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finished_summaries/sparknotes/The Red and the Black/section_7_part_0.txt

The Red and the Black.part 2.chapters 21-34

book 2, chapters 21-34

{"name": "", "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20210301223854/https://www.sparknotes.com/lit/redblack/section8/", "summary": "Julien tries to divert his attention from Mathilde. He goes on a secret mission for the Marquis to help organize a conservative conspiracy that will strengthen the political power of the clergy in France. The Marquis, along with some of the most powerful men in France, wants to organize an army controlled by the Vatican. Julien's excellent powers of memorization impress the Marquis and his associates, so they send him around France to deliver their message to co- conspirators. Nevertheless, a group of conservative priests finds out about the conspiracy, forcing Julien to disguise himself as a soldier. Upon his return to Paris, Julien decides to make Mathilde jealous. He begins writing copied love letters to an extremely religious member of the Marquis's salon, Mme. de Fervaques. Julien knows that she is too pious to even understand his fake declarations of love, and is just using her attention to upset Mathilde. He is still very much in love with Mathilde. For the two months that he forces himself to avoid her, he is miserable. During this period, Julien becomes an expert dresser and even manages to make Mme. de Fervaques begin to like him. Mathilde cannot help but notice Julien's surge in popularity, and blushes whenever they are in the same room. Julien's ploy to make Mathilde jealous works perfectly. She finds out about the letters to Mme. de Fervaques and falls at Julien's feet proclaiming her undying love. Julien is madly in love with her too, but has learned how volatile Mathilde's emotions can be. He decides to say little and do little until he has guarantees from Mathilde that she will not change her mind. Julien now knows how to manipulate Mathilde's emotions, and succeeds in making her completely devoted to him. They resume their relationship, but Julien is careful not too show too much emotion in order to keep Mathilde interested in him. However, she soon finds out that she is pregnant and wants Julien to become her husband. Mathilde immediately confesses everything to her father, blaming herself for seducing Julien in the first place. The Marquis is enraged but will not have Julien killed. He cannot imagine his daughter having the last name Sorel, and tries to think of some way to get rid of Julien. Instead, after a month of negotiations and the help of M. Pirard, the Marquis both gives Julien a large income and ennobles him as Julien de La Vernaye. Julien is also made a lieutenant in the army. Having made Julien a man of rank and wealth, the Marquis finally consents to Julien's marriage to Mathilde.", "analysis": "Commentary Julien's hypocrisy finally comes full circle as he finds himself working as an agent for a conservative conspiracy. Stendhal uses this political interlude to separate Julien and Mathilde as well as mock both liberal and conservative politics. Writing immediately following the bourgeois liberal Revolution of 1830, Stendhal replaces the liberal conspiracy with a conservative one, cynically suggesting that the two parties are really interchangeable. He further ridicules conservative politics when he introduces a second conservative conspiracy that attempts to thwart the first plot. Revealingly, nothing Julien does on his mission matters or has any effect. Just like during the king's visit to Verrieres, Julien switches from the black clothes of the clergy to the red uniform of a soldier to avoid being recognized. Like liberal and conservative politics, the red and the black are really not that different from each other. Stendhal suggests that, like Julien's forgotten conspiracy, French politics are more comedy than drama. Julien finally masters the psychological power of triangular desire in this section. The first part of his affair with Mathilde is hampered by her inability to decide whether she loves him or not. She especially cannot forget Julien's humble social status. However, Julien soon figures out that jealousy is the best way to win her devotion. Forming a love triangle with Mme. de Fervaques as an intermediary, he succeeds in making Mathilde completely fall in love with him and give him assurances of her devotion. Yet Julien is careful not to immediately declare his own love, making sure that he keeps Mathilde dependent on him and not the other way around. More so than ever, he evokes the example of Napoleon and treats her like an enemy on a battlefield that must be intimidated. Stendhal notes that Mathilde is pregnant in a very brief sentence that does not fit well with the surrounding text. Did Julien get her pregnant on purpose to further his ambitions? Stendhal's reticence on this subject does seem to suggest some intent on Julien's part, but Julien is very shocked that Mathilde wants to tell her father. The Marquis's choices in this matter are clear: he must either have Julien killed or ennoble him. Julien still