it is straining through me, Adolf Naumann: that stands firm," said the good-natured painter, putting a hand on Ladislaw's shoulder, and not in the least disturbed by the unaccountable touch of ill-humor in his tone. "See now! My existence presupposes the existence of the whole universe--does it _not?_ and my function is to paint--and as a painter I have a conception which is altogether genialisch, of your great-aunt or second grandmother as a subject for a picture; therefore, the universe is straining towards that picture through that particular hook or claw which it puts forth in the shape of me--not true?" "But how if another claw in the shape of me is straining to thwart it?--the case is a little less simple then." "Not at all: the result of the struggle is the same thing--picture or no picture--logically." Will could not resist this imperturbable temper, and the cloud in his face broke into sunshiny laughter. "Come now, my friend--you will help?" said Naumann, in a hopeful tone. "No; nonsense, Naumann! English ladies are not at everybody's service as models. And you want to express too much with your painting. You would only have made a better or worse portrait with a background which every connoisseur would give a different reason for or against. And what is a portrait of a woman? Your painting and Plastik are poor stuff after all. They perturb and dull conceptions instead of raising them. Language is a finer medium." "Yes, for those who can't paint," said Naumann. "There you have perfect right. I did not recommend you to paint, my friend." The amiable artist carried his sting, but Ladislaw did not choose to appear stung. He went on as if he had not heard. "Language gives a fuller image, which is all the better for beings vague. After all, the true seeing is within; and painting stares at you with an insistent imperfection. I feel that especially about representations of women. As if a woman were a mere colored superficies! You must wait for movement and tone. There is a difference in their very breathing: they change from moment to moment.--This woman whom you have just seen, for example: how would you paint her voice, pray? But her voice is much diviner than anything you have seen of her." "I see, I see. You are jealous. No man must presume to think that he can paint your ideal. This is serious, my friend! Your great-aunt! 'Der Neffe als Onkel' in a tragic sense--ungeheuer!" "You and I shall quarrel, Naumann, if you call that lady my aunt again." "How is she to be called then?" "Mrs. Casaubon." "Good. Suppose I get acquainted with her in spite of you, and find that she very much wishes to be painted?" "Yes, suppose!" said Will Ladislaw, in a contemptuous undertone, intended to dismiss the subject. He was conscious of being irritated by ridiculously small causes, which were half of his own creation. Why was he making any fuss about Mrs. Casaubon? And yet he felt as if something had happened to him with regard to her. There are characters which are continually creating collisions and nodes for themselves in dramas which nobody is prepared to act with them. Their susceptibilities will clash against objects that remain innocently quiet.

After laying the basis for the other two stories, G. Eliot takes no back to the trials of Dorothea. Will Ladislaw happens to be in Rome. He begins to study painting from a talented German artist, Adolf Naumann. They both spend time at the Vatican, studying ancient works and painting. One morning Naumann excitedly calls Will to observe what he calls "an antithesis. " A beautiful antique sculpture of Ariadne is being observed by a beautiful young woman, modestly dressed like a Quaker. Naumann finds the juxtaposition of the sensuous sculpture and the beauty of the living woman interesting. Will tells him she is his cousins wife, and Naumann expresses a desire to paint her. Will is indignant at her being treated as a model. He finds himself looking at her without his earlier suspicion of her motives in marriage with his elderly cousin.

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.]

Outside the palace the original two murderers are joined by a third one sent by Macbeth. As the scene opens, the three of them are waiting for Banquo and Fleance to return from their ride in the countryside in order to carry out the murders plotted by the king. Banquo and Fleance enter on foot and converse about the weather. The dark, cloudy skies cause them to forecast rain. The murderers attack and stab Banquo first. He, in turn, screams to Fleance to "Fly, fly, fly! Thou mayst revenge ." Banquo dies, but his son escapes on foot into the darkness of the night. The murderers comment to one another that they "have lost best half of our affair," and depart to tell the king the bad news.

There is always after the death of anyone a kind of stupefaction; so difficult is it to grasp this advent of nothingness and to resign ourselves to believe in it. But still, when he saw that she did not move, Charles threw himself upon her, crying-- "Farewell! farewell!" Homais and Canivet dragged him from the room. "Restrain yourself!" "Yes." said he, struggling, "I'll be quiet. I'll not do anything. But leave me alone. I want to see her. She is my wife!" And he wept. "Cry," said the chemist; "let nature take her course; that will solace you." Weaker than a child, Charles let himself be led downstairs into the sitting-room, and Monsieur Homais soon went home. On the Place he was accosted by the blind man, who, having dragged himself as far as Yonville, in the hope of getting the antiphlogistic pomade, was asking every passer-by where the druggist lived. "There now! as if I hadn't got other fish to fry. Well, so much the worse; you must come later on." And he entered the shop hurriedly. He had to write two letters, to prepare a soothing potion for Bovary, to invent some lie that would conceal the poisoning, and work it up into an article for the "Fanal," without counting the people who were waiting to get the news from him; and when the Yonvillers had all heard his story of the arsenic that she had mistaken for sugar in making a vanilla cream. Homais once more returned to Bovary's. He found him alone (Monsieur Canivet had left), sitting in an arm-chair near the window, staring with an idiotic look at the flags of the floor. "Now," said the chemist, "you ought yourself to fix the hour for the ceremony." "Why? What ceremony?" Then, in a stammering, frightened voice, "Oh, no! not that. No! I want to see her here." Homais, to keep himself in countenance, took up a water-bottle on the whatnot to water the geraniums. "Ah! thanks," said Charles; "you are good." But he did not finish, choking beneath the crowd of memories that this action of the druggist recalled to him. Then to distract him, Homais thought fit to talk a little horticulture: plants wanted humidity. Charles bowed his head in sign of approbation. "Besides, the fine days will soon be here again." "Ah!" said Bovary. The druggist, at his wit's end, began softly to draw aside the small window-curtain. "Hallo! there's Monsieur Tuvache passing." Charles repeated like a machine--- "Monsieur Tuvache passing!" Homais did not dare to speak to him again about the funeral arrangements; it was the priest who succeeded in reconciling him to them. He shut himself up in his consulting-room, took a pen, and after sobbing for some time, wrote-- "I wish her to be buried in her wedding-dress, with white shoes, and a wreath. Her hair is to be spread out over her shoulders. Three coffins, one of oak, one of mahogany, one of lead. Let no one say anything to me. I shall have strength. Over all there is to be placed a large piece of green velvet. This is my wish; see that it is done." The two men were much surprised at Bovary's romantic ideas. The chemist at once went to him and said-- "This velvet seems to me a superfetation. Besides, the expense--" "What's that to you?" cried Charles. "Leave me! You did not love her. Go!" The priest took him by the arm for a turn in the garden. He discoursed on the vanity of earthly things. God was very great, was very good: one must submit to his decrees without a murmur; nay, must even thank him. Charles burst out into blasphemies: "I hate your God!" "The spirit of rebellion is still upon you," sighed the ecclesiastic. Bovary was far away. He was walking with great strides along by the wall, near the espalier, and he ground his teeth; he raised to heaven looks of malediction, but not so much as a leaf stirred. A fine rain was falling: Charles, whose chest was bare, at last began to shiver; he went in and sat down in the kitchen. At six o'clock a noise like a clatter of old iron was heard on the Place; it was the "Hirondelle" coming in, and he remained with his forehead against the windowpane, watching all the passengers get out, one after the other. Felicite put down a mattress for him in the drawing-room. He threw himself upon it and fell asleep. Although a philosopher, Monsieur Homais respected the dead. So bearing no grudge to poor Charles, he came back again in the evening to sit up with the body; bringing with him three volumes and a pocket-book for taking notes. Monsieur Bournisien was there, and two large candles were burning at the head of the bed, that had been taken out of the alcove. The druggist, on whom the silence weighed, was not long before he began formulating some regrets about this "unfortunate young woman." and the priest replied that there was nothing to do now but pray for her. "Yet," Homais went on, "one of two things; either she died in a state of grace (as the Church has it), and then she has no need of our prayers; or else she departed impertinent (that is, I believe, the ecclesiastical expression), and then--" Bournisien interrupted him, replying testily that it was none the less necessary to pray. "But," objected the chemist, "since God knows all our needs, what can be the good of prayer?" "What!" cried the ecclesiastic, "prayer! Why, aren't you a Christian?" "Excuse me," said Homais; "I admire Christianity. To begin with, it enfranchised the slaves, introduced into the world a morality--" "That isn't the question. All the texts-" "Oh! oh! As to texts, look at history; it, is known that all the texts have been falsified by the Jesuits." Charles came in, and advancing towards the bed, slowly drew the curtains. Emma's head was turned towards her right shoulder, the corner of her mouth, which was open, seemed like a black hole at the lower part of her face; her two thumbs were bent into the palms of her hands; a kind of white dust besprinkled her lashes, and her eyes were beginning to disappear in that viscous pallor that looks like a thin web, as if spiders had spun it over. The sheet sunk in from her breast to her knees, and then rose at the tips of her toes, and it seemed to Charles that infinite masses, an enormous load, were weighing upon her. The church clock struck two. They could hear the loud murmur of the river flowing in the darkness at the foot of the terrace. Monsieur Bournisien from time to time blew his nose noisily, and Homais' pen was scratching over the paper. "Come, my good friend," he said, "withdraw; this spectacle is tearing you to pieces." Charles once gone, the chemist and the cure recommenced their discussions. "Read Voltaire," said the one, "read D'Holbach, read the 'Encyclopaedia'!" "Read the 'Letters of some Portuguese Jews,'" said the other; "read 'The Meaning of Christianity,' by Nicolas, formerly a magistrate." They grew warm, they grew red, they both talked at once without listening to each other. Bournisien was scandalized at such audacity; Homais marvelled at such stupidity; and they were on the point of insulting one another when Charles suddenly reappeared. A fascination drew him. He was continually coming upstairs. He stood opposite her, the better to see her, and he lost himself in a contemplation so deep that it was no longer painful. He recalled stories of catalepsy, the marvels of magnetism, and he said to himself that by willing it with all his force he might perhaps succeed in reviving her. Once he even bent towards he, and cried in a low voice, "Emma! Emma!" His strong breathing made the flames of the candles tremble against the wall. At daybreak Madame Bovary senior arrived. Charles as he embraced her burst into another flood of tears. She tried, as the chemist had done, to make some remarks to him on the expenses of the funeral. He became so angry that she was silent, and he even commissioned her to go to town at once and buy what was necessary. Charles remained alone the whole afternoon; they had taken Berthe to Madame Homais'; Felicite was in the room upstairs with Madame Lefrancois. In the evening he had some visitors. He rose, pressed their hands, unable to speak. Then they sat down near one another, and formed a large semicircle in front of the fire. With lowered faces, and swinging one leg crossed over the other knee, they uttered deep sighs at intervals; each one was inordinately bored, and yet none would be the first to go. Homais, when he returned at nine o'clock (for the last two days only Homais seemed to have been on the Place), was laden with a stock of camphor, of benzine, and aromatic herbs. He also carried a large jar full of chlorine water, to keep off all miasmata. Just then the servant, Madame Lefrancois, and Madame Bovary senior were busy about Emma, finishing dressing her, and they were drawing down the long stiff veil that covered her to her satin shoes. Felicite was sobbing--"Ah! my poor mistress! my poor mistress!" "Look at her," said the landlady, sighing; "how pretty she still is! Now, couldn't you swear she was going to get up in a minute?" Then they bent over her to put on her wreath. They had to raise the head a little, and a rush of black liquid issued, as if she were vomiting, from her mouth. "Oh, goodness! The dress; take care!" cried Madame Lefrancois. "Now, just come and help," she said to the chemist. "Perhaps you're afraid?" "I afraid?" replied he, shrugging his shoulders. "I dare say! I've seen all sorts of things at the hospital when I was studying pharmacy. We used to make punch in the dissecting room! Nothingness does not terrify a philosopher; and, as I often say, I even intend to leave my body to the hospitals, in order, later on, to serve science." The cure on his arrival inquired how Monsieur Bovary was, and, on the reply of the druggist, went on--"The blow, you see, is still too recent." Then Homais congratulated him on not being exposed, like other people, to the loss of a beloved companion; whence there followed a discussion on the celibacy of priests. "For," said the chemist, "it is unnatural that a man should do without women! There have been crimes--" "But, good heaven!" cried the ecclesiastic, "how do you expect an individual who is married to keep the secrets of the confessional, for example?" Homais fell foul of the confessional. Bournisien defended it; he enlarged on the acts of restitution that it brought about. He cited various anecdotes about thieves who had suddenly become honest. Military men on approaching the tribunal of penitence had felt the scales fall from their eyes. At Fribourg there was a minister-- His companion was asleep. Then he felt somewhat stifled by the over-heavy atmosphere of the room; he opened the window; this awoke the chemist. "Come, take a pinch of snuff," he said to him. "Take it; it'll relieve you." A continual barking was heard in the distance. "Do you hear that dog howling?" said the chemist. "They smell the dead," replied the priest. "It's like bees; they leave their hives on the decease of any person." Homais made no remark upon these prejudices, for he had again dropped asleep. Monsieur Bournisien, stronger than he, went on moving his lips gently for some time, then insensibly his chin sank down, he let fall his big black boot, and began to snore. They sat opposite one another, with protruding stomachs, puffed-up faces, and frowning looks, after so much disagreement uniting at last in the same human weakness, and they moved no more than the corpse by their side, that seemed to be sleeping. Charles coming in did not wake them. It was the last time; he came to bid her farewell. The aromatic herbs were still smoking, and spirals of bluish vapour blended at the window-sash with the fog that was coming in. There were few stars, and the night was warm. The wax of the candles fell in great drops upon the sheets of the bed. Charles watched them burn, tiring his eyes against the glare of their yellow flame. The watering on the satin gown shimmered white as moonlight. Emma was lost beneath it; and it seemed to him that, spreading beyond her own self, she blended confusedly with everything around her--the silence, the night, the passing wind, the damp odours rising from the ground. Then suddenly he saw her in the garden at Tostes, on a bench against the thorn hedge, or else at Rouen in the streets, on the threshold of their house, in the yard at Bertaux. He again heard the laughter of the happy boys beneath the apple-trees: the room was filled with the perfume of her hair; and her dress rustled in his arms with a noise like electricity. The dress was still the same. For a long while he thus recalled all his lost joys, her attitudes, her movements, the sound of her voice. Upon one fit of despair followed another, and even others, inexhaustible as the waves of an overflowing sea. A terrible curiosity seized him. Slowly, with the tips of his fingers, palpitating, he lifted her veil. But he uttered a cry of horror that awoke the other two. They dragged him down into the sitting-room. Then Felicite came up to say that he wanted some of her hair. "Cut some off," replied the druggist. And as she did not dare to, he himself stepped forward, scissors in hand. He trembled so that he pierced the skin of the temple in several places. At last, stiffening himself against emotion, Homais gave two or three great cuts at random that left white patches amongst that beautiful black hair. The chemist and the cure plunged anew into their occupations, not without sleeping from time to time, of which they accused each other reciprocally at each fresh awakening. Then Monsieur Bournisien sprinkled the room with holy water and Homais threw a little chlorine water on the floor. Felicite had taken care to put on the chest of drawers, for each of them, a bottle of brandy, some cheese, and a large roll. And the druggist, who could not hold out any longer, about four in the morning sighed-- "My word! I should like to take some sustenance." The priest did not need any persuading; he went out to go and say mass, came back, and then they ate and hobnobbed, giggling a little without knowing why, stimulated by that vague gaiety that comes upon us after times of sadness, and at the last glass the priest said to the druggist, as he clapped him on the shoulder-- "We shall end by understanding one another." In the passage downstairs they met the undertaker's men, who were coming in. Then Charles for two hours had to suffer the torture of hearing the hammer resound against the wood. Next day they lowered her into her oak coffin, that was fitted into the other two; but as the bier was too large, they had to fill up the gaps with the wool of a mattress. At last, when the three lids had been planed down, nailed, soldered, it was placed outside in front of the door; the house was thrown open, and the people of Yonville began to flock round. Old Rouault arrived, and fainted on the Place when he saw the black cloth!

Charles throws himself on Emma's corpse, overcome by grief. Homais goes home, invents a story about accidental poisoning to cover up the suicide, and writes it up for the newspaper. When he returns to the Bovarys' house, he finds Charles alone and frightened, Canivet having left him. Homais, with the best of intentions, attempts to distract Charles by talking about the weather. Father Bournisien succeeds in getting Charles to do something about the funeral. He makes extravagantly romantic plans - ones that Emma herself would have appreciated. Charles rebels against God; he curses the heavens for allowing this to happen. The priest and the pharmacist sit up with the corpse all night, holding a vigil for her. The whole time, they argue about religion. Charles's mother arrives in the morning. She attempts to reason with Charles about the expense of the funeral, and he actually stands up to her for the first time. The townspeople come to visit and pay their respects; they're bored, but each is unwilling to be the first to leave. Felicite is hysterical with grief. She, Madame Lefrancois, and old Madame Bovary dress Emma in her wedding gown to prepare her for her coffin. Grotesquely, a stream of black liquid flows out of the dead woman's mouth as they lift her. Homais and Bournisien continue their intellectual discussion. Charles comes in to say his final good bye in private. He reflects upon his memories of their past together, looks at her dead face, and is horrified. The priest and pharmacist lead him away. Homais shakily cuts a few locks of Emma's hair for Charles to keep. Felicite thoughtfully leaves a bottle of brandy and a pastry out for the men - Homais and Father Bournisien need no prompting to drink the alcohol. They part ways after finishing the bottle. Finally, after Emma's body is sealed inside three coffins, her father arrives. He faints immediately.

