The Rutland daily globe. [volume] (Rutland, Vt.) 1873-1877, 1876-08-19

sinners who repeuted at the last and desire
TO be remembered compassionately by their
fellow countrymen. We know little about
the grounds of mutual discomfort between
the Siennese couple, but we may infer with
some confidence that the husband had never
been very delightful companion, and that
on the Il It's of the Maremma his disagreed
Ill, manners had background which threw
them out remarkably; whence, in his de-
sire to punish his wife to the uttermost,
the nature of things was so far against him
that, in relieving himself of her, he could
not avoid making the relief mutual.
And thus, without any hardness to the
poor Tuscan lady, who had her deliverance
long ago, one may feel warranted in think
ing of her with less sympathetic interest
than of the better known Gwendolen, who,
instead of being delivered from her errors
on earth, ard cleansed from their effect in
purgatory, is ST the very hight of her en-
tanglement in those fatal meshes which are
woven within more closely than without,
and often make The inward torture dispro-
poriionate to what is discernible as out
ward cause.
In taking his wife with him on a yacht =.
ing expedition, Grandcourt had no inten-
ton to get rid of her; on the contrary, he
want d to feel more securely that she was
his to do as he liked with, and to make her
feel it also. Moreover, he was himself
very fond of yachting: its dreamy, do
nothing abs0lutism, unmolested by social
demands, suited his disposition, and he did
not in the least regard it as an equivalent
for the dreariness of the Maremma. He
had his reasons for carrying Gwendolen out
of reach, but they were not reasons that
can seem black in the mere statement. lie
suspected a growing spirit of opposition in
her, and his feeling about the sentimental
inclination she betrayed for Deronda was
what in another man he would have called
jealousy. In himself it seemed merely a
resolution TO put an end to such foolery as
must have been going on in that pre-ar-
ranged visit of Deronda's which he had di-
vined and interrupted.
Ana Grandcouft might have pleaded that
he was perfectly justified in taking care
that bis wife should fulfill the obligations
she had accepted. Her marriage was q
contract where all the ostensible advantages
were on her side, and it WAS only one of
those advantages that her husband should
use his power to binder her from any iDjuri-
GUS self-committal or unsuitable behavior
He knew quite well that she had not mar
Tied hin-had not overcome her repug-
nance to certain facts-out of love to him
personally; he had won her by the rank
and uxuries he had to give her, and these
che had got he had fulfilled his side of the
contract
And Gwendolen, we know, was thor
Oughly aware Of the situation. She could
not excuse herself by saying that there had
been a tacit part of the contract on her
side, namely, that she meant to rule and
have her own way. With all her early in
diligence IN the disposition to dominate,
she was not one of the narrow Drained wo-
men who through life regard all their own
selfish demands as rights, and every claim
upon themselves as an injury. She had a
root ut Coincidence in her. and the process
of purgatory had begun for her on the
green earth she knew that she had been
wrong.
But now enter into the soul of this young
creature rs she found herself with the blue
Mediterranean dividing her from the world,
on the tiny plank island of yacht the do
main Of the husband to whom she felt she
had sold herself, and had been paid the
stiict picc-nay more than she had dared
to ask in the handsome maintenance of her
mcther-the husband to whom she had
r, Ii her tru,hfulness and sense of Justice,
so that he held them throttled into silence,
colared and dragged behind him to wit
ness what he would without remonstrance.
W hat had she to complain of? The
yacht WAS of the prettiest; the cabin fitted
up TO perfection, smelling of cedar, soft
cushioned, hung with silk, expanded with
mirrors; the crew such as suited an elegant
toy, one Of them having even ringlets, as
well as bronze complexion and tine teeth;
and Mr.. Lush was not there, for he had
taken his way back 10 England as soon as
every thing was on board. Moreover,
Gwendolen herself liked the sea; it did not
make her i'll; and to observe the rigging of
the vessel and forecast the necessary ad-
iusiments was sort OF amusement that
might have gratitied her activity and en-
joy ment Of imaginary rule; the weather
was fine, and they were coasting south
ward, where even the TaI-furrowed, heat
cracked ay becomes gem-like with purple
shadows, and where one may float between
blue and blue in an open-eyed dream that
the world has done with sorrow.
But what can still that hunger of the
heart which eickens the eye for beauty,
ard makes sweet-scented ease an OPP
preston? What sort of Mosem paradise
would quiet the terrible fury of moral re-
pulsion and cowed resistance which, like
an eating pain intentifying into torture,
concentrates the mind in that poisonous
misery? While Gwendolen, throned on
her cushions at evening, and beholding the
glory of sea and sky softening as if with
Ioundless love around her, was hoping
that Grandcourt, in his march up and down,
was not going to pause near her, not going
to look at her, or speak to her, some wo-
man under smoky sky, obliged to con-
slider the price of eggs in arranging her
dinner, was listening for the music of a
footstep that would remove all risk from
her foretaste or joy; some couple, bending,
cheek by cheek, over bit of work done by
the one and delighted in by the other, were
reckoning the earnings that would make
them rich enough for holiday under the
fuIze and heather.
Had Grandcourt the least conception OF
what was going on in the breast of his
wife? He conceived that she did not love
him but was that necessary? She was
under his power, and he was not accus-
toned to soothe himself, as some cheerful
ly disposed persons are, with the convic-
ton that he was very generally and justly
beloved. But what lay quite away from
his conception was that she could have any
special repulsion for him personally. How
could she? He himself knew what per-
sonal repulsion was-noboly better; his
mind was much furnished with sense of
what brutes his fellow creatures were, both
masculine and feminine; what odious IA
miliarities they had. what smirks, what
modes of fourishlng their bandkerchiefs,
what costume. what lavender water, what
bullying eyes, and what foolish notions of
making themselves agreeable by remarks
which were not wanted. In this critical
view of mankind there was an affinity be-
tween him and Gwendolen before their
marriage, and we know that she had been
exceedingly wrought upon by the refined
negatlons he presented TO her. Hence he
understood her repulsion for Lnsh. But
now was he to understand her repulsion
for Henleigh Grandcourt? Some men
bring themselves to believe, and not mere
ly maintain, the non-existence of an exter-
nal WORLD few others believe themselves
objects of repulsion to woman without be-
ing told so in plain language. But Grand
,o,,rf liJ not balpuu ~ thio aoooutria Indy