feels a deep obligation to the Marquis and offers to commit suicide, a declaration that makes Mathilde love him even more. Her ensuing argument with her father raises an interesting question regarding Julien's character. Neither of them feels that they know him very well. Indeed, Julien himself does not seem to know who he really is and what he really wants in life. Both Mathilde and the Marquis feel that Julien's political ambitions present a danger to the aristocracy and decide that the best way to engender his trust is to make him one of them; he could otherwise prove to be a revolutionary leader. Julien's lack of identity is thus molded into the title of de la Vernaye. Even though she is in love with Julien, Mathilde can not get over his low birth, and thus spreads a rumor that he is the illegitimate son of a nobleman. But his new title and army commission are the realization of Julien's dreams only in name: he has been acting like an aristocrat and a soldier since the beginning of the novel."}

CHAPTER LI THE SECRET NOTE I have seen everything I relate, and if I may have made a mistake when I saw it, I am certainly not deceiving you in telling you of it. _Letter to the author_. The marquis summoned him; M. de la Mole looked rejuvenated, his eye was brilliant. "Let us discuss your memory a little," he said to Julien, "it is said to be prodigious. Could you learn four pages by heart and go and say them at London, but without altering a single word?" The marquis was irritably fingering, the day's _Quotidienne_, and was trying in vain to hide an extreme seriousness which Julien had never noticed in him before, even when discussing the Frilair lawsuit. Julien had already learned sufficient manners to appreciate that he ought to appear completely taken in by the lightness of tone which was being manifested. "This number of the _Quotidienne_ is not very amusing possibly, but if M. the marquis will allow me, I shall do myself the honour to-morrow morning of reciting it to him from beginning to end." "What, even the advertisements?" "Quite accurately and without leaving out a word." "You give me your word?" replied the marquis with sudden gravity. "Yes, monsieur; the only thing which could upset my memory is the fear of breaking my promise." "The fact is, I forgot to put this question to you yesterday: I am not going to ask for your oath never to repeat what you are going to hear. I know you too well to insult you like that. I have answered for you. I am going to take you into a salon where a dozen persons will he assembled. You will make a note of what each one says. "Do not be uneasy. It will not be a confused conversation by any means. Each one will speak in his turn, though not necessarily in an orderly manner," added the marquis falling back into that light, subtle manner which was so natural to him. "While we are talking, you will write out twenty pages and will come back here with me, and we will get those twenty pages down to four, and those are the four pages you will recite to me to-morrow morning instead of the four pages of the _Quotidienne_. You will leave immediately afterwards. You must post about like a young man travelling on pleasure. Your aim will be to avoid attracting attention. You will arrive at the house of a great personage. You will there need more skill. Your business will then be to take in all his entourage, for among his secretaries and his servants are some people who have sold themselves to our enemies, and who spy on our travelling agents in order to intercept them. "You will have an insignificant letter of introduction. At the moment his Excellency looks at you, you will take out this watch of mine, which I will lend you for the journey. Wear it now, it will be so much done; at any rate give me yours. "The duke himself will be good enough to write at your dictation the four pages you have learnt by heart. "Having done this, but not earlier, mind you, you can, if his Excellency questions you, tell him about the meeting at which you are now going to be present. "You will be prevented from boring yourself on the journey between Paris and the minister's residence by the thought that there are people who would like nothing better than to fire a shot at M. the abbe Sorel. In that case that gentleman's mission will be finished, and I see a great delay, for how are we to know of your death, my dear friend? Even your zeal cannot go to the length of informing us of it. "Run straight away and buy a complete suit," went on the marquis seriously. "Dress in the fashion of two years ago. To-night you must look somewhat badly groomed. When you travel, on the other hand, you will be as usual. Does this surprise you? Does your suspiciousness guess the secret? Yes, my friend, one of the venerable personages you are going to hear deliver his opinion, is perfectly capable of giving information as the result of which you stand a very good chance of being given at least opium some fine evening in some good inn where you will have asked for supper." "It is better," said Julien, "to do an extra thirty leagues and not take the direct road. It is a case of Rome, I suppose...." The marquis assumed