Scene III. Verona. A churchyard; in it the monument of the Capulets. Enter Paris and his Page with flowers and [a torch]. Par. Give me thy torch, boy. Hence, and stand aloof. Yet put it out, for I would not be seen. Under yond yew tree lay thee all along, Holding thine ear close to the hollow ground. So shall no foot upon the churchyard tread (Being loose, unfirm, with digging up of graves) But thou shalt hear it. Whistle then to me, As signal that thou hear'st something approach. Give me those flowers. Do as I bid thee, go. Page. [aside] I am almost afraid to stand alone Here in the churchyard; yet I will adventure. [Retires.] Par. Sweet flower, with flowers thy bridal bed I strew (O woe! thy canopy is dust and stones) Which with sweet water nightly I will dew; Or, wanting that, with tears distill'd by moans. The obsequies that I for thee will keep Nightly shall be to strew, thy grave and weep. Whistle Boy. The boy gives warning something doth approach. What cursed foot wanders this way to-night To cross my obsequies and true love's rite? What, with a torch? Muffle me, night, awhile. [Retires.] Enter Romeo, and Balthasar with a torch, a mattock, and a crow of iron. Rom. Give me that mattock and the wrenching iron. Hold, take this letter. Early in the morning See thou deliver it to my lord and father. Give me the light. Upon thy life I charge thee, Whate'er thou hearest or seest, stand all aloof And do not interrupt me in my course. Why I descend into this bed of death Is partly to behold my lady's face, But chiefly to take thence from her dead finger A precious ring- a ring that I must use In dear employment. Therefore hence, be gone. But if thou, jealous, dost return to pry In what I farther shall intend to do, By heaven, I will tear thee joint by joint And strew this hungry churchyard with thy limbs. The time and my intents are savage-wild, More fierce and more inexorable far Than empty tigers or the roaring sea. Bal. I will be gone, sir, and not trouble you. Rom. So shalt thou show me friendship. Take thou that. Live, and be prosperous; and farewell, good fellow. Bal. [aside] For all this same, I'll hide me hereabout. His looks I fear, and his intents I doubt. [Retires.] Rom. Thou detestable maw, thou womb of death, Gorg'd with the dearest morsel of the earth, Thus I enforce thy rotten jaws to open, And in despite I'll cram thee with more food. Romeo opens the tomb. Par. This is that banish'd haughty Montague That murd'red my love's cousin- with which grief It is supposed the fair creature died- And here is come to do some villanous shame To the dead bodies. I will apprehend him. Stop thy unhallowed toil, vile Montague! Can vengeance be pursu'd further than death? Condemned villain, I do apprehend thee. Obey, and go with me; for thou must die. Rom. I must indeed; and therefore came I hither. Good gentle youth, tempt not a desp'rate man. Fly hence and leave me. Think upon these gone; Let them affright thee. I beseech thee, youth, But not another sin upon my head By urging me to fury. O, be gone! By heaven, I love thee better than myself, For I come hither arm'd against myself. Stay not, be gone. Live, and hereafter say A madman's mercy bid thee run away. Par. I do defy thy, conjuration And apprehend thee for a felon here. Rom. Wilt thou provoke me? Then have at thee, boy! They fight. Page. O Lord, they fight! I will go call the watch. [Exit. Paris falls.] Par. O, I am slain! If thou be merciful, Open the tomb, lay me with Juliet. [Dies.] Rom. In faith, I will. Let me peruse this face. Mercutio's kinsman, noble County Paris! What said my man when my betossed soul Did not attend him as we rode? I think He told me Paris should have married Juliet. Said he not so? or did I dream it so? Or am I mad, hearing him talk of Juliet To think it was so? O, give me thy hand, One writ with me in sour misfortune's book! I'll bury thee in a triumphant grave. A grave? O, no, a lanthorn, slaught'red youth, For here lies Juliet, and her beauty makes This vault a feasting presence full of light. Death, lie thou there, by a dead man interr'd. [Lays him in the tomb.] How oft when men are at the point of death Have they been merry! which their keepers call A lightning before death. O, how may I Call this a lightning? O my love! my wife! Death, that hath suck'd the honey of thy breath, Hath had no power yet upon thy beauty. Thou art not conquer'd. Beauty's ensign yet Is crimson in thy lips and in thy cheeks, And death's pale flag is not advanced there. Tybalt, liest thou there in thy bloody sheet? O, what more favour can I do to thee Than with that hand that cut thy youth in twain To sunder his that was thine enemy? Forgive me, cousin.' Ah, dear Juliet, Why art thou yet so fair? Shall I believe That unsubstantial Death is amorous, And that the lean abhorred monster keeps Thee here in dark to be his paramour? For fear of that I still will stay with thee And never from this palace of dim night Depart again. Here, here will I remain With worms that are thy chambermaids. O, here Will I set up my everlasting rest And shake the yoke of inauspicious stars From this world-wearied flesh. Eyes, look your last! Arms, take your last embrace! and, lips, O you The doors of breath, seal with a righteous kiss A dateless bargain to engrossing death! Come, bitter conduct; come, unsavoury guide! Thou desperate pilot, now at once run on The dashing rocks thy seasick weary bark! Here's to my love! [Drinks.] O true apothecary! Thy drugs are quick. Thus with a kiss I die. Falls. Enter Friar [Laurence], with lanthorn, crow, and spade. Friar. Saint Francis be my speed! how oft to-night Have my old feet stumbled at graves! Who's there? Bal. Here's one, a friend, and one that knows you well. Friar. Bliss be upon you! Tell me, good my friend, What torch is yond that vainly lends his light To grubs and eyeless skulls? As I discern, It burneth in the Capels' monument. Bal. It doth so, holy sir; and there's my master, One that you love. Friar. Who is it? Bal. Romeo. Friar. How long hath he been there? Bal. Full half an hour. Friar. Go with me to the vault. Bal. I dare not, sir. My master knows not but I am gone hence, And fearfully did menace me with death If I did stay to look on his intents. Friar. Stay then; I'll go alone. Fear comes upon me. O, much I fear some ill unthrifty thing. Bal. As I did sleep under this yew tree here, I dreamt my master and another fought, And that my master slew him. Friar. Romeo! Alack, alack, what blood is this which stains The stony entrance of this sepulchre? What mean these masterless and gory swords To lie discolour'd by this place of peace? [Enters the tomb.] Romeo! O, pale! Who else? What, Paris too? And steep'd in blood? Ah, what an unkind hour Is guilty of this lamentable chance! The lady stirs. Juliet rises. Jul. O comfortable friar! where is my lord? I do remember well where I should be, And there I am. Where is my Romeo? Friar. I hear some noise. Lady, come from that nest Of death, contagion, and unnatural sleep. A greater power than we can contradict Hath thwarted our intents. Come, come away. Thy husband in thy bosom there lies dead; And Paris too. Come, I'll dispose of thee Among a sisterhood of holy nuns. Stay not to question, for the watch is coming. Come, go, good Juliet. I dare no longer stay. Jul. Go, get thee hence, for I will not away. Exit [Friar]. What's here? A cup, clos'd in my true love's hand? Poison, I see, hath been his timeless end. O churl! drunk all, and left no friendly drop To help me after? I will kiss thy lips. Haply some poison yet doth hang on them To make me die with a restorative. [Kisses him.] Thy lips are warm! Chief Watch. [within] Lead, boy. Which way? Yea, noise? Then I'll be brief. O happy dagger! [Snatches Romeo's dagger.] This is thy sheath; there rest, and let me die. She stabs herself and falls [on Romeo's body]. Enter [Paris's] Boy and Watch. Boy. This is the place. There, where the torch doth burn. Chief Watch. 'the ground is bloody. Search about the churchyard. Go, some of you; whoe'er you find attach. [Exeunt some of the Watch.] Pitiful sight! here lies the County slain; And Juliet bleeding, warm, and newly dead, Who here hath lain this two days buried. Go, tell the Prince; run to the Capulets; Raise up the Montagues; some others search. [Exeunt others of the Watch.] We see the ground whereon these woes do lie, But the true ground of all these piteous woes We cannot without circumstance descry. Enter [some of the Watch,] with Romeo's Man [Balthasar]. 2. Watch. Here's Romeo's man. We found him in the churchyard. Chief Watch. Hold him in safety till the Prince come hither. Enter Friar [Laurence] and another Watchman. 3. Watch. Here is a friar that trembles, sighs, and weeps. We took this mattock and this spade from him As he was coming from this churchyard side. Chief Watch. A great suspicion! Stay the friar too. Enter the Prince [and Attendants]. Prince. What misadventure is so early up, That calls our person from our morning rest? Enter Capulet and his Wife [with others]. Cap. What should it be, that they so shriek abroad? Wife. The people in the street cry 'Romeo,' Some 'Juliet,' and some 'Paris'; and all run, With open outcry, toward our monument. Prince. What fear is this which startles in our ears? Chief Watch. Sovereign, here lies the County Paris slain; And Romeo dead; and Juliet, dead before, Warm and new kill'd. Prince. Search, seek, and know how this foul murder comes. Chief Watch. Here is a friar, and slaughter'd Romeo's man, With instruments upon them fit to open These dead men's tombs. Cap. O heavens! O wife, look how our daughter bleeds! This dagger hath mista'en, for, lo, his house Is empty on the back of Montague, And it missheathed in my daughter's bosom! Wife. O me! this sight of death is as a bell That warns my old age to a sepulchre. Enter Montague [and others]. Prince. Come, Montague; for thou art early up To see thy son and heir more early down. Mon. Alas, my liege, my wife is dead to-night! Grief of my son's exile hath stopp'd her breath. What further woe conspires against mine age? Prince. Look, and thou shalt see. Mon. O thou untaught! what manners is in this, To press before thy father to a grave? Prince. Seal up the mouth of outrage for a while, Till we can clear these ambiguities And know their spring, their head, their true descent; And then will I be general of your woes And lead you even to death. Meantime forbear, And let mischance be slave to patience. Bring forth the parties of suspicion. Friar. I am the greatest, able to do least, Yet most suspected, as the time and place Doth make against me, of this direful murther; And here I stand, both to impeach and purge Myself condemned and myself excus'd. Prince. Then say it once what thou dost know in this. Friar. I will be brief, for my short date of breath Is not so long as is a tedious tale. Romeo, there dead, was husband to that Juliet; And she, there dead, that Romeo's faithful wife. I married them; and their stol'n marriage day Was Tybalt's doomsday, whose untimely death Banish'd the new-made bridegroom from this city; For whom, and not for Tybalt, Juliet pin'd. You, to remove that siege of grief from her, Betroth'd and would have married her perforce To County Paris. Then comes she to me And with wild looks bid me devise some mean To rid her from this second marriage, Or in my cell there would she kill herself. Then gave I her (so tutored by my art) A sleeping potion; which so took effect As I intended, for it wrought on her The form of death. Meantime I writ to Romeo That he should hither come as this dire night To help to take her from her borrowed grave, Being the time the potion's force should cease. But he which bore my letter, Friar John, Was stay'd by accident, and yesternight Return'd my letter back. Then all alone At the prefixed hour of her waking Came I to take her from her kindred's vault; Meaning to keep her closely at my cell Till I conveniently could send to Romeo. But when I came, some minute ere the time Of her awaking, here untimely lay The noble Paris and true Romeo dead. She wakes; and I entreated her come forth And bear this work of heaven with patience; But then a noise did scare me from the tomb, And she, too desperate, would not go with me, But, as it seems, did violence on herself. All this I know, and to the marriage Her nurse is privy; and if aught in this Miscarried by my fault, let my old life Be sacrific'd, some hour before his time, Unto the rigour of severest law. Prince. We still have known thee for a holy man. Where's Romeo's man? What can he say in this? Bal. I brought my master news of Juliet's death; And then in post he came from Mantua To this same place, to this same monument. This letter he early bid me give his father, And threat'ned me with death, going in the vault, If I departed not and left him there. Prince. Give me the letter. I will look on it. Where is the County's page that rais'd the watch? Sirrah, what made your master in this place? Boy. He came with flowers to strew his lady's grave; And bid me stand aloof, and so I did. Anon comes one with light to ope the tomb; And by-and-by my master drew on him; And then I ran away to call the watch. Prince. This letter doth make good the friar's words, Their course of love, the tidings of her death; And here he writes that he did buy a poison Of a poor pothecary, and therewithal Came to this vault to die, and lie with Juliet. Where be these enemies? Capulet, Montage, See what a scourge is laid upon your hate, That heaven finds means to kill your joys with love! And I, for winking at you, discords too, Have lost a brace of kinsmen. All are punish'd. Cap. O brother Montague, give me thy hand. This is my daughter's jointure, for no more Can I demand. Mon. But I can give thee more; For I will raise her Statue in pure gold, That whiles Verona by that name is known, There shall no figure at such rate be set As that of true and faithful Juliet. Cap. As rich shall Romeo's by his lady's lie- Poor sacrifices of our enmity! Prince. A glooming peace this morning with it brings. The sun for sorrow will not show his head. Go hence, to have more talk of these sad things; Some shall be pardon'd, and some punished; For never was a story of more woe Than this of Juliet and her Romeo. Exeunt omnes. THE END

The Capulet tomb seems to be a popular locale. When Romeo approaches, Paris is already there, sadly tossing flowers. He gets an alert from him page that someone is approaching and steps aside to see who it is. When Romeo arrives on the scene, he gets a hammer and a crowbar from Balthasar and hands Balthasar a letter for his dad, Lord Montague . Romeo tells Balthasar not to interrupt him or come after him. He claims he needs to break into Juliet's tomb both to see Juliet's beautiful face one last time and to get a ring from her finger that he needs, um...for something important. If Balthasar tries to follow him, Romeo will tear him limb from limb. Balthasar says okay, but instead of leaving he hides behind some bushes. He's not buying Romeo's story. Paris sees Romeo and assumes he's there to somehow dishonor the Capulets. To be fair, Romeo looks pretty suspicious--he's carrying a bunch of tomb-breaking-in tools. Paris tries to do a citizen's arrest on Romeo, who is, after all, an outlaw. You can guess what happens next: they fight, and Romeo kills Paris. Oops. Romeo feels pretty guilty for killing yet another one of Juliet's male associates, especially since Paris was one of Mercutio's relatives. He vaguely remembers Balthasar saying that Paris was supposed to marry Juliet or something like that, but admits he wasn't really paying attention. He may have dreamed it. Still, Romeo honors Paris's request and places him in the tomb, then he heads over to Juliet's corpse. He wonders more than once why Juliet still looks so fair, why death hasn't made her cheeks pale or her lips blue. Then he gives her a kiss, drinks the poison strong enough to kill twenty men, and dies. Immediately . Thirty seconds too late, the Friar comes in and sees Romeo lying there dead. Then, an agonizing minute too late, Juliet wakes up to find her husband dead at her side. Brain Snack: In the 1996 film Romeo + Juliet, director Baz Luhrmann makes an interesting decision when staging this scene. His Juliet wakes up right before Romeo drinks the poison and dies. Why do you think Luhrmann does this? Does it change things? Why or why not? The Friar tries to convince her to run away--the noise of the fighting has attracted attention, and Verona's citizens are about to do what they do best in Romeo and Juliet and show up at the scene--but Juliet won't leave. In fact, she tries to drink the rest of the poison so she can die with him, but none is left. So, she does the next best thing: pulls out Romeo's dagger and stabs herself. When the Prince, the Capulets, and the Montagues show up, the see Romeo and Juliet, both dead, lying beside each other. The Prince's guards drag in the Friar, who apparently left Juliet alone in the tomb at some point. He tells the whole story. Ugh, fine. Lord Capulet and Lord Montague swear to end their feud and to build statues to commemorate each other's child. The Prince says that some of those involved in Romeo and Juliet's death will be pardoned, and some will be punished. "For never was a story of more woe," the Prince says, "Than this of Juliet and her Romeo." The end.

Chapter LIV. M. Fouquet's Friends. The king had returned to Paris, and with him D'Artagnan, who, in twenty-four hours, having made with greatest care all possible inquiries at Belle-Isle, succeeded in learning nothing of the secret so well kept by the heavy rock of Locmaria, which had fallen on the heroic Porthos. The captain of the musketeers only knew what those two valiant men--these two friends, whose defense he had so nobly taken up, whose lives he had so earnestly endeavored to save--aided by three faithful Bretons, had accomplished against a whole army. He had seen, spread on the neighboring heath, the human remains which had stained with clouted blood the scattered stones among the flowering broom. He learned also that a bark had been seen far out at sea, and that, like a bird of prey, a royal vessel had pursued, overtaken, and devoured the poor little bird that was flying with such palpitating wings. But there D'Artagnan's certainties ended. The field of supposition was thrown open. Now, what could he conjecture? The vessel had not returned. It is true that a brisk wind had prevailed for three days; but the corvette was known to be a good sailer and solid in its timbers; it had no need to fear a gale of wind, and it ought, according to the calculation of D'Artagnan, to have either returned to Brest, or come back to the mouth of the Loire. Such was the news, ambiguous, it is true, but in some degree reassuring to him personally, which D'Artagnan brought to Louis XIV., when the king, followed by all the court, returned to Paris. Louis, satisfied with his success--Louis, more mild and affable as he felt himself more powerful--had not ceased for an instant to ride beside the carriage door of Mademoiselle de la Valliere. Everybody was anxious to amuse the two queens, so as to make them forget this abandonment by son and husband. Everything breathed the future, the past was nothing to anybody. Only that past was like a painful bleeding wound to the hearts of certain tender and devoted spirits. Scarcely was the king reinstalled in Paris, when he received a touching proof of this. Louis XIV. had just risen and taken his first repast when his captain of the musketeers presented himself before him. D'Artagnan was pale and looked unhappy. The king, at the first glance, perceived the change in a countenance generally so unconcerned. "What is the matter, D'Artagnan?" said he. "Sire, a great misfortune has happened to me." "Good heavens! what is that?" "Sire, I have lost one of my friends, M. du Vallon, in the affair of Belle-Isle." And, while speaking these words, D'Artagnan fixed his falcon eye upon Louis XIV., to catch the first feeling that would show itself. "I knew it," replied the king, quietly. "You knew it, and did not tell me!" cried the musketeer. "To what good? Your grief, my friend, was so well worthy of respect. It was my duty to treat it gently. To have informed you of this misfortune, which I knew would pain you so greatly, D'Artagnan, would have been, in your eyes, to have triumphed over you. Yes, I knew that M. du Vallon had buried himself beneath the rocks of Locmaria; I knew that M. d'Herblay had taken one of my vessels with its crew, and had compelled it to convey him to Bayonne. But I was willing you should learn these matters in a direct manner, in order that you might be convinced my friends are with me respected and sacred; that always in me the man will sacrifice himself to subjects, whilst the king is so often found to sacrifice men to majesty and power." "But, sire, how could you know?" "How do you yourself know, D'Artagnan?" "By this letter, sire, which M. d'Herblay, free and out of danger, writes me from Bayonne." "Look here," said the king, drawing from a casket placed upon the table closet to the seat upon which D'Artagnan was leaning, "here is a letter copied exactly from that of M. d'Herblay. Here is the very letter, which Colbert placed in my hands a week before you received yours. I am well served, you may perceive." "Yes, sire," murmured the musketeer, "you were the only man whose star was equal to the task of dominating the fortune and strength of my two friends. You have used your power, sire, you will not abuse it, will you?" "D'Artagnan," said the king, with a smile beaming with kindness, "I could have M. d'Herblay carried off from the territories of the king of Spain, and brought here, alive, to inflict justice upon him. But, D'Artagnan, be assured I will not yield to this first and natural impulse. He is free--let him continue free." "Oh, sire! you will not always remain so clement, so noble, so generous as you have shown yourself with respect to me and M. d'Herblay; you will have about you counselors who will cure you of that weakness." "No, D'Artagnan, you are mistaken when you accuse my council of urging me to pursue rigorous measures. The advice to spare M. d'Herblay comes from Colbert himself." "Oh, sire!" said D'Artagnan, extremely surprised. "As for you," continued the king, with a kindness very uncommon to him, "I have several pieces of good news to announce to you; but you shall know them, my dear captain, the moment I have made my accounts all straight. I have said that I wish to make, and would make, your fortune; that promise will soon become reality." "A thousand times thanks, sire! I can wait. But I implore you, whilst I go and practice patience, that your majesty will deign to notice those poor people who have for so long a time besieged your ante-chamber, and come humbly to lay a petition at your feet." "Who are they?" "Enemies of your majesty." The king raised his head. "Friends of M. Fouquet," added D'Artagnan. "Their names?" "M. Gourville, M. Pelisson, and a poet, M. Jean de la Fontaine." The king took a moment to reflect. "What do they want?" "I do not know." "How do they appear?" "In great affliction." "What do they say?" "Nothing." "What do they do?" "They weep." "Let them come in," said the king, with a serious brow. D'Artagnan turned rapidly on his heel, raised the tapestry which closed the entrance to the royal chamber, and directing his voice to the adjoining room, cried, "Enter." The three men D'Artagnan had named immediately appeared at the door of the cabinet in which were the king and his captain. A profound silence prevailed in their passage. The courtiers, at the approach of the friends of the unfortunate superintendent of finances, drew back, as if fearful of being affected by contagion with disgrace and misfortune. D'Artagnan, with a quick step, came forward to take by the hand the unhappy men who stood trembling at the door of the cabinet; he led them in front of the king's _fauteuil_, who, having placed himself in the embrasure of a window, awaited the moment of presentation, and was preparing himself to give the supplicants a rigorously diplomatic reception. The first of the friends of Fouquet's to advance was Pelisson. He did not weep, but his tears were only restrained that the king might better hear his voice and prayer. Gourville bit his lips to check his tears, out of respect for the king. La Fontaine buried his face in his handkerchief, and the only signs of life he gave were the convulsive motions of his shoulders, raised by his sobs. The king preserved his dignity. His countenance was impassible. He even maintained the frown which appeared when D'Artagnan announced his enemies. He made a gesture which signified, "Speak;" and he remained standing, with his eyes fixed searchingly on these desponding men. Pelisson bowed to the ground, and La Fontaine knelt as people do in churches. This dismal silence, disturbed only by sighs and groans, began to excite in the king, not compassion, but impatience. "Monsieur Pelisson," said he, in a sharp, dry tone. "Monsieur Gourville, and you, Monsieur--" and he did not name La Fontaine, "I cannot, without sensible displeasure, see you come to plead for one of the greatest criminals it is the duty of justice to punish. A king does not allow himself to soften save at the tears of the innocent, the remorse of the guilty. I have no faith either in the remorse of M. Fouquet or the tears of his friends, because the one is tainted to the very heart, and the others ought to dread offending me in my own palace. For these reasons, I beg you, Monsieur Pelisson, Monsieur Gourville, and you, Monsieur--, to say nothing that will not plainly proclaim the respect you have for my will." "Sire," replied Pelisson, trembling at these words, "we are come to say nothing to your majesty that is not the most profound expression of the most sincere respect and love that are due to a king from all his subjects. Your majesty's justice is redoubtable; every one must yield to the sentences it pronounces. We respectfully bow before it. Far from us the idea of coming to defend him who has had the misfortune to offend your majesty. He who has incurred your displeasure may be a friend of ours, but he is an enemy to the state. We abandon him, but with tears, to the severity of the king." "Besides," interrupted the king, calmed by that supplicating voice, and those persuasive words, "my parliament will decide. I do not strike without first having weighed the crime; my justice does not wield the sword without employing first a pair of scales." "Therefore we have every confidence in that impartiality of the king, and hope to make our feeble voices heard, with the consent of your majesty, when the hour for defending an accused friend strikes." "In that case, messieurs, what do you ask of me?" said the king, with his most imposing air. "Sire," continued Pelisson, "the accused has a wife and family. The little property he had was scarcely sufficient to pay his debts, and Madame Fouquet, since her husband's captivity, is abandoned by everybody. The hand of your majesty strikes like the hand of God. When the Lord sends the curse of leprosy or pestilence into a family, every one flies and shuns the abode of the leprous or plague-stricken. Sometimes, but very rarely, a generous physician alone ventures to approach the ill-reputed threshold, passes it with courage, and risks his life to combat death. He is the last resource of the dying, the chosen instrument of heavenly mercy. Sire, we supplicate you, with clasped hands and bended knees, as a divinity is supplicated! Madame Fouquet has no longer any friends, no longer any means of support; she weeps in her deserted home, abandoned by all those who besieged its doors in the hour of prosperity; she has neither credit nor hope left. At least, the unhappy wretch upon whom your anger falls receives from you, however culpable he may be, his daily bread though moistened by his tears. As much afflicted, more destitute than her husband, Madame Fouquet--the lady who had the honor to receive your majesty at her table--Madame Fouquet, the wife of the ancient superintendent of your majesty's finances, Madame Fouquet has no longer bread." Here the mortal silence which had chained the breath of Pelisson's two friends was broken by an outburst of sobs; and D'Artagnan, whose chest heaved at hearing this humble prayer, turned round towards the angle of the cabinet to bite his mustache and conceal a groan. The king had preserved his eye dry and his countenance severe; but the blood had mounted to his cheeks, and the firmness of his look was visibly diminished. "What do you wish?" said he, in an agitated voice. "We come humbly to ask your majesty," replied Pelisson, upon whom emotion was fast gaining, "to permit us, without incurring the displeasure of your majesty, to lend to Madame Fouquet two thousand pistoles collected among the old friends of her husband, in order that the widow may not stand in need of the necessaries of life." At the word _widow_, pronounced by Pelisson whilst Fouquet was still alive, the king turned very pale;--his pride disappeared; pity rose from his heart to his lips; he cast a softened look upon the men who knelt sobbing at his feet. "God forbid," said he, "that I should confound the innocent with the guilty. They know me but ill who doubt my mercy towards the weak. I strike none but the arrogant. Do, messieurs, do all that your hearts counsel you to assuage the grief of Madame Fouquet. Go, messieurs--go!" The three now rose in silence with dry eyes. The tears had been scorched away by contact with their burning cheeks and eyelids. They had not the strength to address their thanks to the king, who himself cut short their solemn reverences by entrenching himself suddenly behind the _fauteuil_. D'Artagnan remained alone with the king. "Well," said he, approaching the young prince, who interrogated him with his look. "Well, my master! If you had not the device which belongs to your sun, I would recommend you one which M. Conrart might translate into eclectic Latin, 'Calm with the lowly; stormy with the strong.'" The king smiled, and passed into the next apartment, after having said to D'Artagnan, "I give you the leave of absence you must want to put the affairs of your friend, the late M. du Vallon, in order."

