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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. |