an expression of extreme haughtiness and dissatisfaction which Julien had never seen him wear since Bray-le-Haut. "That is what you will know, monsieur, when I think it proper to tell you. I do not like questions." "That was not one," answered Julien eagerly. "I swear, monsieur, I was thinking quite aloud. My mind was trying to find out the safest route." "Yes, it seems your mind was a very long way off. Remember that an emissary, and particularly one of your age should not appear to be a man who forces confidences." Julien was very mortified; he was in the wrong. His vanity tried to find an excuse and did not find one. "You understand," added monsieur de la Mole, "that one always falls back on one's heart when one has committed some mistake." An hour afterwards Julien was in the marquis's ante-chamber. He looked quite like a servant with his old clothes, a tie of a dubious white, and a certain touch of the usher in his whole appearance. The marquis burst out laughing as he saw him, and it was only then that Julien's justification was complete. "If this young man betrays me," said M. de la Mole to himself, "whom is one to trust? And yet, when one acts, one must trust someone. My son and his brilliant friends of the same calibre have as much courage and loyalty as a hundred thousand men. If it were necessary to fight, they would die on the steps of the throne. They know everything--except what one needs in emergency. Devil take me if I can find a single one among them who can learn four pages by heart and do a hundred leagues without being tracked down. Norbert would know how to sell his life as dearly as his grandfathers did. But any conscript could do as much." The marquis fell into a profound reverie. "As for selling one's life too," he said with a sigh, "perhaps this Sorel would manage it quite as well as he could. "Let us get into the carriage," said the marquis as though to chase away an unwanted idea. "Monsieur," said Julien, "while they were getting this suit ready for me, I learnt the first page of to-days _Quotidienne_ by heart." The marquis took the paper. Julien recited it without making a single mistake. "Good," said the marquis, who this night felt very diplomatic. "During the time he takes over this our young man will not notice the streets through which we are passing." They arrived in a big salon that looked melancholy enough and was partly upholstered in green velvet. In the middle of the room a scowling lackey had just placed a big dining-table which he subsequently changed into a writing-table by means of an immense green inkstained tablecloth which had been plundered from some minister. The master of the house was an enormous man whose name was not pronounced. Julien thought he had the appearance and eloquence of a man who ruminated. At a sign from the marquis, Julien had remained at the lower end of the table. In order to keep himself in countenance, he began to cut quills. He counted out of the corner of his eye seven visitors, but Julien could only see their backs. Two seemed to him to be speaking to M. de la Mole on a footing of equality, the others seemed more or less respectful. A new person entered without being announced. "This is strange," thought Julien. "People are not announced in this salon. Is this precaution taken in my honour?" Everybody got up to welcome the new arrival. He wore the same extremely distinguished decoration as three of the other persons who were in the salon. They talked fairly low. In endeavouring to form an opinion of the new comer, Julien was reduced to seeing what he could learn from his features and his appearance. He was short and thick-set. He had a high colour and a brilliant eye and an expression that looked like a malignant boar, and nothing else. Julien's attention was partly distracted by the almost immediate arrival of a very different kind of person. It was a tall very thin man who wore three or four waistcoats. His eye was caressing, his demeanour polite. "He looks exactly like the old bishop of Besancon," thought Julien. This man evidently belonged to the church, was apparently not more than fifty to fifty-five years of age, and no one could have looked more paternal than he did. The young bishop of Agde appeared. He looked very astonished when, in making a scrutiny of those present, his gaze fell upon Julien. He had not spoken to him since the ceremony of Bray-le-Haut. His look of surprise embarrassed and irritated Julien. "What!" he said to himself, "will knowing a man always turn out unfortunate for me? I don't feel the least bit intimidated by all those great lords whom I have never seen, but the look of that young bishop freezes me. I must admit that I am a very strange and very unhappy person." An extremely swarthy little man entered noisily soon afterwards and started talking as soon as he reached the door. He had a yellow complexion and looked a little mad. As soon as this ruthless talker arrived, the others formed themselves into knots with the apparent object of avoiding the bother of listening to him. As they went away from the mantelpiece they came near the lower end of the table where Julien was placed. His