D'Artagnan arrives back in Paris after going to Belle-Isle and discovering no trace of his friends. He knows only that they killed a lot of men. Once the King is settled in Paris, D'Artagnan shows up with a sad face. He has learned of Porthos's death. The King admits he knew. D'Artagnan asks why he was not informed. The King says he wanted D'Artagnan to find out for himself. When asked how he received this information, the King admits to reading D'Artagnan's mail. Aramis had sent him a letter recapping the situation. D'Artagnan admits Louis is the only man who could possibly dominate over his friends. The King mentions that he could easily have Aramis killed in his hiding place in Spain, but since he's generous, he desists. D'Artagnan protests that the King's advisers will change his mind. The King admits that it is Colbert who actually advised sparing Aramis's life. D'Artagnan asks the King to receive three petitioners who have been waiting for a long time in the antechamber. They are the friends of Fouquet: Gourville, Pelisson, and La Fontaine. The three men are weeping. The King remains expressionless as the three men file in with faces contorted by grief. The men can't get it together to speak, and the King gets impatient. He tells them there is no hope of pardoning Fouquet. Pelisson finally speaks. They are actually there on behalf of Madame Fouquet, who has been abandoned and destitute since her husband has fallen out of favor. The friends ask permission to loan her two thousand pistoles. The King grants them permission and they leave. The King then gives D'Artagnan permission to see to the affairs of Porthos.

NEAR sunset that evening an elderly gentleman was standing with his back against the smaller entrance-door of Stoniton jail, saying a few last words to the departing chaplain. The chaplain walked away, but the elderly gentleman stood still, looking down on the pavement and stroking his chin with a ruminating air, when he was roused by a sweet clear woman's voice, saying, "Can I get into the prison, if you please?" He turned his head and looked fixedly at the speaker for a few moments without answering. "I have seen you before," he said at last. "Do you remember preaching on the village green at Hayslope in Loamshire?" "Yes, sir, surely. Are you the gentleman that stayed to listen on horseback?" "Yes. Why do you want to go into the prison?" "I want to go to Hetty Sorrel, the young woman who has been condemned to death--and to stay with her, if I may be permitted. Have you power in the prison, sir?" "Yes; I am a magistrate, and can get admittance for you. But did you know this criminal, Hetty Sorrel?" "Yes, we are kin. My own aunt married her uncle, Martin Poyser. But I was away at Leeds, and didn't know of this great trouble in time to get here before to-day. I entreat you, sir, for the love of our heavenly Father, to let me go to her and stay with her." "How did you know she was condemned to death, if you are only just come from Leeds?" "I have seen my uncle since the trial, sir. He is gone back to his home now, and the poor sinner is forsaken of all. I beseech you to get leave for me to be with her." "What! Have you courage to stay all night in the prison? She is very sullen, and will scarcely make answer when she is spoken to." "Oh, sir, it may please God to open her heart still. Don't let us delay." "Come, then," said the elderly gentleman, ringing and gaining admission, "I know you have a key to unlock hearts." Dinah mechanically took off her bonnet and shawl as soon as they were within the prison court, from the habit she had of throwing them off when she preached or prayed, or visited the sick; and when they entered the jailer's room, she laid them down on a chair unthinkingly. There was no agitation visible in her, but a deep concentrated calmness, as if, even when she was speaking, her soul was in prayer reposing on an unseen support. After speaking to the jailer, the magistrate turned to her and said, "The turnkey will take you to the prisoner's cell and leave you there for the night, if you desire it, but you can't have a light during the night--it is contrary to rules. My name is Colonel Townley: if I can help you in anything, ask the jailer for my address and come to me. I take some interest in this Hetty Sorrel, for the sake of that fine fellow, Adam Bede. I happened to see him at Hayslope the same evening I heard you preach, and recognized him in court to-day, ill as he looked." "Ah, sir, can you tell me anything about him? Can you tell me where he lodges? For my poor uncle was too much weighed down with trouble to remember." "Close by here. I inquired all about him of Mr. Irwine. He lodges over a tinman's shop, in the street on the right hand as you entered the prison. There is an old school-master with him. Now, good-bye: I wish you success." "Farewell, sir. I am grateful to you." As Dinah crossed the prison court with the turnkey, the solemn evening light seemed to make the walls higher than they were by day, and the sweet pale face in the cap was more than ever like a white flower on this background of gloom. The turnkey looked askance at her all the while, but never spoke. He somehow felt that the sound of his own rude voice would be grating just then. He struck a light as they entered the dark corridor leading to the condemned cell, and then said in his most civil tone, "It'll be pretty nigh dark in the cell a'ready, but I can stop with my light a bit, if you like." "Nay, friend, thank you," said Dinah. "I wish to go in alone." "As you like," said the jailer, turning the harsh key in the lock and opening the door wide enough to admit Dinah. A jet of light from his lantern fell on the opposite corner of the cell, where Hetty was sitting on her straw pallet with her face buried in her knees. It seemed as if she were asleep, and yet the grating of the lock would have been likely to waken her. The door closed again, and the only light in the cell was that of the evening sky, through the small high grating--enough to discern human faces by. Dinah stood still for a minute, hesitating to speak because Hetty might be asleep, and looking at the motionless heap with a yearning heart. Then she said, softly, "Hetty!" There was a slight movement perceptible in Hetty's frame--a start such as might have been produced by a feeble electrical shock--but she did not look up. Dinah spoke again, in a tone made stronger by irrepressible emotion, "Hetty...it's Dinah." Again there was a slight startled movement through Hetty's frame, and without uncovering her face, she raised her head a little, as if listening. "Hetty...Dinah is come to you." After a moment's pause, Hetty lifted her head slowly and timidly from her knees and raised her eyes. The two pale faces were looking at each other: one with a wild hard despair in it, the other full of sad yearning love. Dinah unconsciously opened her arms and stretched them out. "Don't you know me, Hetty? Don't you remember Dinah? Did you think I wouldn't come to you in trouble?" Hetty kept her eyes fixed on Dinah's face--at first like an animal that gazes, and gazes, and keeps aloof. "I'm come to be with you, Hetty--not to leave you--to stay with you--to be your sister to the last." Slowly, while Dinah was speaking, Hetty rose, took a step forward, and was clasped in Dinah's arms. They stood so a long while, for neither of them felt the impulse to move apart again. Hetty, without any distinct thought of it, hung on this something that was come to clasp her now, while she was sinking helpless in a dark gulf; and Dinah felt a deep joy in the first sign that her love was welcomed by the wretched lost one. The light got fainter as they stood, and when at last they sat down on the straw pallet together, their faces had become indistinct. Not a word was spoken. Dinah waited, hoping for a spontaneous word from Hetty, but she sat in the same dull despair, only clutching the hand that held hers and leaning her cheek against Dinah's. It was the human contact she clung to, but she was not the less sinking into the dark gulf. Dinah began to doubt whether Hetty was conscious who it was that sat beside her. She thought suffering and fear might have driven the poor sinner out of her mind. But it was borne in upon her, as she afterwards said, that she must not hurry God's work: we are overhasty to speak--as if God did not manifest himself by our silent feeling, and make his love felt through ours. She did not know how long they sat in that way, but it got darker and darker, till there was only a pale patch of light on the opposite wall: all the rest was darkness. But she felt the Divine presence more and more--nay, as if she herself were a part of it, and it was the Divine pity that was beating in her heart and was willing the rescue of this helpless one. At last she was prompted to speak and find out how far Hetty was conscious of the present. "Hetty," she said gently, "do you know who it is that sits by your side?" "Yes," Hetty answered slowly, "it's Dinah." "And do you remember the time when we were at the Hall Farm together, and that night when I told you to be sure and think of me as a friend in trouble?" "Yes," said Hetty. Then, after a pause, she added, "But you can do nothing for me. You can't make 'em do anything. They'll hang me o' Monday--it's Friday now." As Hetty said the last words, she clung closer to Dinah, shuddering. "No, Hetty, I can't save you from that death. But isn't the suffering less hard when you have somebody with you, that feels for you--that you can speak to, and say what's in your heart?...Yes, Hetty: you lean on me: you are glad to have me with you." "You won't leave me, Dinah? You'll keep close to me?" "No, Hetty, I won't leave you. I'll stay with you to the last....But, Hetty, there is some one else in this cell besides me, some one close to you." Hetty said, in a frightened whisper, "Who?" "Some one who has been with you through all your hours of sin and trouble--who has known every thought you have had--has seen where you went, where you lay down and rose up again, and all the deeds you have tried to hide in darkness. And on Monday, when I can't follow you--when my arms can't reach you--when death has parted us--He who is with us now, and knows all, will be with you then. It makes no difference--whether we live or die, we are in the presence of God." "Oh, Dinah, won't nobody do anything for me? Will they hang me for certain?...I wouldn't mind if they'd let me live." "My poor Hetty, death is very dreadful to you. I know it's dreadful. But if you had a friend to take care of you after death--in that other world--some one whose love is greater than mine--who can do everything?...If God our Father was your friend, and was willing to save you from sin and suffering, so as you should neither know wicked feelings nor pain again? If you could believe he loved you and would help you, as you believe I love you and will help you, it wouldn't be so hard to die on Monday, would it?" "But I can't know anything about it," Hetty said, with sullen sadness. "Because, Hetty, you are shutting up your soul against him, by trying to hide the truth. God's love and mercy can overcome all things--our ignorance, and weakness, and all the burden of our past wickedness--all things but our wilful sin, sin that we cling to, and will not give up. You believe in my love and pity for you, Hetty, but if you had not let me come near you, if you wouldn't have looked at me or spoken to me, you'd have shut me out from helping you. I couldn't have made you feel my love; I couldn't have told you what I felt for you. Don't shut God's love out in that way, by clinging to sin....He can't bless you while you have one falsehood in your soul; his pardoning mercy can't reach you until you open your heart to him, and say, 'I have done this great wickedness; O God, save me, make me pure from sin.' While you cling to one sin and will not part with it, it must drag you down to misery after death, as it has dragged you to misery here in this world, my poor, poor Hetty. It is sin that brings dread, and darkness, and despair: there is light and blessedness for us as soon as we cast it off. God enters our souls then, and teaches us, and brings us strength and peace. Cast it off now, Hetty--now: confess the wickedness you have done--the sin you have been guilty of against your Heavenly Father. Let us kneel down together, for we are in the presence of God." Hetty obeyed Dinah's movement, and sank on her knees. They still held each other's hands, and there was long silence. Then Dinah said, "Hetty, we are before God. He is waiting for you to tell the truth." Still there was silence. At last Hetty spoke, in a tone of beseeching-- "Dinah...help me...I can't feel anything like you...my heart is hard." Dinah held the clinging hand, and all her soul went forth in her voice: "Jesus, thou present Saviour! Thou hast known the depths of all sorrow: thou hast entered that black darkness where God is not, and hast uttered the cry of the forsaken. Come Lord, and gather of the fruits of thy travail and thy pleading. Stretch forth thy hand, thou who art mighty to save to the uttermost, and rescue this lost one. She is clothed round with thick darkness. The fetters of her sin are upon her, and she cannot stir to come to thee. She can only feel her heart is hard, and she is helpless. She cries to me, thy weak creature....Saviour! It is a blind cry to thee. Hear it! Pierce the darkness! Look upon her with thy face of love and sorrow that thou didst turn on him who denied thee, and melt her hard heart. "See, Lord, I bring her, as they of old brought the sick and helpless, and thou didst heal them. I bear her on my arms and carry her before thee. Fear and trembling have taken hold on her, but she trembles only at the pain and death of the body. Breathe upon her thy life-giving Spirit, and put a new fear within her--the fear of her sin. Make her dread to keep the accursed thing within her soul. Make her feel the presence of the living God, who beholds all the past, to whom the darkness is as noonday; who is waiting now, at the eleventh hour, for her to turn to him, and confess her sin, and cry for mercy--now, before the night of death comes, and the moment of pardon is for ever fled, like yesterday that returneth not. "Saviour! It is yet time--time to snatch this poor soul from everlasting darkness. I believe--I believe in thy infinite love. What is my love or my pleading? It is quenched in thine. I can only clasp her in my weak arms and urge her with my weak pity. Thou--thou wilt breathe on the dead soul, and it shall arise from the unanswering sleep of death. "Yea, Lord, I see thee, coming through the darkness coming, like the morning, with healing on thy wings. The marks of thy agony are upon thee--I see, I see thou art able and willing to save--thou wilt not let her perish for ever. Come, mighty Saviour! Let the dead hear thy voice. Let the eyes of the blind be opened. Let her see that God encompasses her. Let her tremble at nothing but at the sin that cuts her off from him. Melt the hard heart. Unseal the closed lips: make her cry with her whole soul, 'Father, I have sinned.'..." "Dinah," Hetty sobbed out, throwing her arms round Dinah's neck, "I will speak...I will tell...I won't hide it any more." But the tears and sobs were too violent. Dinah raised her gently from her knees and seated her on the pallet again, sitting down by her side. It was a long time before the convulsed throat was quiet, and even then they sat some time in stillness and darkness, holding each other's hands. At last Hetty whispered, "I did do it, Dinah...I buried it in the wood...the little baby...and it cried...I heard it cry...ever such a way off...all night...and I went back because it cried." She paused, and then spoke hurriedly in a louder, pleading tone. "But I thought perhaps it wouldn't die--there might somebody find it. I didn't kill it--I didn't kill it myself. I put it down there and covered it up, and when I came back it was gone....It was because I was so very miserable, Dinah...I didn't know where to go...and I tried to kill myself before, and I couldn't. Oh, I tried so to drown myself in the pool, and I couldn't. I went to Windsor--I ran away--did you know? I went to find him, as he might take care of me; and he was gone; and then I didn't know what to do. I daredn't go back home again--I couldn't bear it. I couldn't have bore to look at anybody, for they'd have scorned me. I thought o' you sometimes, and thought I'd come to you, for I didn't think you'd be cross with me, and cry shame on me. I thought I could tell you. But then the other folks 'ud come to know it at last, and I couldn't bear that. It was partly thinking o' you made me come toward Stoniton; and, besides, I was so frightened at going wandering about till I was a beggar-woman, and had nothing; and sometimes it seemed as if I must go back to the farm sooner than that. Oh, it was so dreadful, Dinah...I was so miserable...I wished I'd never been born into this world. I should never like to go into the green fields again--I hated 'em so in my misery." Hetty paused again, as if the sense of the past were too strong upon her for words. "And then I got to Stoniton, and I began to feel frightened that night, because I was so near home. And then the little baby was born, when I didn't expect it; and the thought came into my mind that I might get rid of it and go home again. The thought came all of a sudden, as I was lying in the bed, and it got stronger and stronger...I longed so to go back again...I couldn't bear being so lonely and coming to beg for want. And it gave me strength and resolution to get up and dress myself. I felt I must do it...I didn't know how...I thought I'd find a pool, if I could, like that other, in the corner of the field, in the dark. And when the woman went out, I felt as if I was strong enough to do anything...I thought I should get rid of all my misery, and go back home, and never let 'em know why I ran away. I put on my bonnet and shawl, and went out into the dark street, with the baby under my cloak; and I walked fast till I got into a street a good way off, and there was a public, and I got some warm stuff to drink and some bread. And I walked on and on, and I hardly felt the ground I trod on; and it got lighter, for there came the moon--oh, Dinah, it frightened me when it first looked at me out o' the clouds--it never looked so before; and I turned out of the road into the fields, for I was afraid o' meeting anybody with the moon shining on me. And I came to a haystack, where I thought I could lie down and keep myself warm all night. There was a place cut into it, where I could make me a bed, and I lay comfortable, and the baby was warm against me; and I must have gone to sleep for a good while, for when I woke it was morning, but not very light, and the baby was crying. And I saw a wood a little way off...I thought there'd perhaps be a ditch or a pond there...and it was so early I thought I could hide the child there, and get a long way off before folks was up. And then I thought I'd go home--I'd get rides in carts and go home and tell 'em I'd been to try and see for a place, and couldn't get one. I longed so for it, Dinah, I longed so to be safe at home. I don't know how I felt about the baby. I seemed to hate it--it was like a heavy weight hanging round my neck; and yet its crying went through me, and I daredn't look at its little hands and face. But I went on to the wood, and I walked about, but there was no water...." Hetty shuddered. She was silent for some moments, and when she began again, it was in a whisper. "I came to a place where there was lots of chips and turf, and I sat down on the trunk of a tree to think what I should do. And all of a sudden I saw a hole under the nut-tree, like a little grave. And it darted into me like lightning--I'd lay the baby there and cover it with the grass and the chips. I couldn't kill it any other way. And I'd done it in a minute; and, oh, it cried so, Dinah--I couldn't cover it quite up--I thought perhaps somebody 'ud come and take care of it, and then it wouldn't die. And I made haste out of the wood, but I could hear it crying all the while; and when I got out into the fields, it was as if I was held fast--I couldn't go away, for all I wanted so to go. And I sat against the haystack to watch if anybody 'ud come. I was very hungry, and I'd only a bit of bread left, but I couldn't go away. And after ever such a while--hours and hours--the man came--him in a smock-frock, and he looked at me so, I was frightened, and I made haste and went on. I thought he was going to the wood and would perhaps find the baby. And I went right on, till I came to a village, a long way off from the wood, and I was very sick, and faint, and hungry. I got something to eat there, and bought a loaf. But I was frightened to stay. I heard the baby crying, and thought the other folks heard it too--and I went on. But I was so tired, and it was getting towards dark. And at last, by the roadside there was a barn--ever such a way off any house--like the barn in Abbot's Close, and I thought I could go in there and hide myself among the hay and straw, and nobody 'ud be likely to come. I went in, and it was half full o' trusses of straw, and there was some hay too. And I made myself a bed, ever so far behind, where nobody could find me; and I was so tired and weak, I went to sleep....But oh, the baby's crying kept waking me, and I thought that man as looked at me so was come and laying hold of me. But I must have slept a long while at last, though I didn't know, for when I got up and went out of the barn, I didn't know whether it was night or morning. But it was morning, for it kept getting lighter, and I turned back the way I'd come. I couldn't help it, Dinah; it was the baby's crying made me go--and yet I was frightened to death. I thought that man in the smock-frock 'ud see me and know I put the baby there. But I went on, for all that. I'd left off thinking about going home--it had gone out o' my mind. I saw nothing but that place in the wood where I'd buried the baby...I see it now. Oh Dinah! shall I allays see it?" Hetty clung round Dinah and shuddered again. The silence seemed long before she went on. "I met nobody, for it was very early, and I got into the wood....I knew the way to the place...the place against the nut-tree; and I could hear it crying at every step....I thought it was alive....I don't know whether I was frightened or glad...I don't know what I felt. I only know I was in the wood and heard the cry. I don't know what I felt till I saw the baby was gone. And when I'd put it there, I thought I should like somebody to find it and save it from dying; but when I saw it was gone, I was struck like a stone, with fear. I never thought o' stirring, I felt so weak. I knew I couldn't run away, and everybody as saw me 'ud know about the baby. My heart went like a stone. I couldn't wish or try for anything; it seemed like as if I should stay there for ever, and nothing 'ud ever change. But they came and took me away." Hetty was silent, but she shuddered again, as if there was still something behind; and Dinah waited, for her heart was so full that tears must come before words. At last Hetty burst out, with a sob, "Dinah, do you think God will take away that crying and the place in the wood, now I've told everything?" "Let us pray, poor sinner. Let us fall on our knees again, and pray to the God of all mercy."

In the Prison Dinah Morris speaks to an older gentleman outside the prison. He is Colonel Townley, the gentleman on horseback who heard Dinah speak on Hayslope Green. He is a magistrate and gets Dinah in to Hetty's cell. She wants to stay with Hetty till the end. Colonel Townley thinks she is brave to stay in a jail cell all night without any light, but Dinah is calm. Townley tells her where Adam is staying. Hetty at first is sullen and withdrawn but finally responds to Dinah's love and is enfolded in her arms. She clings to Dinah, who gently leads her to a full confession of the crime. She tells Hetty that she cannot be forgiven by God until she lets go of her sin, so Hetty tells how she half buried the baby in the wood, hoping someone would find it. She didn't kill it directly. She could only think that if the baby was gone, she could go home. She didn't feel anything for the baby, though its crying went all through her, and that is why she couldn't leave it. She could always hear it crying even after she went away. Then she went back, and it was gone. She sat and waited till they took her. She asks Dinah if now she has confessed, God will make the crying go away. Dinah tells her to kneel down and pray.

VII. Monseigneur in Town Monseigneur, one of the great lords in power at the Court, held his fortnightly reception in his grand hotel in Paris. Monseigneur was in his inner room, his sanctuary of sanctuaries, the Holiest of Holiests to the crowd of worshippers in the suite of rooms without. Monseigneur was about to take his chocolate. Monseigneur could swallow a great many things with ease, and was by some few sullen minds supposed to be rather rapidly swallowing France; but, his morning's chocolate could not so much as get into the throat of Monseigneur, without the aid of four strong men besides the Cook. Yes. It took four men, all four ablaze with gorgeous decoration, and the Chief of them unable to exist with fewer than two gold watches in his pocket, emulative of the noble and chaste fashion set by Monseigneur, to conduct the happy chocolate to Monseigneur's lips. One lacquey carried the chocolate-pot into the sacred presence; a second, milled and frothed the chocolate with the little instrument he bore for that function; a third, presented the favoured napkin; a fourth (he of the two gold watches), poured the chocolate out. It was impossible for Monseigneur to dispense with one of these attendants on the chocolate and hold his high place under the admiring Heavens. Deep would have been the blot upon his escutcheon if his chocolate had been ignobly waited on by only three men; he must have died of two. Monseigneur had been out at a little supper last night, where the Comedy and the Grand Opera were charmingly represented. Monseigneur was out at a little supper most nights, with fascinating company. So polite and so impressible was Monseigneur, that the Comedy and the Grand Opera had far more influence with him in the tiresome articles of state affairs and state secrets, than the needs of all France. A happy circumstance for France, as the like always is for all countries similarly favoured!--always was for England (by way of example), in the regretted days of the merry Stuart who sold it. Monseigneur had one truly noble idea of general public business, which was, to let everything go on in its own way; of particular public business, Monseigneur had the other truly noble idea that it must all go his way--tend to his own power and pocket. Of his pleasures, general and particular, Monseigneur had the other truly noble idea, that the world was made for them. The text of his order (altered from the original by only a pronoun, which is not much) ran: "The earth and the fulness thereof are mine, saith Monseigneur." Yet, Monseigneur had slowly found that vulgar embarrassments crept into his affairs, both private and public; and he had, as to both classes of affairs, allied himself perforce with a Farmer-General. As to finances public, because Monseigneur could not make anything at all of them, and must consequently let them out to somebody who could; as to finances private, because Farmer-Generals were rich, and Monseigneur, after generations of great luxury and expense, was growing poor. Hence Monseigneur had taken his sister from a convent, while there was yet time to ward off the impending veil, the cheapest garment she could wear, and had bestowed her as a prize upon a very rich Farmer-General, poor in family. Which Farmer-General, carrying an appropriate cane with a golden apple on the top of it, was now among the company in the outer rooms, much prostrated before by mankind--always excepting superior mankind of the blood of Monseigneur, who, his own wife included, looked down upon him with the loftiest contempt. A sumptuous man was the Farmer-General. Thirty horses stood in his stables, twenty-four male domestics sat in his halls, six body-women waited on his wife. As one who pretended to do nothing but plunder and forage where he could, the Farmer-General--howsoever his matrimonial relations conduced to social morality--was at least the greatest reality among the personages who attended at the hotel of Monseigneur that day. For, the rooms, though a beautiful scene to look at, and adorned with every device of decoration that the taste and skill of the time could achieve, were, in truth, not a sound business; considered with any reference to the scarecrows in the rags and nightcaps elsewhere (and not so far off, either, but that the watching towers of Notre Dame, almost equidistant from the two extremes, could see them both), they would have been an exceedingly uncomfortable business--if that could have been anybody's business, at the house of Monseigneur. Military officers destitute of military knowledge; naval officers with no idea of a ship; civil officers without a notion of affairs; brazen ecclesiastics, of the worst world worldly, with sensual eyes, loose tongues, and looser lives; all totally unfit for their several callings, all lying horribly in pretending to belong to them, but all nearly or remotely of the order of Monseigneur, and therefore foisted on all public employments from which anything was to be got; these were to be told off by the score and the score. People not immediately connected with Monseigneur or the State, yet equally unconnected with anything that was real, or with lives passed in travelling by any straight road to any true earthly end, were no less abundant. Doctors who made great fortunes out of dainty remedies for imaginary disorders that never existed, smiled upon their courtly patients in the ante-chambers of Monseigneur. Projectors who had discovered every kind of remedy for the little evils with which the State was touched, except the remedy of setting to work in earnest to root out a single sin, poured their distracting babble into any ears they could lay hold of, at the reception of Monseigneur. Unbelieving Philosophers who were remodelling the world with words, and making card-towers of Babel to scale the skies with, talked with Unbelieving Chemists who had an eye on the transmutation of metals, at this wonderful gathering accumulated by Monseigneur. Exquisite gentlemen of the finest breeding, which was at that remarkable time--and has been since--to be known by its fruits of indifference to every natural subject of human interest, were in the most exemplary state of exhaustion, at the hotel of Monseigneur. Such homes had these various notabilities left behind them in the fine world of Paris, that the spies among the assembled devotees of Monseigneur--forming a goodly half of the polite company--would have found it hard to discover among the angels of that sphere one solitary wife, who, in her manners and appearance, owned to being a Mother. Indeed, except for the mere act of bringing a troublesome creature into this world--which does not go far towards the realisation of the name of mother--there was no such thing known to the fashion. Peasant women kept the unfashionable babies close, and brought them up, and charming grandmammas of sixty dressed and supped as at twenty. The leprosy of unreality disfigured every human creature in attendance upon Monseigneur. In the outermost room were half a dozen exceptional people who had had, for a few years, some vague misgiving in them that things in general were going rather wrong. As a promising way of setting them right, half of the half-dozen had become members of a fantastic sect of Convulsionists, and were even then considering within themselves whether they should foam, rage, roar, and turn cataleptic on the spot--thereby setting up a highly intelligible finger-post to the Future, for Monseigneur's guidance. Besides these Dervishes, were other three who had rushed into another sect, which mended matters with a jargon about "the Centre of Truth:" holding that Man had got out of the Centre of Truth--which did not need much demonstration--but had not got out of the Circumference, and that he was to be kept from flying out of the Circumference, and was even to be shoved back into the Centre, by fasting and seeing of spirits. Among these, accordingly, much discoursing with spirits went on--and it did a world of good which never became manifest. But, the comfort was, that all the company at the grand hotel of Monseigneur were perfectly dressed. If the Day of Judgment had only been ascertained to be a dress day, everybody there would have been eternally correct. Such frizzling and powdering and sticking up of hair, such delicate complexions artificially preserved and mended, such gallant swords to look at, and such delicate honour to the sense of smell, would surely keep anything going, for ever and ever. The exquisite gentlemen of the finest breeding wore little pendent trinkets that chinked as they languidly moved; these golden fetters rang like precious little bells; and what with that ringing, and with the rustle of silk and brocade and fine linen, there was a flutter in the air that fanned Saint Antoine and his devouring hunger far away. Dress was the one unfailing talisman and charm used for keeping all things in their places. Everybody was dressed for a Fancy Ball that was never to leave off. From the Palace of the Tuileries, through Monseigneur and the whole Court, through the Chambers, the Tribunals of Justice, and all society (except the scarecrows), the Fancy Ball descended to the Common Executioner: who, in pursuance of the charm, was required to officiate "frizzled, powdered, in a gold-laced coat, pumps, and white silk stockings." At the gallows and the wheel--the axe was a rarity--Monsieur Paris, as it was the episcopal mode among his brother Professors of the provinces, Monsieur Orleans, and the rest, to call him, presided in this dainty dress. And who among the company at Monseigneur's reception in that seventeen hundred and eightieth year of our Lord, could possibly doubt, that a system rooted in a frizzled hangman, powdered, gold-laced, pumped, and white-silk stockinged, would see the very stars out! Monseigneur having eased his four men of their burdens and taken his chocolate, caused the doors of the Holiest of Holiests to be thrown open, and issued forth. Then, what submission, what cringing and fawning, what servility, what abject humiliation! As to bowing down in body and spirit, nothing in that way was left for Heaven--which may have been one among other reasons why the worshippers of Monseigneur never troubled it. Bestowing a word of promise here and a smile there, a whisper on one happy slave and a wave of the hand on another, Monseigneur affably passed through his rooms to the remote region of the Circumference of Truth. There, Monseigneur turned, and came back again, and so in due course of time got himself shut up in his sanctuary by the chocolate sprites, and was seen no more. The show being over, the flutter in the air became quite a little storm, and the precious little bells went ringing downstairs. There was soon but one person left of all the crowd, and he, with his hat under his arm and his snuff-box in his hand, slowly passed among the mirrors on his way out. "I devote you," said this person, stopping at the last door on his way, and turning in the direction of the sanctuary, "to the Devil!" With that, he shook the snuff from his fingers as if he had shaken the dust from his feet, and quietly walked downstairs. He was a man of about sixty, handsomely dressed, haughty in manner, and with a face like a fine mask. A face of a transparent paleness; every feature in it clearly defined; one set expression on it. The nose, beautifully formed otherwise, was very slightly pinched at the top of each nostril. In those two compressions, or dints, the only little change that the face ever showed, resided. They persisted in changing colour sometimes, and they would be occasionally dilated and contracted by something like a faint pulsation; then, they gave a look of treachery, and cruelty, to the whole countenance. Examined with attention, its capacity of helping such a look was to be found in the line of the mouth, and the lines of the orbits of the eyes, being much too horizontal and thin; still, in the effect of the face made, it was a handsome face, and a remarkable one. Its owner went downstairs into the courtyard, got into his carriage, and drove away. Not many people had talked with him at the reception; he had stood in a little space apart, and Monseigneur might have been warmer in his manner. It appeared, under the circumstances, rather agreeable to him to see the common people dispersed before his horses, and often barely escaping from being run down. His man drove as if he were charging an enemy, and the furious recklessness of the man brought no check into the face, or to the lips, of the master. The complaint had sometimes made itself audible, even in that deaf city and dumb age, that, in the narrow streets without footways, the fierce patrician custom of hard driving endangered and maimed the mere vulgar in a barbarous manner. But, few cared enough for that to think of it a second time, and, in this matter, as in all others, the common wretches were left to get out of their difficulties as they could. With a wild rattle and clatter, and an inhuman abandonment of consideration not easy to be understood in these days, the carriage dashed through streets and swept round corners, with women screaming before it, and men clutching each other and clutching children out of its way. At last, swooping at a street corner by a fountain, one of its wheels came to a sickening little jolt, and there was a loud cry from a number of voices, and the horses reared and plunged. But for the latter inconvenience, the carriage probably would not have stopped; carriages were often known to drive on, and leave their wounded behind, and why not? But the frightened valet had got down in a hurry, and there were twenty hands at the horses' bridles. "What has gone wrong?" said Monsieur, calmly looking out. A tall man in a nightcap had caught up a bundle from among the feet of the horses, and had laid it on the basement of the fountain, and was down in the mud and wet, howling over it like a wild animal. "Pardon, Monsieur the Marquis!" said a ragged and submissive man, "it is a child." "Why does he make that abominable noise? Is it his child?" "Excuse me, Monsieur the Marquis--it is a pity--yes." The fountain was a little removed; for the street opened, where it was, into a space some ten or twelve yards square. As the tall man suddenly got up from the ground, and came running at the carriage, Monsieur the Marquis clapped his hand for an instant on his sword-hilt. "Killed!" shrieked the man, in wild desperation, extending both arms at their length above his head, and staring at him. "Dead!" The people closed round, and looked at Monsieur the Marquis. There was nothing revealed by the many eyes that looked at him but watchfulness and eagerness; there was no visible menacing or anger. Neither did the people say anything; after the first cry, they had been silent, and they remained so. The voice of the submissive man who had spoken, was flat and tame in its extreme submission. Monsieur the Marquis ran his eyes over them all, as if they had been mere rats come out of their holes. He took out his purse. "It is extraordinary to me," said he, "that you people cannot take care of yourselves and your children. One or the other of you is for ever in the way. How do I know what injury you have done my horses. See! Give him that." He threw out a gold coin for the valet to pick up, and all the heads craned forward that all the eyes might look down at it as it fell. The tall man called out again with a most unearthly cry, "Dead!" He was arrested by the quick arrival of another man, for whom the rest made way. On seeing him, the miserable creature fell upon his shoulder, sobbing and crying, and pointing to the fountain, where some women were stooping over the motionless bundle, and moving gently about it. They were as silent, however, as the men. "I know all, I know all," said the last comer. "Be a brave man, my Gaspard! It is better for the poor little plaything to die so, than to live. It has died in a moment without pain. Could it have lived an hour as happily?" "You are a philosopher, you there," said the Marquis, smiling. "How do they call you?" "They call me Defarge." "Of what trade?" "Monsieur the Marquis, vendor of wine." "Pick up that, philosopher and vendor of wine," said the Marquis, throwing him another gold coin, "and spend it as you will. The horses there; are they right?" Without deigning to look at the assemblage a second time, Monsieur the Marquis leaned back in his seat, and was just being driven away with the air of a gentleman who had accidentally broke some common thing, and had paid for it, and could afford to pay for it; when his ease was suddenly disturbed by a coin flying into his carriage, and ringing on its floor. "Hold!" said Monsieur the Marquis. "Hold the horses! Who threw that?" He looked to the spot where Defarge the vendor of wine had stood, a moment before; but the wretched father was grovelling on his face on the pavement in that spot, and the figure that stood beside him was the figure of a dark stout woman, knitting. "You dogs!" said the Marquis, but smoothly, and with an unchanged front, except as to the spots on his nose: "I would ride over any of you very willingly, and exterminate you from the earth. If I knew which rascal threw at the carriage, and if that brigand were sufficiently near it, he should be crushed under the wheels." So cowed was their condition, and so long and hard their experience of what such a man could do to them, within the law and beyond it, that not a voice, or a hand, or even an eye was raised. Among the men, not one. But the woman who stood knitting looked up steadily, and looked the Marquis in the face. It was not for his dignity to notice it; his contemptuous eyes passed over her, and over all the other rats; and he leaned back in his seat again, and gave the word "Go on!" He was driven on, and other carriages came whirling by in quick succession; the Minister, the State-Projector, the Farmer-General, the Doctor, the Lawyer, the Ecclesiastic, the Grand Opera, the Comedy, the whole Fancy Ball in a bright continuous flow, came whirling by. The rats had crept out of their holes to look on, and they remained looking on for hours; soldiers and police often passing between them and the spectacle, and making a barrier behind which they slunk, and through which they peeped. The father had long ago taken up his bundle and bidden himself away with it, when the women who had tended the bundle while it lay on the base of the fountain, sat there watching the running of the water and the rolling of the Fancy Ball--when the one woman who had stood conspicuous, knitting, still knitted on with the steadfastness of Fate. The water of the fountain ran, the swift river ran, the day ran into evening, so much life in the city ran into death according to rule, time and tide waited for no man, the rats were sleeping close together in their dark holes again, the Fancy Ball was lighted up at supper, all things ran their course.

We're back in France. Getting whiplash yet? Just wait... Our narrator describes the way that Monseigneur, a member of the French aristocracy, makes his hot chocolate in the morning. Actually, Monseigneur would never dream of making his own chocolate. He has servants to do that for him. Four servants, to be precise. Mocking the excess that this sort of lifestyle needs, our narrator talks about Monseigneur's life in very broad strokes. Monseigneur remains convinced that the world has been created for Monseigneur and his pleasures. Anything that doesn't concern Monseigneur's pleasure is something Monseigneur will never be interested in. Wait, who is this Monseigneur guy, exactly? Well, he's sort of a conglomerate of all the aristocrats. See, the more we read, the less he seems like a real guy. For one thing, he doesn't have any other name than Monseigneur. For another, he's absolutely detestable...and he's described in such vague terms that he seems to be standing in for an entire class, not a single person. Okay, he is also an individual character, but we don't learn that until later. For now, just think of him as Aristocrat X. In Monseigneur's house, everyone dresses exquisitely. Gold and masques and wigs and silk stockings abound. That's all well and good, but when you compare all that shiny, fancy, expensive stuff with the rags that the poor people wear...well, you get the picture. Also, everyone seems to be pandering to Monseigneur all the time. Doctors, lawyers, government officials, and other forms of "high society" meet in his house to tell him how wonderful he is. Tonight Monseigneur heads to the opera. While he's there, a man appears. No one seems to like the man very much. He's cold, with a face "like a fine mask." Even Monseigneur seems to want to ignore him. He leaves the opera and gets into his carriage, where he orders his driver to speed through the streets. The driver is as ruthless as Monsieur le Marquis . They fly through Paris. Suddenly, however, they come to a lurching halt. The Marquis' carriage has run over a small child. The father of the child, wild with grief, charges at the carriage. Some people pull him back in time. Monsieur le Marquis looks at him in disgust. He can't figure out what all the trouble is about. He throws the man a coin to pay for his dead child. One of the men in the crowd comforts the grieving father by saying that, had the child lived, he wouldn't have had a very good life anyway. Monsieur le Marquis asks the name of this "philosopher." Defarge tells him his name. As the Marquis' carriage drives off, he throws Defarge another coin. Defarge throws it back. Furious, the Marquis calls the poor people dogs. He'd run over all of them if he had his choice in the matter.