countenance became more and more embarrassed, for whatever efforts he made, he could not avoid hearing, and in spite of all his lack of experience he appreciated all the moment of the things which they were discussing with such complete frankness, and the importance which the high personages whom he apparently had under his observation must attach to their being kept secret. Julien had already cut twenty quills as slowly as possible; this distraction would shortly be no longer available. He looked in vain at M. de la Mole's eyes for an order; the marquis had forgotten him. "What I am doing is ridiculous," he said to himself as he cut his quills, "but persons with so mediocre an appearance and who are handling such great interests either for themselves or for others must be extremely liable to take offence. My unfortunate look has a certain questioning and scarcely respectful expression, which will doubtless irritate them. But if I palpably lower my eyes I shall look as if I were picking up every word they said." His embarrassment was extreme, he was listening to strange things. CHAPTER LII THE DISCUSSION The republic:--For one man to day who will sacrifice everything for the public welfare, there are thousands and millions who think of nothing except their enjoyments and their vanity. One is requested in Paris by reason of the qualities not of one's self but of one's carriage. --NAPOLEON, Memorial. The footman rushed in saying "Monsieur the duke de ----" "Hold your tongue, you are just a fool," said the duke as he entered. He spoke these words so well, and with so much majesty, that Julien could not help thinking this great person's accomplishments were limited to the science of snubbing a lackey. Julien raised his eyes and immediately lowered them. He had so fully appreciated the significance of the new arrival that he feared that his look might be an indiscretion. The duke was a man of fifty dressed like a dandy and with a jerky walk. He had a narrow head with a large nose and a face that jutted forward; it would have been difficult to have looked at the same time more insignificant. His arrival was the signal for the opening of the meeting. Julien was sharply interrupted in his physiognomical observations by de la Mole's voice. "I present to you M. the abbe Sorel," said the Marquis. "He is gifted with an astonishing memory; it is scarcely an hour ago since I spoke to him of the mission by which he might be honoured, and he has learned the first page of the _Quotidienne_ by heart in order to give proof of his memory." "Ah! foreign news of that poor N--" said the master of the house. He took up the paper eagerly and looked at Julien in a manner rendered humorous by its own self-importance. "Speak, monsieur," he said to him. The silence was profound, all eyes were fixed on Julien. He recited so well that the duke said at the end of twenty lines, "That is enough." The little man who looked like a boar sat down. He was the president, for he had scarcely taken his place before he showed Julien a card-table and signed to him to bring it near him. Julien established himself at it with writing materials. He counted twelve persons seated round the green table cloth. "M. Sorel," said the Duke, "retire into next room, you will be called." The master of the house began to look very anxious. "The shutters are not shut," he said to his neighbour in a semi-whisper. "It is no good looking out of the window," he stupidly cried to Julien--"so here I am more or less mixed up in a conspiracy," thought the latter. "Fortunately it is not one of those which lead to the Place-de-Greve. Even though there were danger, I owe this and even more to the marquis, and should be glad to be given the chance of making up for all the sorrow which my madness may one day occasion him." While thinking of his own madness and his own unhappiness he regarded the place where he was, in such a way as to imprint it upon his memory for ever. He then remembered for the first time that he had never heard the lackey tell the name of the street, and that the marquis had taken a fiacre which he never did in the ordinary way. Julien was left to his own reflections for a long time. He was in a salon upholstered in red velvet with large pieces of gold lace. A large ivory crucifix was on the console-table and a gilt-edged, magnificently bound copy of M. de Maistre's book _The Pope_ was on the mantelpiece. Julien opened it so as not to appear to be eavesdropping. From time to time they talked loudly in the next room. At last the door was opened and he was called in. "Remember, gentlemen," the president was saying "that from this moment we are talking in the presence of the duke of ----. This gentleman," he said, pointing to Julien, "is a young acolyte devoted to our sacred cause who by the aid of his marvellous memory will repeat quite easily our very slightest words." "It is your turn to speak, Monsieur," he said pointing to the paternal looking personage who wore three or four waistcoats. Julien thought it would have been more natural to have called him the gentleman in the waistcoats. He took some paper and wrote a great deal. (At this juncture the