The Senate House Enter three SENATORS at one door, ALCIBIADES meeting them, with attendants FIRST SENATOR. My lord, you have my voice to't: the fault's bloody. 'Tis necessary he should die: Nothing emboldens sin so much as mercy. SECOND SENATOR. Most true; the law shall bruise him. ALCIBIADES. Honour, health, and compassion, to the Senate! FIRST SENATOR. Now, Captain? ALCIBIADES. I am an humble suitor to your virtues; For pity is the virtue of the law, And none but tyrants use it cruelly. It pleases time and fortune to lie heavy Upon a friend of mine, who in hot blood Hath stepp'd into the law, which is past depth To those that without heed do plunge into't. He is a man, setting his fate aside, Of comely virtues; Nor did he soil the fact with cowardice- An honour in him which buys out his fault- But with a noble fury and fair spirit, Seeing his reputation touch'd to death, He did oppose his foe; And with such sober and unnoted passion He did behove his anger ere 'twas spent, As if he had but prov'd an argument. FIRST SENATOR. You undergo too strict a paradox, Striving to make an ugly deed look fair; Your words have took such pains as if they labour'd To bring manslaughter into form and set Quarrelling upon the head of valour; which, indeed, Is valour misbegot, and came into the world When sects and factions were newly born. He's truly valiant that can wisely suffer The worst that man can breathe, And make his wrongs his outsides, To wear them like his raiment, carelessly, And ne'er prefer his injuries to his heart, To bring it into danger. If wrongs be evils, and enforce us kill, What folly 'tis to hazard life for ill! ALCIBIADES. My lord- FIRST SENATOR. You cannot make gross sins look clear: To revenge is no valour, but to bear. ALCIBIADES. My lords, then, under favour, pardon me If I speak like a captain: Why do fond men expose themselves to battle, And not endure all threats? Sleep upon't, And let the foes quietly cut their throats, Without repugnancy? If there be Such valour in the bearing, what make we Abroad? Why, then, women are more valiant, That stay at home, if bearing carry it; And the ass more captain than the lion; the fellow Loaden with irons wiser than the judge, If wisdom be in suffering. O my lords, As you are great, be pitifully good. Who cannot condemn rashness in cold blood? To kill, I grant, is sin's extremest gust; But, in defence, by mercy, 'tis most just. To be in anger is impiety; But who is man that is not angry? Weigh but the crime with this. SECOND SENATOR. You breathe in vain. ALCIBIADES. In vain! His service done At Lacedaemon and Byzantium Were a sufficient briber for his life. FIRST SENATOR. What's that? ALCIBIADES. Why, I say, my lords, has done fair service, And slain in fight many of your enemies; How full of valour did he bear himself In the last conflict, and made plenteous wounds! SECOND SENATOR. He has made too much plenty with 'em. He's a sworn rioter; he has a sin that often Drowns him and takes his valour prisoner. If there were no foes, that were enough To overcome him. In that beastly fury He has been known to commit outrages And cherish factions. 'Tis inferr'd to us His days are foul and his drink dangerous. FIRST SENATOR. He dies. ALCIBIADES. Hard fate! He might have died in war. My lords, if not for any parts in him- Though his right arm might purchase his own time, And be in debt to none- yet, more to move you, Take my deserts to his, and join 'em both; And, for I know your reverend ages love Security, I'll pawn my victories, all My honours to you, upon his good returns. If by this crime he owes the law his life, Why, let the war receive't in valiant gore; For law is strict, and war is nothing more. FIRST SENATOR. We are for law: he dies. Urge it no more On height of our displeasure. Friend or brother, He forfeits his own blood that spills another. ALCIBIADES. Must it be so? It must not be. My lords, I do beseech you, know me. SECOND SENATOR. How! ALCIBIADES. Call me to your remembrances. THIRD SENATOR. What! ALCIBIADES. I cannot think but your age has forgot me; It could not else be I should prove so base To sue, and be denied such common grace. My wounds ache at you. FIRST SENATOR. Do you dare our anger? 'Tis in few words, but spacious in effect: We banish thee for ever. ALCIBIADES. Banish me! Banish your dotage! Banish usury That makes the Senate ugly. FIRST SENATOR. If after two days' shine Athens contain thee, Attend our weightier judgment. And, not to swell our spirit, He shall be executed presently. Exeunt SENATORS ALCIBIADES. Now the gods keep you old enough that you may live Only in bone, that none may look on you! I'm worse than mad; I have kept back their foes, While they have told their money and let out Their coin upon large interest, I myself Rich only in large hurts. All those for this? Is this the balsam that the usuring Senate Pours into captains' wounds? Banishment! It comes not ill; I hate not to be banish'd; It is a cause worthy my spleen and fury, That I may strike at Athens. I'll cheer up My discontented troops, and lay for hearts. 'Tis honour with most lands to be at odds; Soldiers should brook as little wrongs as gods. Exit

Meanwhile, the senate has sentenced a man to death. He's charged with killing another man, so he must die. Alcibiades disagrees: we should pity people, he says. Plus, this isn't just any murder: the guy killed in self-defense. Sure, murder's a sin, but let's cut the guy a break considering the circumstances, says Alcibiades. The Senators, however, are resolute: they go right on ahead and sentence the dude to death. Alcibiades pleads with them again and again, but it does no good. The Senators get sick of arguing and banishhim. Phew. Guess they really don't like to be challenged. Once the Senators leave, Alcibiades curses them and swears that he will show them.

Isabel came back to Florence, but only after several months; an interval sufficiently replete with incident. It is not, however, during this interval that we are closely concerned with her; our attention is engaged again on a certain day in the late spring-time, shortly after her return to Palazzo Crescentini and a year from the date of the incidents just narrated. She was alone on this occasion, in one of the smaller of the numerous rooms devoted by Mrs. Touchett to social uses, and there was that in her expression and attitude which would have suggested that she was expecting a visitor. The tall window was open, and though its green shutters were partly drawn the bright air of the garden had come in through a broad interstice and filled the room with warmth and perfume. Our young woman stood near it for some time, her hands clasped behind her; she gazed abroad with the vagueness of unrest. Too troubled for attention she moved in a vain circle. Yet it could not be in her thought to catch a glimpse of her visitor before he should pass into the house, since the entrance to the palace was not through the garden, in which stillness and privacy always reigned. She wished rather to forestall his arrival by a process of conjecture, and to judge by the expression of her face this attempt gave her plenty to do. Grave she found herself, and positively more weighted, as by the experience of the lapse of the year she had spent in seeing the world. She had ranged, she would have said, through space and surveyed much of mankind, and was therefore now, in her own eyes, a very different person from the frivolous young woman from Albany who had begun to take the measure of Europe on the lawn at Gardencourt a couple of years before. She flattered herself she had harvested wisdom and learned a great deal more of life than this light-minded creature had even suspected. If her thoughts just now had inclined themselves to retrospect, instead of fluttering their wings nervously about the present, they would have evoked a multitude of interesting pictures. These pictures would have been both landscapes and figure-pieces; the latter, however, would have been the more numerous. With several of the images that might have been projected on such a field we are already acquainted. There would be for instance the conciliatory Lily, our heroine's sister and Edmund Ludlow's wife, who had come out from New York to spend five months with her relative. She had left her husband behind her, but had brought her children, to whom Isabel now played with equal munificence and tenderness the part of maiden-aunt. Mr. Ludlow, toward the last, had been able to snatch a few weeks from his forensic triumphs and, crossing the ocean with extreme rapidity, had spent a month with the two ladies in Paris before taking his wife home. The little Ludlows had not yet, even from the American point of view, reached the proper tourist-age; so that while her sister was with her Isabel had confined her movements to a narrow circle. Lily and the babies had joined her in Switzerland in the month of July, and they had spent a summer of fine weather in an Alpine valley where the flowers were thick in the meadows and the shade of great chestnuts made a resting-place for such upward wanderings as might be undertaken by ladies and children on warm afternoons. They had afterwards reached the French capital, which was worshipped, and with costly ceremonies, by Lily, but thought of as noisily vacant by Isabel, who in these days made use of her memory of Rome as she might have done, in a hot and crowded room, of a phial of something pungent hidden in her handkerchief. Mrs. Ludlow sacrificed, as I say, to Paris, yet had doubts and wonderments not allayed at that altar; and after her husband had joined her found further chagrin in his failure to throw himself into these speculations. They all had Isabel for subject; but Edmund Ludlow, as he had always done before, declined to be surprised, or distressed, or mystified, or elated, at anything his sister-in-law might have done or have failed to do. Mrs. Ludlow's mental motions were sufficiently various. At one moment she thought it would be so natural for that young woman to come home and take a house in New York--the Rossiters', for instance, which had an elegant conservatory and was just round the corner from her own; at another she couldn't conceal her surprise at the girl's not marrying some member of one of the great aristocracies. On the whole, as I have said, she had fallen from high communion with the probabilities. She had taken more satisfaction in Isabel's accession of fortune than if the money had been left to herself; it had seemed to her to offer just the proper setting for her sister's slightly meagre, but scarce the less eminent figure. Isabel had developed less, however, than Lily had thought likely--development, to Lily's understanding, being somehow mysteriously connected with morning-calls and evening-parties. Intellectually, doubtless, she had made immense strides; but she appeared to have achieved few of those social conquests of which Mrs. Ludlow had expected to admire the trophies. Lily's conception of such achievements was extremely vague; but this was exactly what she had expected of Isabel--to give it form and body. Isabel could have done as well as she had done in New York; and Mrs. Ludlow appealed to her husband to know whether there was any privilege she enjoyed in Europe which the society of that city might not offer her. We know ourselves that Isabel had made conquests--whether inferior or not to those she might have effected in her native land it would be a delicate matter to decide; and it is not altogether with a feeling of complacency that I again mention that she had not rendered these honourable victories public. She had not told her sister the history of Lord Warburton, nor had she given her a hint of Mr. Osmond's state of mind; and she had had no better reason for her silence than that she didn't wish to speak. It was more romantic to say nothing, and, drinking deep, in secret, of romance, she was as little disposed to ask poor Lily's advice as she would have been to close that rare volume forever. But Lily knew nothing of these discriminations, and could only pronounce her sister's career a strange anti-climax--an impression confirmed by the fact that Isabel's silence about Mr. Osmond, for instance, was in direct proportion to the frequency with which he occupied her thoughts. As this happened very often it sometimes appeared to Mrs. Ludlow that she had lost her courage. So uncanny a result of so exhilarating an incident as inheriting a fortune was of course perplexing to the cheerful Lily; it added to her general sense that Isabel was not at all like other people. Our young lady's courage, however, might have been taken as reaching its height after her relations had gone home. She could imagine braver things than spending the winter in Paris--Paris had sides by which it so resembled New York, Paris was like smart, neat prose--and her close correspondence with Madame Merle did much to stimulate such flights. She had never had a keener sense of freedom, of the absolute boldness and wantonness of liberty, than when she turned away from the platform at the Euston Station on one of the last days of November, after the departure of the train that was to convey poor Lily, her husband and her children to their ship at Liverpool. It had been good for her to regale; she was very conscious of that; she was very observant, as we know, of what was good for her, and her effort was constantly to find something that was good enough. To profit by the present advantage till the latest moment she had made the journey from Paris with the unenvied travellers. She would have accompanied them to Liverpool as well, only Edmund Ludlow had asked her, as a favour, not to do so; it made Lily so fidgety and she asked such impossible questions. Isabel watched the train move away; she kissed her hand to the elder of her small nephews, a demonstrative child who leaned dangerously far out of the window of the carriage and made separation an occasion of violent hilarity, and then she walked back into the foggy London street. The world lay before her--she could do whatever she chose. There was a deep thrill in it all, but for the present her choice was tolerably discreet; she chose simply to walk back from Euston Square to her hotel. The early dusk of a November afternoon had already closed in; the street-lamps, in the thick, brown air, looked weak and red; our heroine was unattended and Euston Square was a long way from Piccadilly. But Isabel performed the journey with a positive enjoyment of its dangers and lost her way almost on purpose, in order to get more sensations, so that she was disappointed when an obliging policeman easily set her right again. She was so fond of the spectacle of human life that she enjoyed even the aspect of gathering dusk in the London streets--the moving crowds, the hurrying cabs, the lighted shops, the flaring stalls, the dark, shining dampness of everything. That evening, at her hotel, she wrote to Madame Merle that she should start in a day or two for Rome. She made her way down to Rome without touching at Florence--having gone first to Venice and then proceeded southward by Ancona. She accomplished this journey without other assistance than that of her servant, for her natural protectors were not now on the ground. Ralph Touchett was spending the winter at Corfu, and Miss Stackpole, in the September previous, had been recalled to America by a telegram from the Interviewer. This journal offered its brilliant correspondent a fresher field for her genius than the mouldering cities of Europe, and Henrietta was cheered on her way by a promise from Mr. Bantling that he would soon come over to see her. Isabel wrote to Mrs. Touchett to apologise for not presenting herself just yet in Florence, and her aunt replied characteristically enough. Apologies, Mrs. Touchett intimated, were of no more use to her than bubbles, and she herself never dealt in such articles. One either did the thing or one didn't, and what one "would" have done belonged to the sphere of the irrelevant, like the idea of a future life or of the origin of things. Her letter was frank, but (a rare case with Mrs. Touchett) not so frank as it pretended. She easily forgave her niece for not stopping at Florence, because she took it for a sign that Gilbert Osmond was less in question there than formerly. She watched of course to see if he would now find a pretext for going to Rome, and derived some comfort from learning that he had not been guilty of an absence. Isabel, on her side, had not been a fortnight in Rome before she proposed to Madame Merle that they should make a little pilgrimage to the East. Madame Merle remarked that her friend was restless, but she added that she herself had always been consumed with the desire to visit Athens and Constantinople. The two ladies accordingly embarked on this expedition, and spent three months in Greece, in Turkey, in Egypt. Isabel found much to interest her in these countries, though Madame Merle continued to remark that even among the most classic sites, the scenes most calculated to suggest repose and reflexion, a certain incoherence prevailed in her. Isabel travelled rapidly and recklessly; she was like a thirsty person draining cup after cup. Madame Merle meanwhile, as lady-in-waiting to a princess circulating incognita, panted a little in her rear. It was on Isabel's invitation she had come, and she imparted all due dignity to the girl's uncountenanced state. She played her part with the tact that might have been expected of her, effacing herself and accepting the position of a companion whose expenses were profusely paid. The situation, however, had no hardships, and people who met this reserved though striking pair on their travels would not have been able to tell you which was patroness and which client. To say that Madame Merle improved on acquaintance states meagrely the impression she made on her friend, who had found her from the first so ample and so easy. At the end of an intimacy of three months Isabel felt she knew her better; her character had revealed itself, and the admirable woman had also at last redeemed her promise of relating her history from her own point of view--a consummation the more desirable as Isabel had already heard it related from the point of view of others. This history was so sad a one (in so far as it concerned the late M. Merle, a positive adventurer, she might say, though originally so plausible, who had taken advantage, years before, of her youth and of an inexperience in which doubtless those who knew her only now would find it difficult to believe); it abounded so in startling and lamentable incidents that her companion wondered a person so eprouvee could have kept so much of her freshness, her interest in life. Into this freshness of Madame Merle's she obtained a considerable insight; she seemed to see it as professional, as slightly mechanical, carried about in its case like the fiddle of the virtuoso, or blanketed and bridled like the "favourite" of the jockey. She liked her as much as ever, but there was a corner of the curtain that never was lifted; it was as if she had remained after all something of a public performer, condemned to emerge only in character and in costume. She had once said that she came from a distance, that she belonged to the "old, old" world, and Isabel never lost the impression that she was the product of a different moral or social clime from her own, that she had grown up under other stars. She believed then that at bottom she had a different morality. Of course the morality of civilised persons has always much in common; but our young woman had a sense in her of values gone wrong or, as they said at the shops, marked down. She considered, with the presumption of youth, that a morality differing from her own must be inferior to it; and this conviction was an aid to detecting an occasional flash of cruelty, an occasional lapse from candour, in the conversation of a person who had raised delicate kindness to an art and whose pride was too high for the narrow ways of deception. Her conception of human motives might, in certain lights, have been acquired at the court of some kingdom in decadence, and there were several in her list of which our heroine had not even heard. She had not heard of everything, that was very plain; and there were evidently things in the world of which it was not advantageous to hear. She had once or twice had a positive scare; since it so affected her to have to exclaim, of her friend, "Heaven forgive her, she doesn't understand me!" Absurd as it may seem this discovery operated as a shock, left her with a vague dismay in which there was even an element of foreboding. The dismay of course subsided, in the light of some sudden proof of Madame Merle's remarkable intelligence; but it stood for a high-water-mark in the ebb and flow of confidence. Madame Merle had once declared her belief that when a friendship ceases to grow it immediately begins to decline--there being no point of equilibrium between liking more and liking less. A stationary affection, in other words, was impossible--it must move one way or the other. However that might be, the girl had in these days a thousand uses for her sense of the romantic, which was more active than it had ever been. I do not allude to the impulse it received as she gazed at the Pyramids in the course of an excursion from Cairo, or as she stood among the broken columns of the Acropolis and fixed her eyes upon the point designated to her as the Strait of Salamis; deep and memorable as these emotions had remained. She came back by the last of March from Egypt and Greece and made another stay in Rome. A few days after her arrival Gilbert Osmond descended from Florence and remained three weeks, during which the fact of her being with his old friend Madame Merle, in whose house she had gone to lodge, made it virtually inevitable that he should see her every day. When the last of April came she wrote to Mrs. Touchett that she should now rejoice to accept an invitation given long before, and went to pay a visit at Palazzo Crescentini, Madame Merle on this occasion remaining in Rome. She found her aunt alone; her cousin was still at Corfu. Ralph, however, was expected in Florence from day to day, and Isabel, who had not seen him for upwards of a year, was prepared to give him the most affectionate welcome.

Time flies - a year has passed since we last saw Isabel. The narrator fills us in on some of Isabel's activities and adventures. Isabel's sister, Lily, and her children came to visit Isabel in Paris and London. Lily thinks Isabel has changed, but not in the way that she had expected. Lily's husband, Edmund, comes to England to bring his family back to America. Isabel is oddly glad to see them go. Isabel gallivants off to Greece, Turkey, and Egypt with Madame Merle for three months - of course, Isabel foots the bill. Madame Merle? Make that Madame Mooch. Isabel has gotten to know Madame Merle even better. She is still fond of her, though she sees that there is something still hidden in the older woman's nature. We learn a little more about Madame Merle's history, as Isabel has learned a little more. Madame Merle's late husband took advantage of her youth and inexperience . Isabel is impressed that Madame Merle still retains a zest for life. Isabel thinks that she and Madame Merle have different kinds of moral standards. She sees that they are different. Isabel stays at Madame Merle's in Rome. Osmond visits her often, though we read nothing specific about his visits. Isabel writes to Mrs. Touchett to let her know that she plans to return; Madame Merle will stay in Rome. Isabel arrives at Palazzo Crescentini, her aunt's house, and Ralph is expected to join them any day now. They have not seen each other for a year, and she can't wait for their reunion.

Mrs. Dashwood was surprised only for a moment at seeing him; for his coming to Barton was, in her opinion, of all things the most natural. Her joy and expression of regard long outlived her wonder. He received the kindest welcome from her; and shyness, coldness, reserve could not stand against such a reception. They had begun to fail him before he entered the house, and they were quite overcome by the captivating manners of Mrs. Dashwood. Indeed a man could not very well be in love with either of her daughters, without extending the passion to her; and Elinor had the satisfaction of seeing him soon become more like himself. His affections seemed to reanimate towards them all, and his interest in their welfare again became perceptible. He was not in spirits, however; he praised their house, admired its prospect, was attentive, and kind; but still he was not in spirits. The whole family perceived it, and Mrs. Dashwood, attributing it to some want of liberality in his mother, sat down to table indignant against all selfish parents. "What are Mrs. Ferrars's views for you at present, Edward?" said she, when dinner was over and they had drawn round the fire; "are you still to be a great orator in spite of yourself?" "No. I hope my mother is now convinced that I have no more talents than inclination for a public life!" "But how is your fame to be established? for famous you must be to satisfy all your family; and with no inclination for expense, no affection for strangers, no profession, and no assurance, you may find it a difficult matter." "I shall not attempt it. I have no wish to be distinguished; and have every reason to hope I never shall. Thank Heaven! I cannot be forced into genius and eloquence." "You have no ambition, I well know. Your wishes are all moderate." "As moderate as those of the rest of the world, I believe. I wish as well as every body else to be perfectly happy; but, like every body else it must be in my own way. Greatness will not make me so." "Strange that it would!" cried Marianne. "What have wealth or grandeur to do with happiness?" "Grandeur has but little," said Elinor, "but wealth has much to do with it." "Elinor, for shame!" said Marianne, "money can only give happiness where there is nothing else to give it. Beyond a competence, it can afford no real satisfaction, as far as mere self is concerned." "Perhaps," said Elinor, smiling, "we may come to the same point. YOUR competence and MY wealth are very much alike, I dare say; and without them, as the world goes now, we shall both agree that every kind of external comfort must be wanting. Your ideas are only more noble than mine. Come, what is your competence?" "About eighteen hundred or two thousand a year; not more than THAT." Elinor laughed. "TWO thousand a year! ONE is my wealth! I guessed how it would end." "And yet two thousand a-year is a very moderate income," said Marianne. "A family cannot well be maintained on a smaller. I am sure I am not extravagant in my demands. A proper establishment of servants, a carriage, perhaps two, and hunters, cannot be supported on less." Elinor smiled again, to hear her sister describing so accurately their future expenses at Combe Magna. "Hunters!" repeated Edward--"but why must you have hunters? Every body does not hunt." Marianne coloured as she replied, "But most people do." "I wish," said Margaret, striking out a novel thought, "that somebody would give us all a large fortune apiece!" "Oh that they would!" cried Marianne, her eyes sparkling with animation, and her cheeks glowing with the delight of such imaginary happiness. "We are all unanimous in that wish, I suppose," said Elinor, "in spite of the insufficiency of wealth." "Oh dear!" cried Margaret, "how happy I should be! I wonder what I should do with it!" Marianne looked as if she had no doubt on that point. "I should be puzzled to spend so large a fortune myself," said Mrs. Dashwood, "if my children were all to be rich without my help." "You must begin your improvements on this house," observed Elinor, "and your difficulties will soon vanish." "What magnificent orders would travel from this family to London," said Edward, "in such an event! What a happy day for booksellers, music-sellers, and print-shops! You, Miss Dashwood, would give a general commission for every new print of merit to be sent you--and as for Marianne, I know her greatness of soul, there would not be music enough in London to content her. And books!--Thomson, Cowper, Scott--she would buy them all over and over again: she would buy up every copy, I believe, to prevent their falling into unworthy hands; and she would have every book that tells her how to admire an old twisted tree. Should not you, Marianne? Forgive me, if I am very saucy. But I was willing to shew you that I had not forgot our old disputes." "I love to be reminded of the past, Edward--whether it be melancholy or gay, I love to recall it--and you will never offend me by talking of former times. You are very right in supposing how my money would be spent--some of it, at least--my loose cash would certainly be employed in improving my collection of music and books." "And the bulk of your fortune would be laid out in annuities on the authors or their heirs." "No, Edward, I should have something else to do with it." "Perhaps, then, you would bestow it as a reward on that person who wrote the ablest defence of your favourite maxim, that no one can ever be in love more than once in their life--your opinion on that point is unchanged, I presume?" "Undoubtedly. At my time of life opinions are tolerably fixed. It is not likely that I should now see or hear any thing to change them." "Marianne is as steadfast as ever, you see," said Elinor, "she is not at all altered." "She is only grown a little more grave than she was." "Nay, Edward," said Marianne, "you need not reproach me. You are not very gay yourself." "Why should you think so!" replied he, with a sigh. "But gaiety never was a part of MY character." "Nor do I think it a part of Marianne's," said Elinor; "I should hardly call her a lively girl--she is very earnest, very eager in all she does--sometimes talks a great deal and always with animation--but she is not often really merry." "I believe you are right," he replied, "and yet I have always set her down as a lively girl." "I have frequently detected myself in such kind of mistakes," said Elinor, "in a total misapprehension of character in some point or other: fancying people so much more gay or grave, or ingenious or stupid than they really are, and I can hardly tell why or in what the deception originated. Sometimes one is guided by what they say of themselves, and very frequently by what other people say of them, without giving oneself time to deliberate and judge." "But I thought it was right, Elinor," said Marianne, "to be guided wholly by the opinion of other people. I thought our judgments were given us merely to be subservient to those of neighbours. This has always been your doctrine, I am sure." "No, Marianne, never. My doctrine has never aimed at the subjection of the understanding. All I have ever attempted to influence has been the behaviour. You must not confound my meaning. I am guilty, I confess, of having often wished you to treat our acquaintance in general with greater attention; but when have I advised you to adopt their sentiments or to conform to their judgment in serious matters?" "You have not been able to bring your sister over to your plan of general civility," said Edward to Elinor. "Do you gain no ground?" "Quite the contrary," replied Elinor, looking expressively at Marianne. "My judgment," he returned, "is all on your side of the question; but I am afraid my practice is much more on your sister's. I never wish to offend, but I am so foolishly shy, that I often seem negligent, when I am only kept back by my natural awkwardness. I have frequently thought that I must have been intended by nature to be fond of low company, I am so little at my ease among strangers of gentility!" "Marianne has not shyness to excuse any inattention of hers," said Elinor. "She knows her own worth too well for false shame," replied Edward. "Shyness is only the effect of a sense of inferiority in some way or other. If I could persuade myself that my manners were perfectly easy and graceful, I should not be shy." "But you would still be reserved," said Marianne, "and that is worse." Edward started--"Reserved! Am I reserved, Marianne?" "Yes, very." "I do not understand you," replied he, colouring. "Reserved!--how, in what manner? What am I to tell you? What can you suppose?" Elinor looked surprised at his emotion; but trying to laugh off the subject, she said to him, "Do not you know my sister well enough to understand what she means? Do not you know she calls every one reserved who does not talk as fast, and admire what she admires as rapturously as herself?" Edward made no answer. His gravity and thoughtfulness returned on him in their fullest extent--and he sat for some time silent and dull.

Mrs. Dashwood is happy to see that Edward has come, and welcomes him very warmly as their guest. He becomes more easy and less reserved around them, though it is obvious to them that he is in poor spirits for some reason. Mrs. Dashwood believes this is because his mother has put pressure on him to take up a profession and distinguish himself; Edward says he has no desire to live anything but a quiet, private life, though his mother will not accept this. Small talk follows, about money and character and judging people; then, Marianne remarks that Edward is reserved, and this brings back the dejection they noticed in him earlier in the day.

My young mistress, Miss Emily Flint, did not return any answer to my letter requesting her to consent to my being sold. But after a while, I received a reply, which purported to be written by her younger brother. In order rightly to enjoy the contents of this letter, the reader must bear in mind that the Flint family supposed I had been at the north many years. They had no idea that I knew of the doctor's three excursions to New York in search of me; that I had heard his voice, when he came to borrow five hundred dollars for that purpose; and that I had seen him pass on his way to the steamboat. Neither were they aware that all the particulars of aunt Nancy's death and burial were conveyed to me at the time they occurred. I have kept the letter, of which I herewith subjoin a copy:-- Your letter to sister was received a few days ago. I gather from it that you are desirous of returning to your native place, among your friends and relatives. We were all gratified with the contents of your letter; and let me assure you that if any members of the family have had any feeling of resentment towards you, they feel it no longer. We all sympathize with you in your unfortunate condition, and are ready to do all in our power to make you contented and happy. It is difficult for you to return home as a free person. If you were purchased by your grandmother, it is doubtful whether you would be permitted to remain, although it would be lawful for you to do so. If a servant should be allowed to purchase herself, after absenting herself so long from her owners, and return free, it would have an injurious effect. From your letter, I think your situation must be hard and uncomfortable. Come home. You have it in your power to be reinstated in our affections. We would receive you with open arms and tears of joy. You need not apprehend any unkind treatment, as we have not put ourselves to any trouble or expense to get you. Had we done so, perhaps we should feel otherwise. You know my sister was always attached to you, and that you were never treated as a slave. You were never put to hard work, nor exposed to field labor. On the contrary, you were taken into the house, and treated as one of us, and almost as free; and we, at least, felt that you were above disgracing yourself by running away. Believing you may be induced to come home voluntarily has induced me to write for my sister. The family will be rejoiced to see you; and your poor old grandmother expressed a great desire to have you come, when she heard your letter read. In her old age she needs the consolation of having her children round her. Doubtless you have heard of the death of your aunt. She was a faithful servant, and a faithful member of the Episcopal church. In her Christian life she taught us how to live--and, O, too high the price of knowledge, she taught us how to die! Could you have seen us round her death bed, with her mother, all mingling our tears in one common stream, you would have thought the same heartfelt tie existed between a master and his servant, as between a mother and her child. But this subject is too painful to dwell upon. I must bring my letter to a close. If you are contented to stay away from your old grandmother, your child, and the friends who love you, stay where you are. We shall never trouble ourselves to apprehend you. But should you prefer to come home, we will do all that we can to make you happy. If you do not wish to remain in the family, I know that father, by our persuasion, will be induced to let you be purchased by any person you may choose in our community. You will please answer this as soon as possible, and let us know your decision. Sister sends much love to you. In the mean time believe me your sincere friend and well wisher. This letter was signed by Emily's brother, who was as yet a mere lad. I knew, by the style, that it was not written by a person of his age, and though the writing was disguised, I had been made too unhappy by it, in former years, not to recognize at once the hand of Dr. Flint. O, the hypocrisy of slaveholders! Did the old fox suppose I was goose enough to go into such a trap? Verily, he relied too much on "the stupidity of the African race." I did not return the family of Flints any thanks for their cordial invitation--a remissness for which I was, no doubt, charged with base ingratitude. Not long afterwards I received a letter from one of my friends at the south, informing me that Dr. Flint was about to visit the north. The letter had been delayed, and I supposed he might be already on the way. Mrs. Bruce did not know I was a fugitive. I told her that important business called me to Boston, where my brother then was, and asked permission to bring a friend to supply my place as nurse, for a fortnight. I started on my journey immediately; and as soon as I arrived, I wrote to my grandmother that if Benny came, he must be sent to Boston. I knew she was only waiting for a good chance to send him north, and, fortunately, she had the legal power to do so, without asking leave of any body. She was a free woman; and when my children were purchased, Mr. Sands preferred to have the bill of sale drawn up in her name. It was conjectured that he advanced the money, but it was not known. At the south, a gentleman may have a shoal of colored children without any disgrace; but if he is known to purchase them, with the view of setting them free, the example is thought to be dangerous to their "peculiar institution," and he becomes unpopular. There was a good opportunity to send Benny in a vessel coming directly to New York. He was put on board with a letter to a friend, who was requested to see him off to Boston. Early one morning, there was a loud rap at my door, and in rushed Benjamin, all out of breath. "O mother!" he exclaimed, "here I am! I run all the way; and I come all alone. How d'you do?" O reader, can you imagine my joy? No, you cannot, unless you have been a slave mother. Benjamin rattled away as fast as his tongue could go. "Mother, why don't you bring Ellen here? I went over to Brooklyn to see her, and she felt very bad when I bid her good by. She said, 'O Ben, I wish I was going too.' I thought she'd know ever so much; but she don't know so much as I do; for I can read, and she can't. And, mother, I lost all my clothes coming. What can I do to get some more? I 'spose free boys can get along here at the north as well as white boys." I did not like to tell the sanguine, happy little fellow how much he was mistaken. I took him to a tailor, and procured a change of clothes. The rest of the day was spent in mutual asking and answering of questions, with the wish constantly repeated that the good old grandmother was with us, and frequent injunctions from Benny to write to her immediately, and be sure to tell her every thing about his voyage, and his journey to Boston. Dr. Flint made his visit to New York, and made every exertion to call upon me, and invite me to return with him, but not being able to ascertain where I was, his hospitable intentions were frustrated, and the affectionate family, who were waiting for me with "open arms," were doomed to disappointment. As soon as I knew he was safely at home, I placed Benjamin in the care of my brother William, and returned to Mrs. Bruce. There I remained through the winter and spring, endeavoring to perform my duties faithfully, and finding a good degree of happiness in the attractions of baby Mary, the considerate kindness of her excellent mother, and occasional interviews with my darling daughter. But when summer came, the old feeling of insecurity haunted me. It was necessary for me to take little Mary out daily, for exercise and fresh air, and the city was swarming with Southerners, some of whom might recognize me. Hot weather brings out snakes and slaveholders, and I like one class of the venomous creatures as little as I do the other. What a comfort it is, to be free to _say_ so!

Dr. Flint writes Linda a letter, posing as his young son, asking Linda to come back home and pretending to be all loving and kind. Linda obviously doesn't respond. When she learns that Dr. Flint is coming to New York again to find her, she tells Mrs. Bruce she has to go to Boston on business. She stays there for a month, While she's there, her son Benny has managed to find his way North. He visits, and he's full of excited plans for making it as a "free boy." She doesn't spoil his happiness, even though she's already figured out that the North isn't exactly a land of paradise. Finally, Dr. Flint leaves and she can go back to New York. She sends Benny to live with William, and spends a pretty nice winter and spring knowing that, for now, her family is safe.

A WEEK after she had parted with her son at Bar Harbour, Mrs. Corey suddenly walked in upon her husband in their house in Boston. He was at breakfast, and he gave her the patronising welcome with which the husband who has been staying in town all summer receives his wife when she drops down upon him from the mountains or the sea-side. For a little moment she feels herself strange in the house, and suffers herself to be treated like a guest, before envy of his comfort vexes her back into possession and authority. Mrs. Corey was a lady, and she did not let her envy take the form of open reproach. "Well, Anna, you find me here in the luxury you left me to. How did you leave the girls?" "The girls were well," said Mrs. Corey, looking absently at her husband's brown velvet coat, in which he was so handsome. No man had ever grown grey more beautifully. His hair, while not remaining dark enough to form a theatrical contrast with his moustache, was yet some shades darker, and, in becoming a little thinner, it had become a little more gracefully wavy. His skin had the pearly tint which that of elderly men sometimes assumes, and the lines which time had traced upon it were too delicate for the name of wrinkles. He had never had any personal vanity, and there was no consciousness in his good looks now. "I am glad of that. The boy I have with me," he returned; "that is, when he IS with me." "Why, where is he?" demanded the mother. "Probably carousing with the boon Lapham somewhere. He left me yesterday afternoon to go and offer his allegiance to the Mineral Paint King, and I haven't seen him since." "Bromfield!" cried Mrs. Corey. "Why didn't you stop him?" "Well, my dear, I'm not sure that it isn't a very good thing." "A good thing? It's horrid!" "No, I don't think so. It's decent. Tom had found out--without consulting the landscape, which I believe proclaims it everywhere----" "Hideous!" "That it's really a good thing; and he thinks that he has some ideas in regard to its dissemination in the parts beyond seas." "Why shouldn't he go into something else?" lamented the mother. "I believe he has gone into nearly everything else and come out of it. So there is a chance of his coming out of this. But as I had nothing to suggest in place of it, I thought it best not to interfere. In fact, what good would my telling him that mineral paint was nasty have done? I dare say YOU told him it was nasty." "Yes! I did." "And you see with what effect, though he values your opinion three times as much as he values mine. Perhaps you came up to tell him again that it was nasty?" "I feel very unhappy about it. He is throwing himself away. Yes, I should like to prevent it if I could!" The father shook his head. "If Lapham hasn't prevented it, I fancy it's too late. But there may be some hopes of Lapham. As for Tom's throwing himself away, I don't know. There's no question but he is one of the best fellows under the sun. He's tremendously energetic, and he has plenty of the kind of sense which we call horse; but he isn't brilliant. No, Tom is not brilliant. I don't think he would get on in a profession, and he's instinctively kept out of everything of the kind. But he has got to do something. What shall he do? He says mineral paint, and really I don't see why he shouldn't. If money is fairly and honestly earned, why should we pretend to care what it comes out of, when we don't really care? That superstition is exploded everywhere." "Oh, it isn't the paint alone," said Mrs. Corey; and then she perceptibly arrested herself, and made a diversion in continuing: "I wish he had married some one." "With money?" suggested her husband. "From time to time I have attempted Tom's corruption from that side, but I suspect Tom has a conscience against it, and I rather like him for it. I married for love myself," said Corey, looking across the table at his wife. She returned his look tolerantly, though she felt it right to say, "What nonsense!" "Besides," continued her husband, "if you come to money, there is the paint princess. She will have plenty." "Ah, that's the worst of it," sighed the mother. "I suppose I could get on with the paint----" "But not with the princess? I thought you said she was a very pretty, well-behaved girl?" "She is very pretty, and she is well-behaved; but there is nothing of her. She is insipid; she is very insipid." "But Tom seemed to like her flavour, such as it was?" "How can I tell? We were under a terrible obligation to them, and I naturally wished him to be polite to them. In fact, I asked him to be so." "And he was too polite." "I can't say that he was. But there is no doubt that the child is extremely pretty." "Tom says there are two of them. Perhaps they will neutralise each other." "Yes, there is another daughter," assented Mrs. Corey. "I don't see how you can joke about such things, Bromfield," she added. "Well, I don't either, my dear, to tell you the truth. My hardihood surprises me. Here is a son of mine whom I see reduced to making his living by a shrinkage in values. It's very odd," interjected Corey, "that some values should have this peculiarity of shrinking. You never hear of values in a picture shrinking; but rents, stocks, real estate--all those values shrink abominably. Perhaps it might be argued that one should put all his values into pictures; I've got a good many of mine there." "Tom needn't earn his living," said Mrs. Corey, refusing her husband's jest. "There's still enough for all of us." "That is what I have sometimes urged upon Tom. I have proved to him that with economy, and strict attention to business, he need do nothing as long as he lives. Of course he would be somewhat restricted, and it would cramp the rest of us; but it is a world of sacrifices and compromises. He couldn't agree with me, and he was not in the least moved by the example of persons of quality in Europe, which I alleged in support of the life of idleness. It appears that he wishes to do something--to do something for himself. I am afraid that Tom is selfish." Mrs. Corey smiled wanly. Thirty years before, she had married the rich young painter in Rome, who said so much better things than he painted--charming things, just the things to please the fancy of a girl who was disposed to take life a little too seriously and practically. She saw him in a different light when she got him home to Boston; but he had kept on saying the charming things, and he had not done much else. In fact, he had fulfilled the promise of his youth. It was a good trait in him that he was not actively but only passively extravagant. He was not adventurous with his money; his tastes were as simple as an Italian's; he had no expensive habits. In the process of time he had grown to lead a more and more secluded life. It was hard to get him out anywhere, even to dinner. His patience with their narrowing circumstances had a pathos which she felt the more the more she came into charge of their joint life. At times it seemed too bad that the children and their education and pleasures should cost so much. She knew, besides, that if it had not been for them she would have gone back to Rome with him, and lived princely there for less than it took to live respectably in Boston. "Tom hasn't consulted me," continued his father, "but he has consulted other people. And he has arrived at the conclusion that mineral paint is a good thing to go into. He has found out all about it, and about its founder or inventor. It's quite impressive to hear him talk. And if he must do something for himself, I don't see why his egotism shouldn't as well take that form as another. Combined with the paint princess, it isn't so agreeable; but that's only a remote possibility, for which your principal ground is your motherly solicitude. But even if it were probable and imminent, what could you do? The chief consolation that we American parents have in these matters is that we can do nothing. If we were Europeans, even English, we should take some cognisance of our children's love affairs, and in some measure teach their young affections how to shoot. But it is our custom to ignore them until they have shot, and then they ignore us. We are altogether too delicate to arrange the marriages of our children; and when they have arranged them we don't like to say anything, for fear we should only make bad worse. The right way is for us to school ourselves to indifference. That is what the young people have to do elsewhere, and that is the only logical result of our position here. It is absurd for us to have any feeling about what we don't interfere with." "Oh, people do interfere with their children's marriages very often," said Mrs. Corey. "Yes, but only in a half-hearted way, so as not to make it disagreeable for themselves if the marriages go on in spite of them, as they're pretty apt to do. Now, my idea is that I ought to cut Tom off with a shilling. That would be very simple, and it would be economical. But you would never consent, and Tom wouldn't mind it." "I think our whole conduct in regard to such things is wrong," said Mrs. Corey. "Oh, very likely. But our whole civilisation is based upon it. And who is going to make a beginning? To which father in our acquaintance shall I go and propose an alliance for Tom with his daughter? I should feel like an ass. And will you go to some mother, and ask her sons in marriage for our daughters? You would feel like a goose. No; the only motto for us is, Hands off altogether." "I shall certainly speak to Tom when the time comes," said Mrs. Corey. "And I shall ask leave to be absent from your discomfiture, my dear," answered her husband. The son returned that afternoon, and confessed his surprise at finding his mother in Boston. He was so frank that she had not quite the courage to confess in turn why she had come, but trumped up an excuse. "Well, mother," he said promptly, "I have made an engagement with Mr. Lapham." "Have you, Tom?" she asked faintly. "Yes. For the present I am going to have charge of his foreign correspondence, and if I see my way to the advantage I expect to find in it, I am going out to manage that side of his business in South America and Mexico. He's behaved very handsomely about it. He says that if it appears for our common interest, he shall pay me a salary as well as a commission. I've talked with Uncle Jim, and he thinks it's a good opening." "Your Uncle Jim does?" queried Mrs. Corey in amaze. "Yes; I consulted him the whole way through, and I've acted on his advice." This seemed an incomprehensible treachery on her brother's part. "Yes; I thought you would like to have me. And besides, I couldn't possibly have gone to any one so well fitted to advise me." His mother said nothing. In fact, the mineral paint business, however painful its interest, was, for the moment, superseded by a more poignant anxiety. She began to feel her way cautiously toward this. "Have you been talking about your business with Mr. Lapham all night?" "Well, pretty much," said her son, with a guiltless laugh. "I went to see him yesterday afternoon, after I had gone over the whole ground with Uncle Jim, and Mr. Lapham asked me to go down with him and finish up." "Down?" repeated Mrs. Corey. "Yes, to Nantasket. He has a cottage down there." "At Nantasket?" Mrs. Corey knitted her brows a little. "What in the world can a cottage at Nantasket be like?" "Oh, very much like a 'cottage' anywhere. It has the usual allowance of red roof and veranda. There are the regulation rocks by the sea; and the big hotels on the beach about a mile off, flaring away with electric lights and roman-candles at night. We didn't have them at Nahant." "No," said his mother. "Is Mrs. Lapham well? And her daughter?" "Yes, I think so," said the young man. "The young ladies walked me down to the rocks in the usual way after dinner, and then I came back and talked paint with Mr. Lapham till midnight. We didn't settle anything till this morning coming up on the boat." "What sort of people do they seem to be at home?" "What sort? Well, I don't know that I noticed." Mrs. Corey permitted herself the first part of a sigh of relief; and her son laughed, but apparently not at her. "They're just reading Middlemarch. They say there's so much talk about it. Oh, I suppose they're very good people. They seemed to be on very good terms with each other." "I suppose it's the plain sister who's reading Middlemarch." "Plain? Is she plain?" asked the young man, as if searching his consciousness. "Yes, it's the older one who does the reading, apparently. But I don't believe that even she overdoes it. They like to talk better. They reminded me of Southern people in that." The young man smiled, as if amused by some of his impressions of the Lapham family. "The living, as the country people call it, is tremendously good. The Colonel--he's a colonel--talked of the coffee as his wife's coffee, as if she had personally made it in the kitchen, though I believe it was merely inspired by her. And there was everything in the house that money could buy. But money has its limitations." This was a fact which Mrs. Corey was beginning to realise more and more unpleasantly in her own life; but it seemed to bring her a certain comfort in its application to the Laphams. "Yes, there is a point where taste has to begin," she said. "They seemed to want to apologise to me for not having more books," said Corey. "I don't know why they should. The Colonel said they bought a good many books, first and last; but apparently they don't take them to the sea-side." "I dare say they NEVER buy a NEW book. I've met some of these moneyed people lately, and they lavish on every conceivable luxury, and then borrow books, and get them in the cheap paper editions." "I fancy that's the way with the Lapham family," said the young man, smilingly. "But they are very good people. The other daughter is humorous." "Humorous?" Mrs. Corey knitted her brows in some perplexity. "Do you mean like Mrs. Sayre?" she asked, naming the lady whose name must come into every Boston mind when humour is mentioned. "Oh no; nothing like that. She never says anything that you can remember; nothing in flashes or ripples; nothing the least literary. But it's a sort of droll way of looking at things; or a droll medium through which things present themselves. I don't know. She tells what she's seen, and mimics a little." "Oh," said Mrs. Corey coldly. After a moment she asked: "And is Miss Irene as pretty as ever?" "She's a wonderful complexion," said the son unsatisfactorily. "I shall want to be by when father and Colonel Lapham meet," he added, with a smile. "Ah, yes, your father!" said the mother, in that way in which a wife at once compassionates and censures her husband to their children. "Do you think it's really going to be a trial to him?" asked the young man quickly. "No, no, I can't say it is. But I confess I wish it was some other business, Tom." "Well, mother, I don't see why. The principal thing looked at now is the amount of money; and while I would rather starve than touch a dollar that was dirty with any sort of dishonesty----" "Of course you would, my son!" interposed his mother proudly. "I shouldn't at all mind its having a little mineral paint on it. I'll use my influence with Colonel Lapham--if I ever have any--to have his paint scraped off the landscape." "I suppose you won't begin till the autumn." "Oh yes, I shall," said the son, laughing at his mother's simple ignorance of business. "I shall begin to-morrow morning." "To-morrow morning!" "Yes. I've had my desk appointed already, and I shall be down there at nine in the morning to take possession." "Tom," cried his mother, "why do you think Mr. Lapham has taken you into business so readily? I've always heard that it was so hard for young men to get in." "And do you think I found it easy with him? We had about twelve hours' solid talk." "And you don't suppose it was any sort of--personal consideration?" "Why, I don't know exactly what you mean, mother. I suppose he likes me." Mrs. Corey could not say just what she meant. She answered, ineffectually enough-- "Yes. You wouldn't like it to be a favour, would you?" "I think he's a man who may be trusted to look after his own interest. But I don't mind his beginning by liking me. It'll be my own fault if I don't make myself essential to him." "Yes," said Mrs. Corey. "Well," demanded her husband, at their first meeting after her interview with their son, "what did you say to Tom?" "Very little, if anything. I found him with his mind made up, and it would only have distressed him if I had tried to change it." "That is precisely what I said, my dear." "Besides, he had talked the matter over fully with James, and seems to have been advised by him. I can't understand James." "Oh! it's in regard to the paint, and not the princess, that he's made up his mind. Well, I think you were wise to let him alone, Anna. We represent a faded tradition. We don't really care what business a man is in, so it is large enough, and he doesn't advertise offensively; but we think it fine to affect reluctance." "Do you really feel so, Bromfield?" asked his wife seriously. "Certainly I do. There was a long time in my misguided youth when I supposed myself some sort of porcelain; but it's a relief to be of the common clay, after all, and to know it. If I get broken, I can be easily replaced." "If Tom must go into such a business," said Mrs. Corey, "I'm glad James approves of it." "I'm afraid it wouldn't matter to Tom if he didn't; and I don't know that I should care," said Corey, betraying the fact that he had perhaps had a good deal of his brother-in-law's judgment in the course of his life. "You had better consult him in regard to Tom's marrying the princess." "There is no necessity at present for that," said Mrs. Corey, with dignity. After a moment, she asked, "Should you feel quite so easy if it were a question of that, Bromfield?" "It would be a little more personal." "You feel about it as I do. Of course, we have both lived too long, and seen too much of the world, to suppose we can control such things. The child is good, I haven't the least doubt, and all those things can be managed so that they wouldn't disgrace us. But she has had a certain sort of bringing up. I should prefer Tom to marry a girl with another sort, and this business venture of his increases the chances that he won't. That's all." "''Tis not so deep as a well, nor so wide as a church door, but 'twill serve.'" "I shouldn't like it." "Well, it hasn't happened yet." "Ah, you never can realise anything beforehand." "Perhaps that has saved me some suffering. But you have at least the consolation of two anxieties at once. I always find that a great advantage. You can play one off against the other." Mrs. Corey drew a long breath as if she did not experience the suggested consolation; and she arranged to quit, the following afternoon, the scene of her defeat, which she had not had the courage to make a battlefield. Her son went down to see her off on the boat, after spending his first day at his desk in Lapham's office. He was in a gay humour, and she departed in a reflected gleam of his good spirits. He told her all about it, as he sat talking with her at the stern of the boat, lingering till the last moment, and then stepping ashore, with as little waste of time as Lapham himself, on the gang-plank which the deck-hands had laid hold of. He touched his hat to her from the wharf to reassure her of his escape from being carried away with her, and the next moment his smiling face hid itself in the crowd. He walked on smiling up the long wharf, encumbered with trucks and hacks and piles of freight, and, taking his way through the deserted business streets beyond this bustle, made a point of passing the door of Lapham's warehouse, on the jambs of which his name and paint were lettered in black on a square ground of white. The door was still open, and Corey loitered a moment before it, tempted to go upstairs and fetch away some foreign letters which he had left on his desk, and which he thought he might finish up at home. He was in love with his work, and he felt the enthusiasm for it which nothing but the work we can do well inspires in us. He believed that he had found his place in the world, after a good deal of looking, and he had the relief, the repose, of fitting into it. Every little incident of the momentous, uneventful day was a pleasure in his mind, from his sitting down at his desk, to which Lapham's boy brought him the foreign letters, till his rising from it an hour ago. Lapham had been in view within his own office, but he had given Corey no formal reception, and had, in fact, not spoken to him till toward the end of the forenoon, when he suddenly came out of his den with some more letters in his hand, and after a brief "How d'ye do?" had spoken a few words about them, and left them with him. He was in his shirt-sleeves again, and his sanguine person seemed to radiate the heat with which he suffered. He did not go out to lunch, but had it brought to him in his office, where Corey saw him eating it before he left his own desk to go out and perch on a swinging seat before the long counter of a down-town restaurant. He observed that all the others lunched at twelve, and he resolved to anticipate his usual hour. When he returned, the pretty girl who had been clicking away at a type-writer all the morning was neatly putting out of sight the evidences of pie from the table where her machine stood, and was preparing to go on with her copying. In his office Lapham lay asleep in his arm-chair, with a newspaper over his face. Now, while Corey lingered at the entrance to the stairway, these two came down the stairs together, and he heard Lapham saying, "Well, then, you better get a divorce." He looked red and excited, and the girl's face, which she veiled at sight of Corey, showed traces of tears. She slipped round him into the street. But Lapham stopped, and said, with the show of no feeling but surprise: "Hello, Corey! Did you want to go up?" "Yes; there were some letters I hadn't quite got through with." "You'll find Dennis up there. But I guess you better let them go till to-morrow. I always make it a rule to stop work when I'm done." "Perhaps you're right," said Corey, yielding. "Come along down as far as the boat with me. There's a little matter I want to talk over with you." It was a business matter, and related to Corey's proposed connection with the house. The next day the head book-keeper, who lunched at the long counter of the same restaurant with Corey, began to talk with him about Lapham. Walker had not apparently got his place by seniority; though with his forehead, bald far up toward the crown, and his round smooth face, one might have taken him for a plump elder, if he had not looked equally like a robust infant. The thick drabbish yellow moustache was what arrested decision in either direction, and the prompt vigour of all his movements was that of a young man of thirty, which was really Walker's age. He knew, of course, who Corey was, and he had waited for a man who might look down on him socially to make the overtures toward something more than business acquaintance; but, these made, he was readily responsive, and drew freely on his philosophy of Lapham and his affairs. "I think about the only difference between people in this world is that some know what they want, and some don't. Well, now," said Walker, beating the bottom of his salt-box to make the salt come out, "the old man knows what he wants every time. And generally he gets it. Yes, sir, he generally gets it. He knows what he's about, but I'll be blessed if the rest of us do half the time. Anyway, we don't till he's ready to let us. You take my position in most business houses. It's confidential. The head book-keeper knows right along pretty much everything the house has got in hand. I'll give you my word I don't. He may open up to you a little more in your department, but, as far as the rest of us go, he don't open up any more than an oyster on a hot brick. They say he had a partner once; I guess he's dead. I wouldn't like to be the old man's partner. Well, you see, this paint of his is like his heart's blood. Better not try to joke him about it. I've seen people come in occasionally and try it. They didn't get much fun out of it." While he talked, Walker was plucking up morsels from his plate, tearing off pieces of French bread from the long loaf, and feeding them into his mouth in an impersonal way, as if he were firing up an engine. "I suppose he thinks," suggested Corey, "that if he doesn't tell, nobody else will." Walker took a draught of beer from his glass, and wiped the foam from his moustache. "Oh, but he carries it too far! It's a weakness with him. He's just so about everything. Look at the way he keeps it up about that type-writer girl of his. You'd think she was some princess travelling incognito. There isn't one of us knows who she is, or where she came from, or who she belongs to. He brought her and her machine into the office one morning, and set 'em down at a table, and that's all there is about it, as far as we're concerned. It's pretty hard on the girl, for I guess she'd like to talk; and to any one that didn't know the old man----" Walker broke off and drained his glass of what was left in it. Corey thought of the words he had overheard from Lapham to the girl. But he said, "She seems to be kept pretty busy." "Oh yes," said Walker; "there ain't much loafing round the place, in any of the departments, from the old man's down. That's just what I say. He's got to work just twice as hard, if he wants to keep everything in his own mind. But he ain't afraid of work. That's one good thing about him. And Miss Dewey has to keep step with the rest of us. But she don't look like one that would take to it naturally. Such a pretty girl as that generally thinks she does enough when she looks her prettiest." "She's a pretty girl," said Corey, non-committally. "But I suppose a great many pretty girls have to earn their living." "Don't any of 'em like to do it," returned the book-keeper. "They think it's a hardship, and I don't blame 'em. They have got a right to get married, and they ought to have the chance. And Miss Dewey's smart, too. She's as bright as a biscuit. I guess she's had trouble. I shouldn't be much more than half surprised if Miss Dewey wasn't Miss Dewey, or hadn't always been. Yes, sir," continued the book-keeper, who prolonged the talk as they walked back to Lapham's warehouse together, "I don't know exactly what it is,--it isn't any one thing in particular,--but I should say that girl had been married. I wouldn't speak so freely to any of the rest, Mr. Corey,--I want you to understand that,--and it isn't any of my business, anyway; but that's my opinion." Corey made no reply, as he walked beside the book-keeper, who continued-- "It's curious what a difference marriage makes in people. Now, I know that I don't look any more like a bachelor of my age than I do like the man in the moon, and yet I couldn't say where the difference came in, to save me. And it's just so with a woman. The minute you catch sight of her face, there's something in it that tells you whether she's married or not. What do you suppose it is?" "I'm sure I don't know," said Corey, willing to laugh away the topic. "And from what I read occasionally of some people who go about repeating their happiness, I shouldn't say that the intangible evidences were always unmistakable." "Oh, of course," admitted Walker, easily surrendering his position. "All signs fail in dry weather. Hello! What's that?" He caught Corey by the arm, and they both stopped. At a corner, half a block ahead of them, the summer noon solitude of the place was broken by a bit of drama. A man and woman issued from the intersecting street, and at the moment of coming into sight the man, who looked like a sailor, caught the woman by the arm, as if to detain her. A brief struggle ensued, the woman trying to free herself, and the man half coaxing, half scolding. The spectators could now see that he was drunk; but before they could decide whether it was a case for their interference or not, the woman suddenly set both hands against the man's breast and gave him a quick push. He lost his footing and tumbled into a heap in the gutter. The woman faltered an instant, as if to see whether he was seriously hurt, and then turned and ran. When Corey and the book-keeper re-entered the office, Miss Dewey had finished her lunch, and was putting a sheet of paper into her type-writer. She looked up at them with her eyes of turquoise blue, under her low white forehead, with the hair neatly rippled over it, and then began to beat the keys of her machine.

Mrs. Corey returns suddenly to check on Tom and is horrified that he has been taken into Silas' business. Bromfield says that he couldn't have been stopped; Tom would pay no heed to their opinions in this matter. Bromfield realizes that Tom is energetic but not brilliant; he does not think Tom would succeed in a profession, but he knows Tom wants to do something. Mineral paint is not much different from the other things Tom could go into, Bromfield feels. Mrs. Corey objects more to the possibility of marriage between Tom and Irene than to Tom's going into the Lapham enterprise. She feels she could not get along with Irene, whom she says is insipid. "There is nothing to her," she states. "The chief consolation that we American parents have in these matters is that we can do nothing," Bromfield consoles his wife. Parents no longer wholeheartedly interfere in marriage, he points out. "To which father in our acquaintance shall I go and propose an alliance for Tom with his daughter? I should feel like an ass," Bromfield observes. Mrs. Corey resolves to speak to Tom about Irene when the time comes. When Tom returns from his stay at the Laphams, Mrs. Corey tries to feel out any possibility of a love affair with Irene. She learns only that Tom's Uncle Jim has suggested the business venture, Penelope has a droll sense of humor, and Irene has a wonderful complexion. She reports to her husband that she has found out very little about the possibility of a romance between Tom and Irene. She states that she has found him with his mind made up concerning the business venture. She also realizes that there will be nothing she can do if Tom decides to marry Irene, but she hopes that he will not. Defeated Mrs. Corey returns to the resort. Tom has become engrossed in his work, and, upon returning to the office to pick up some work, he encounters a mysterious rendezvous between Silas and Zerrilla, a girl Lapham employs. Walker, the head bookkeeper, points out to Tom the next day that Lapham has always been secretive about the typist.

'How long he stood stock-still by the hatch expecting every moment to feel the ship dip under his feet and the rush of water take him at the back and toss him like a chip, I cannot say. Not very long--two minutes perhaps. A couple of men he could not make out began to converse drowsily, and also, he could not tell where, he detected a curious noise of shuffling feet. Above these faint sounds there was that awful stillness preceding a catastrophe, that trying silence of the moment before the crash; then it came into his head that perhaps he would have time to rush along and cut all the lanyards of the gripes, so that the boats would float as the ship went down. 'The Patna had a long bridge, and all the boats were up there, four on one side and three on the other--the smallest of them on the port-side and nearly abreast of the steering gear. He assured me, with evident anxiety to be believed, that he had been most careful to keep them ready for instant service. He knew his duty. I dare say he was a good enough mate as far as that went. "I always believed in being prepared for the worst," he commented, staring anxiously in my face. I nodded my approval of the sound principle, averting my eyes before the subtle unsoundness of the man. 'He started unsteadily to run. He had to step over legs, avoid stumbling against the heads. Suddenly some one caught hold of his coat from below, and a distressed voice spoke under his elbow. The light of the lamp he carried in his right hand fell upon an upturned dark face whose eyes entreated him together with the voice. He had picked up enough of the language to understand the word water, repeated several times in a tone of insistence, of prayer, almost of despair. He gave a jerk to get away, and felt an arm embrace his leg. '"The beggar clung to me like a drowning man," he said impressively. "Water, water! What water did he mean? What did he know? As calmly as I could I ordered him to let go. He was stopping me, time was pressing, other men began to stir; I wanted time--time to cut the boats adrift. He got hold of my hand now, and I felt that he would begin to shout. It flashed upon me it was enough to start a panic, and I hauled off with my free arm and slung the lamp in his face. The glass jingled, the light went out, but the blow made him let go, and I ran off--I wanted to get at the boats; I wanted to get at the boats. He leaped after me from behind. I turned on him. He would not keep quiet; he tried to shout; I had half throttled him before I made out what he wanted. He wanted some water--water to drink; they were on strict allowance, you know, and he had with him a young boy I had noticed several times. His child was sick--and thirsty. He had caught sight of me as I passed by, and was begging for a little water. That's all. We were under the bridge, in the dark. He kept on snatching at my wrists; there was no getting rid of him. I dashed into my berth, grabbed my water-bottle, and thrust it into his hands. He vanished. I didn't find out till then how much I was in want of a drink myself." He leaned on one elbow with a hand over his eyes. 'I felt a creepy sensation all down my backbone; there was something peculiar in all this. The fingers of the hand that shaded his brow trembled slightly. He broke the short silence. '"These things happen only once to a man and . . . Ah! well! When I got on the bridge at last the beggars were getting one of the boats off the chocks. A boat! I was running up the ladder when a heavy blow fell on my shoulder, just missing my head. It didn't stop me, and the chief engineer--they had got him out of his bunk by then--raised the boat-stretcher again. Somehow I had no mind to be surprised at anything. All this seemed natural--and awful--and awful. I dodged that miserable maniac, lifted him off the deck as though he had been a little child, and he started whispering in my arms: 'Don't! don't! I thought you were one of them niggers.' I flung him away, he skidded along the bridge and knocked the legs from under the little chap--the second. The skipper, busy about the boat, looked round and came at me head down, growling like a wild beast. I flinched no more than a stone. I was as solid standing there as this," he tapped lightly with his knuckles the wall beside his chair. "It was as though I had heard it all, seen it all, gone through it all twenty times already. I wasn't afraid of them. I drew back my fist and he stopped short, muttering-- '"'Ah! it's you. Lend a hand quick.' '"That's what he said. Quick! As if anybody could be quick enough. 'Aren't you going to do something?' I asked. 'Yes. Clear out,' he snarled over his shoulder. '"I don't think I understood then what he meant. The other two had picked themselves up by that time, and they rushed together to the boat. They tramped, they wheezed, they shoved, they cursed the boat, the ship, each other--cursed me. All in mutters. I didn't move, I didn't speak. I watched the slant of the ship. She was as still as if landed on the blocks in a dry dock--only she was like this," He held up his hand, palm under, the tips of the fingers inclined downwards. "Like this," he repeated. "I could see the line of the horizon before me, as clear as a bell, above her stem-head; I could see the water far off there black and sparkling, and still--still as a-pond, deadly still, more still than ever sea was before--more still than I could bear to look at. Have you watched a ship floating head down, checked in sinking by a sheet of old iron too rotten to stand being shored up? Have you? Oh yes, shored up? I thought of that--I thought of every mortal thing; but can you shore up a bulkhead in five minutes--or in fifty for that matter? Where was I going to get men that would go down below? And the timber--the timber! Would you have had the courage to swing the maul for the first blow if you had seen that bulkhead? Don't say you would: you had not seen it; nobody would. Hang it--to do a thing like that you must believe there is a chance, one in a thousand, at least, some ghost of a chance; and you would not have believed. Nobody would have believed. You think me a cur for standing there, but what would you have done? What! You can't tell--nobody can tell. One must have time to turn round. What would you have me do? Where was the kindness in making crazy with fright all those people I could not save single-handed--that nothing could save? Look here! As true as I sit on this chair before you . . ." 'He drew quick breaths at every few words and shot quick glances at my face, as though in his anguish he were watchful of the effect. He was not speaking to me, he was only speaking before me, in a dispute with an invisible personality, an antagonistic and inseparable partner of his existence--another possessor of his soul. These were issues beyond the competency of a court of inquiry: it was a subtle and momentous quarrel as to the true essence of life, and did not want a judge. He wanted an ally, a helper, an accomplice. I felt the risk I ran of being circumvented, blinded, decoyed, bullied, perhaps, into taking a definite part in a dispute impossible of decision if one had to be fair to all the phantoms in possession--to the reputable that had its claims and to the disreputable that had its exigencies. I can't explain to you who haven't seen him and who hear his words only at second hand the mixed nature of my feelings. It seemed to me I was being made to comprehend the Inconceivable--and I know of nothing to compare with the discomfort of such a sensation. I was made to look at the convention that lurks in all truth and on the essential sincerity of falsehood. He appealed to all sides at once--to the side turned perpetually to the light of day, and to that side of us which, like the other hemisphere of the moon, exists stealthily in perpetual darkness, with only a fearful ashy light falling at times on the edge. He swayed me. I own to it, I own up. The occasion was obscure, insignificant--what you will: a lost youngster, one in a million--but then he was one of us; an incident as completely devoid of importance as the flooding of an ant-heap, and yet the mystery of his attitude got hold of me as though he had been an individual in the forefront of his kind, as if the obscure truth involved were momentous enough to affect mankind's conception of itself. . . .' Marlow paused to put new life into his expiring cheroot, seemed to forget all about the story, and abruptly began again. 'My fault of course. One has no business really to get interested. It's a weakness of mine. His was of another kind. My weakness consists in not having a discriminating eye for the incidental--for the externals--no eye for the hod of the rag-picker or the fine linen of the next man. Next man--that's it. I have met so many men,' he pursued, with momentary sadness--'met them too with a certain--certain--impact, let us say; like this fellow, for instance--and in each case all I could see was merely the human being. A confounded democratic quality of vision which may be better than total blindness, but has been of no advantage to me, I can assure you. Men expect one to take into account their fine linen. But I never could get up any enthusiasm about these things. Oh! it's a failing; it's a failing; and then comes a soft evening; a lot of men too indolent for whist--and a story. . . .' He paused again to wait for an encouraging remark, perhaps, but nobody spoke; only the host, as if reluctantly performing a duty, murmured-- 'You are so subtle, Marlow.' 'Who? I?' said Marlow in a low voice. 'Oh no! But _he_ was; and try as I may for the success of this yarn, I am missing innumerable shades--they were so fine, so difficult to render in colourless words. Because he complicated matters by being so simple, too--the simplest poor devil! . . . By Jove! he was amazing. There he sat telling me that just as I saw him before my eyes he wouldn't be afraid to face anything--and believing in it too. I tell you it was fabulously innocent and it was enormous, enormous! I watched him covertly, just as though I had suspected him of an intention to take a jolly good rise out of me. He was confident that, on the square, "on the square, mind!" there was nothing he couldn't meet. Ever since he had been "so high"--"quite a little chap," he had been preparing himself for all the difficulties that can beset one on land and water. He confessed proudly to this kind of foresight. He had been elaborating dangers and defences, expecting the worst, rehearsing his best. He must have led a most exalted existence. Can you fancy it? A succession of adventures, so much glory, such a victorious progress! and the deep sense of his sagacity crowning every day of his inner life. He forgot himself; his eyes shone; and with every word my heart, searched by the light of his absurdity, was growing heavier in my breast. I had no mind to laugh, and lest I should smile I made for myself a stolid face. He gave signs of irritation. '"It is always the unexpected that happens," I said in a propitiatory tone. My obtuseness provoked him into a contemptuous "Pshaw!" I suppose he meant that the unexpected couldn't touch him; nothing less than the unconceivable itself could get over his perfect state of preparation. He had been taken unawares--and he whispered to himself a malediction upon the waters and the firmament, upon the ship, upon the men. Everything had betrayed him! He had been tricked into that sort of high-minded resignation which prevented him lifting as much as his little finger, while these others who had a very clear perception of the actual necessity were tumbling against each other and sweating desperately over that boat business. Something had gone wrong there at the last moment. It appears that in their flurry they had contrived in some mysterious way to get the sliding bolt of the foremost boat-chock jammed tight, and forthwith had gone out of the remnants of their minds over the deadly nature of that accident. It must have been a pretty sight, the fierce industry of these beggars toiling on a motionless ship that floated quietly in the silence of a world asleep, fighting against time for the freeing of that boat, grovelling on all-fours, standing up in despair, tugging, pushing, snarling at each other venomously, ready to kill, ready to weep, and only kept from flying at each other's throats by the fear of death that stood silent behind them like an inflexible and cold-eyed taskmaster. Oh yes! It must have been a pretty sight. He saw it all, he could talk about it with scorn and bitterness; he had a minute knowledge of it by means of some sixth sense, I conclude, because he swore to me he had remained apart without a glance at them and at the boat--without one single glance. And I believe him. I should think he was too busy watching the threatening slant of the ship, the suspended menace discovered in the midst of the most perfect security--fascinated by the sword hanging by a hair over his imaginative head. 'Nothing in the world moved before his eyes, and he could depict to himself without hindrance the sudden swing upwards of the dark sky-line, the sudden tilt up of the vast plain of the sea, the swift still rise, the brutal fling, the grasp of the abyss, the struggle without hope, the starlight closing over his head for ever like the vault of a tomb--the revolt of his young life--the black end. He could! By Jove! who couldn't? And you must remember he was a finished artist in that peculiar way, he was a gifted poor devil with the faculty of swift and forestalling vision. The sights it showed him had turned him into cold stone from the soles of his feet to the nape of his neck; but there was a hot dance of thoughts in his head, a dance of lame, blind, mute thoughts--a whirl of awful cripples. Didn't I tell you he confessed himself before me as though I had the power to bind and to loose? He burrowed deep, deep, in the hope of my absolution, which would have been of no good to him. This was one of those cases which no solemn deception can palliate, where no man can help; where his very Maker seems to abandon a sinner to his own devices. 'He stood on the starboard side of the bridge, as far as he could get from the struggle for the boat, which went on with the agitation of madness and the stealthiness of a conspiracy. The two Malays had meantime remained holding to the wheel. Just picture to yourselves the actors in that, thank God! unique, episode of the sea, four beside themselves with fierce and secret exertions, and three looking on in complete immobility, above the awnings covering the profound ignorance of hundreds of human beings, with their weariness, with their dreams, with their hopes, arrested, held by an invisible hand on the brink of annihilation. For that they were so, makes no doubt to me: given the state of the ship, this was the deadliest possible description of accident that could happen. These beggars by the boat had every reason to go distracted with funk. Frankly, had I been there, I would not have given as much as a counterfeit farthing for the ship's chance to keep above water to the end of each successive second. And still she floated! These sleeping pilgrims were destined to accomplish their whole pilgrimage to the bitterness of some other end. It was as if the Omnipotence whose mercy they confessed had needed their humble testimony on earth for a while longer, and had looked down to make a sign, "Thou shalt not!" to the ocean. Their escape would trouble me as a prodigiously inexplicable event, did I not know how tough old iron can be--as tough sometimes as the spirit of some men we meet now and then, worn to a shadow and breasting the weight of life. Not the least wonder of these twenty minutes, to my mind, is the behaviour of the two helmsmen. They were amongst the native batch of all sorts brought over from Aden to give evidence at the inquiry. One of them, labouring under intense bashfulness, was very young, and with his smooth, yellow, cheery countenance looked even younger than he was. I remember perfectly Brierly asking him, through the interpreter, what he thought of it at the time, and the interpreter, after a short colloquy, turning to the court with an important air-- '"He says he thought nothing." 'The other, with patient blinking eyes, a blue cotton handkerchief, faded with much washing, bound with a smart twist over a lot of grey wisps, his face shrunk into grim hollows, his brown skin made darker by a mesh of wrinkles, explained that he had a knowledge of some evil thing befalling the ship, but there had been no order; he could not remember an order; why should he leave the helm? To some further questions he jerked back his spare shoulders, and declared it never came into his mind then that the white men were about to leave the ship through fear of death. He did not believe it now. There might have been secret reasons. He wagged his old chin knowingly. Aha! secret reasons. He was a man of great experience, and he wanted _that_ white Tuan to know--he turned towards Brierly, who didn't raise his head--that he had acquired a knowledge of many things by serving white men on the sea for a great number of years--and, suddenly, with shaky excitement he poured upon our spellbound attention a lot of queer-sounding names, names of dead-and-gone skippers, names of forgotten country ships, names of familiar and distorted sound, as if the hand of dumb time had been at work on them for ages. They stopped him at last. A silence fell upon the court,--a silence that remained unbroken for at least a minute, and passed gently into a deep murmur. This episode was the sensation of the second day's proceedings--affecting all the audience, affecting everybody except Jim, who was sitting moodily at the end of the first bench, and never looked up at this extraordinary and damning witness that seemed possessed of some mysterious theory of defence. 'So these two lascars stuck to the helm of that ship without steerage-way, where death would have found them if such had been their destiny. The whites did not give them half a glance, had probably forgotten their existence. Assuredly Jim did not remember it. He remembered he could do nothing; he could do nothing, now he was alone. There was nothing to do but to sink with the ship. No use making a disturbance about it. Was there? He waited upstanding, without a sound, stiffened in the idea of some sort of heroic discretion. The first engineer ran cautiously across the bridge to tug at his sleeve. '"Come and help! For God's sake, come and help!" 'He ran back to the boat on the points of his toes, and returned directly to worry at his sleeve, begging and cursing at the same time. '"I believe he would have kissed my hands," said Jim savagely, "and, next moment, he starts foaming and whispering in my face, 'If I had the time I would like to crack your skull for you.' I pushed him away. Suddenly he caught hold of me round the neck. Damn him! I hit him. I hit out without looking. 'Won't you save your own life--you infernal coward?' he sobs. Coward! He called me an infernal coward! Ha! ha! ha! ha! He called me--ha! ha! ha! . . ." 'He had thrown himself back and was shaking with laughter. I had never in my life heard anything so bitter as that noise. It fell like a blight on all the merriment about donkeys, pyramids, bazaars, or what not. Along the whole dim length of the gallery the voices dropped, the pale blotches of faces turned our way with one accord, and the silence became so profound that the clear tinkle of a teaspoon falling on the tesselated floor of the verandah rang out like a tiny and silvery scream. '"You mustn't laugh like this, with all these people about," I remonstrated. "It isn't nice for them, you know." 'He gave no sign of having heard at first, but after a while, with a stare that, missing me altogether, seemed to probe the heart of some awful vision, he muttered carelessly--"Oh! they'll think I am drunk." 'And after that you would have thought from his appearance he would never make a sound again. But--no fear! He could no more stop telling now than he could have stopped living by the mere exertion of his will.'

In this chapter, Marlow continues telling Jim's story of what happened on the Patna, giving some of the details that he had learned from the young sailor. After he realized that the ship would surely sink, Jim stood on deck not knowing what to do. He was not afraid of death, but he did not want to die alone and unknown amongst 800 foreign pilgrims. Suddenly it struck him that if he could free the seven lifeboats, some people could be saved in them. Stepping over sleeping pilgrims, he quickly ran towards where the boats were kept in the hope of loosening them. On the way, someone caught him by his coat and shouted, "Water, Water!" Jim struck him before realizing that he only wanted water for his baby. Jim then threw his water bottle at the man and ran on as the boat swayed dangerously. He soon approached the lifeboats and saw the captain trying to loosen one of them. Then one of the engineers ran up to Jim and asked him for help in freeing a lifeboat for his escape, but Jim refused him. When the officer called Jim a coward for not wanting to save himself, he slugged the engineer. He then heard the captain say that he was ready to "clear out". Jim bemoaned the fact that he felt that he was tricked by the officers, the boat, and the sea; he then laughed loudly and bitterly at the memories.

Elinor could not find herself in the carriage with Mrs. Jennings, and beginning a journey to London under her protection, and as her guest, without wondering at her own situation, so short had their acquaintance with that lady been, so wholly unsuited were they in age and disposition, and so many had been her objections against such a measure only a few days before! But these objections had all, with that happy ardour of youth which Marianne and her mother equally shared, been overcome or overlooked; and Elinor, in spite of every occasional doubt of Willoughby's constancy, could not witness the rapture of delightful expectation which filled the whole soul and beamed in the eyes of Marianne, without feeling how blank was her own prospect, how cheerless her own state of mind in the comparison, and how gladly she would engage in the solicitude of Marianne's situation to have the same animating object in view, the same possibility of hope. A short, a very short time however must now decide what Willoughby's intentions were; in all probability he was already in town. Marianne's eagerness to be gone declared her dependence on finding him there; and Elinor was resolved not only upon gaining every new light as to his character which her own observation or the intelligence of others could give her, but likewise upon watching his behaviour to her sister with such zealous attention, as to ascertain what he was and what he meant, before many meetings had taken place. Should the result of her observations be unfavourable, she was determined at all events to open the eyes of her sister; should it be otherwise, her exertions would be of a different nature--she must then learn to avoid every selfish comparison, and banish every regret which might lessen her satisfaction in the happiness of Marianne. They were three days on their journey, and Marianne's behaviour as they travelled was a happy specimen of what future complaisance and companionableness to Mrs. Jennings might be expected to be. She sat in silence almost all the way, wrapt in her own meditations, and scarcely ever voluntarily speaking, except when any object of picturesque beauty within their view drew from her an exclamation of delight exclusively addressed to her sister. To atone for this conduct therefore, Elinor took immediate possession of the post of civility which she had assigned herself, behaved with the greatest attention to Mrs. Jennings, talked with her, laughed with her, and listened to her whenever she could; and Mrs. Jennings on her side treated them both with all possible kindness, was solicitous on every occasion for their ease and enjoyment, and only disturbed that she could not make them choose their own dinners at the inn, nor extort a confession of their preferring salmon to cod, or boiled fowls to veal cutlets. They reached town by three o'clock the third day, glad to be released, after such a journey, from the confinement of a carriage, and ready to enjoy all the luxury of a good fire. The house was handsome, and handsomely fitted up, and the young ladies were immediately put in possession of a very comfortable apartment. It had formerly been Charlotte's, and over the mantelpiece still hung a landscape in coloured silks of her performance, in proof of her having spent seven years at a great school in town to some effect. As dinner was not to be ready in less than two hours from their arrival, Elinor determined to employ the interval in writing to her mother, and sat down for that purpose. In a few moments Marianne did the same. "I am writing home, Marianne," said Elinor; "had not you better defer your letter for a day or two?" "I am NOT going to write to my mother," replied Marianne, hastily, and as if wishing to avoid any farther inquiry. Elinor said no more; it immediately struck her that she must then be writing to Willoughby; and the conclusion which as instantly followed was, that, however mysteriously they might wish to conduct the affair, they must be engaged. This conviction, though not entirely satisfactory, gave her pleasure, and she continued her letter with greater alacrity. Marianne's was finished in a very few minutes; in length it could be no more than a note; it was then folded up, sealed, and directed with eager rapidity. Elinor thought she could distinguish a large W in the direction; and no sooner was it complete than Marianne, ringing the bell, requested the footman who answered it to get that letter conveyed for her to the two-penny post. This decided the matter at once. Her spirits still continued very high; but there was a flutter in them which prevented their giving much pleasure to her sister, and this agitation increased as the evening drew on. She could scarcely eat any dinner, and when they afterwards returned to the drawing room, seemed anxiously listening to the sound of every carriage. It was a great satisfaction to Elinor that Mrs. Jennings, by being much engaged in her own room, could see little of what was passing. The tea things were brought in, and already had Marianne been disappointed more than once by a rap at a neighbouring door, when a loud one was suddenly heard which could not be mistaken for one at any other house, Elinor felt secure of its announcing Willoughby's approach, and Marianne, starting up, moved towards the door. Every thing was silent; this could not be borne many seconds; she opened the door, advanced a few steps towards the stairs, and after listening half a minute, returned into the room in all the agitation which a conviction of having heard him would naturally produce; in the ecstasy of her feelings at that instant she could not help exclaiming, "Oh, Elinor, it is Willoughby, indeed it is!" and seemed almost ready to throw herself into his arms, when Colonel Brandon appeared. It was too great a shock to be borne with calmness, and she immediately left the room. Elinor was disappointed too; but at the same time her regard for Colonel Brandon ensured his welcome with her; and she felt particularly hurt that a man so partial to her sister should perceive that she experienced nothing but grief and disappointment in seeing him. She instantly saw that it was not unnoticed by him, that he even observed Marianne as she quitted the room, with such astonishment and concern, as hardly left him the recollection of what civility demanded towards herself. "Is your sister ill?" said he. Elinor answered in some distress that she was, and then talked of head-aches, low spirits, and over fatigues; and of every thing to which she could decently attribute her sister's behaviour. He heard her with the most earnest attention, but seeming to recollect himself, said no more on the subject, and began directly to speak of his pleasure at seeing them in London, making the usual inquiries about their journey, and the friends they had left behind. In this calm kind of way, with very little interest on either side, they continued to talk, both of them out of spirits, and the thoughts of both engaged elsewhere. Elinor wished very much to ask whether Willoughby were then in town, but she was afraid of giving him pain by any enquiry after his rival; and at length, by way of saying something, she asked if he had been in London ever since she had seen him last. "Yes," he replied, with some embarrassment, "almost ever since; I have been once or twice at Delaford for a few days, but it has never been in my power to return to Barton." This, and the manner in which it was said, immediately brought back to her remembrance all the circumstances of his quitting that place, with the uneasiness and suspicions they had caused to Mrs. Jennings, and she was fearful that her question had implied much more curiosity on the subject than she had ever felt. Mrs. Jennings soon came in. "Oh! Colonel," said she, with her usual noisy cheerfulness, "I am monstrous glad to see you--sorry I could not come before--beg your pardon, but I have been forced to look about me a little, and settle my matters; for it is a long while since I have been at home, and you know one has always a world of little odd things to do after one has been away for any time; and then I have had Cartwright to settle with-- Lord, I have been as busy as a bee ever since dinner! But pray, Colonel, how came you to conjure out that I should be in town today?" "I had the pleasure of hearing it at Mr. Palmer's, where I have been dining." "Oh, you did; well, and how do they all do at their house? How does Charlotte do? I warrant you she is a fine size by this time." "Mrs. Palmer appeared quite well, and I am commissioned to tell you, that you will certainly see her to-morrow." "Ay, to be sure, I thought as much. Well, Colonel, I have brought two young ladies with me, you see--that is, you see but one of them now, but there is another somewhere. Your friend, Miss Marianne, too--which you will not be sorry to hear. I do not know what you and Mr. Willoughby will do between you about her. Ay, it is a fine thing to be young and handsome. Well! I was young once, but I never was very handsome--worse luck for me. However, I got a very good husband, and I don't know what the greatest beauty can do more. Ah! poor man! he has been dead these eight years and better. But Colonel, where have you been to since we parted? And how does your business go on? Come, come, let's have no secrets among friends." He replied with his accustomary mildness to all her inquiries, but without satisfying her in any. Elinor now began to make the tea, and Marianne was obliged to appear again. After her entrance, Colonel Brandon became more thoughtful and silent than he had been before, and Mrs. Jennings could not prevail on him to stay long. No other visitor appeared that evening, and the ladies were unanimous in agreeing to go early to bed. Marianne rose the next morning with recovered spirits and happy looks. The disappointment of the evening before seemed forgotten in the expectation of what was to happen that day. They had not long finished their breakfast before Mrs. Palmer's barouche stopped at the door, and in a few minutes she came laughing into the room: so delighted to see them all, that it was hard to say whether she received most pleasure from meeting her mother or the Miss Dashwoods again. So surprised at their coming to town, though it was what she had rather expected all along; so angry at their accepting her mother's invitation after having declined her own, though at the same time she would never have forgiven them if they had not come! "Mr. Palmer will be so happy to see you," said she; "What do you think he said when he heard of your coming with Mama? I forget what it was now, but it was something so droll!" After an hour or two spent in what her mother called comfortable chat, or in other words, in every variety of inquiry concerning all their acquaintance on Mrs. Jennings's side, and in laughter without cause on Mrs. Palmer's, it was proposed by the latter that they should all accompany her to some shops where she had business that morning, to which Mrs. Jennings and Elinor readily consented, as having likewise some purchases to make themselves; and Marianne, though declining it at first was induced to go likewise. Wherever they went, she was evidently always on the watch. In Bond Street especially, where much of their business lay, her eyes were in constant inquiry; and in whatever shop the party were engaged, her mind was equally abstracted from every thing actually before them, from all that interested and occupied the others. Restless and dissatisfied every where, her sister could never obtain her opinion of any article of purchase, however it might equally concern them both: she received no pleasure from anything; was only impatient to be at home again, and could with difficulty govern her vexation at the tediousness of Mrs. Palmer, whose eye was caught by every thing pretty, expensive, or new; who was wild to buy all, could determine on none, and dawdled away her time in rapture and indecision. It was late in the morning before they returned home; and no sooner had they entered the house than Marianne flew eagerly up stairs, and when Elinor followed, she found her turning from the table with a sorrowful countenance, which declared that no Willoughby had been there. "Has no letter been left here for me since we went out?" said she to the footman who then entered with the parcels. She was answered in the negative. "Are you quite sure of it?" she replied. "Are you certain that no servant, no porter has left any letter or note?" The man replied that none had. "How very odd!" said she, in a low and disappointed voice, as she turned away to the window. "How odd, indeed!" repeated Elinor within herself, regarding her sister with uneasiness. "If she had not known him to be in town she would not have written to him, as she did; she would have written to Combe Magna; and if he is in town, how odd that he should neither come nor write! Oh! my dear mother, you must be wrong in permitting an engagement between a daughter so young, a man so little known, to be carried on in so doubtful, so mysterious a manner! I long to inquire; and how will MY interference be borne." She determined, after some consideration, that if appearances continued many days longer as unpleasant as they now were, she would represent in the strongest manner to her mother the necessity of some serious enquiry into the affair. Mrs. Palmer and two elderly ladies of Mrs. Jennings's intimate acquaintance, whom she had met and invited in the morning, dined with them. The former left them soon after tea to fulfill her evening engagements; and Elinor was obliged to assist in making a whist table for the others. Marianne was of no use on these occasions, as she would never learn the game; but though her time was therefore at her own disposal, the evening was by no means more productive of pleasure to her than to Elinor, for it was spent in all the anxiety of expectation and the pain of disappointment. She sometimes endeavoured for a few minutes to read; but the book was soon thrown aside, and she returned to the more interesting employment of walking backwards and forwards across the room, pausing for a moment whenever she came to the window, in hopes of distinguishing the long-expected rap.

Elinor finds the company of Mrs. Jennings somewhat awkward, given a lack of things in common and the brevity of their acquaintance, but she is cheered that Marianne is obviously looking forward to the chance of seeing Willoughby. Elinor however is determined to figure out what Willoughby's intentions are, as she is not entirely assured that he is good. Elinor also has to make up for Marianne's coldness toward Mrs. Jennings, by being sociable and kind all the time. They find Mrs. Jennings' house in town very comfortable, and Marianne immediately writes and sends a letter for Willoughby. Marianne is convinced by a knock that Willoughby has come, and is very disappointed when it is Colonel Brandon; he does not stay long, and is upset at being slighted by Marianne. Marianne is more upset when several days pass with no word from Willoughby, and Elinor becomes worried about their relationship.