author would have liked to have put a page of dots. "That," said his publisher, "would be clumsy and in the case of so light a work clumsiness is death." "Politics," replies the author, "is a stone tied round the neck of literature which submerges it in less than six months. Politics in the midst of imaginative matter is like a pistol shot in the middle of a concert. The noise is racking without being energetic. It does not harmonise with the sound of any instrument. These politics will give mortal offence to one half of the readers and will bore the other half, who will have already read the ideas in question as set out in the morning paper in its own drastic manner." "If your characters don't talk politics," replied the publisher, "they cease to be Frenchmen of 1830, and your book is no longer a mirror as you claim?") Julien's record ran to twenty-six pages. Here is a very diluted extract, for it has been necessary to adopt the invariable practice of suppressing those ludicrous passages, whose violence would have seemed either offensive or intolerable (see the _Gazette des Tribunaux_). The man with the waistcoats and the paternal expression (he was perhaps a bishop) often smiled and then his eyes, which were surrounded with a floating forest of eyebrows, assumed a singular brilliance and an unusually decided expression. This personage whom they made speak first before the duke ("but what duke is it?" thought Julien to himself) with the apparent object of expounding various points of view and fulfilling the functions of an advocate-general, appeared to Julien to fall into the uncertainty and lack of definiteness with which those officials are so often taxed. During the course of the discussion the duke went so far as to reproach him on this score. After several sentences of morality and indulgent philosophy the man in the waistcoats said, "Noble England, under the guiding hand of a great man, the immortal Pitt, has spent forty milliards of francs in opposing the revolution. If this meeting will allow me to treat so melancholy a subject with some frankness, England fails to realise sufficiently that in dealing with a man like Buonaparte, especially when they have nothing to oppose him with, except a bundle of good intentions there is nothing decisive except personal methods." "Ah! praising assassination again!" said the master of the house anxiously. "Spare us your sentimental sermons," cried the president angrily. His boarlike eye shone with a savage brilliance. "Go on," he said to the man with the waistcoats. The cheeks and the forehead of the president became purple. "Noble England," replied the advocate-general, "is crushed to-day: for each Englishman before paying for his own bread is obliged to pay the interest on forty milliards of francs which were used against the Jacobins. She has no more Pitt." "She has the Duke of Wellington," said a military personage looking very important. "Please, gentlemen, silence," exclaimed the president. "If we are still going to dispute, there was no point in having M. Sorel in." "We know that monsieur has many ideas," said the duke irritably, looking at the interrupter who was an old Napoleonic general. Julien saw that these words contained some personal and very offensive allusion. Everybody smiled, the turncoat general appeared beside himself with rage. "There is no longer a Pitt, gentlemen," went on the speaker with all the despondency of a man who has given up all hope of bringing his listeners to reason. "If there were a new Pitt in England, you would not dupe a nation twice over by the same means." "That's why a victorious general, a Buonaparte, will be henceforward impossible in France," exclaimed the military interrupter. On this occasion neither the president nor the duke ventured to get angry, though Julien thought he read in their eyes that they would very much like to have done so. They lowered their eyes, and the duke contented himself with sighing in quite an audible manner. But the speaker was put upon his mettle. "My audience is eager for me to finish," he said vigorously, completely discarding that smiling politeness and that balanced diction that Julien thought had expressed his character so well. "It is eager for me to finish, it is not grateful to me for the efforts I am making to offend nobody's ears, however long they may be. Well, gentlemen, I will be brief. "I will tell you in quite common words: England has not got a sou with which to help the good cause. If Pitt himself were to come back he would never succeed with all his genius in duping the small English landowners, for they know that the short Waterloo campaign alone cost them a milliard of francs. As you like clear phrases," continued the speaker, becoming more and more animated, "I will say this to you: Help yourselves, for England has not got a guinea left to help you with, and when England does not pay, Austria, Russia and Prussia--who will only have courage but have no money--cannot launch more than one or two campaigns against France. "One may hope that the young soldiers who will be recruited by the Jacobins will be beaten in the first campaign, and possibly in the second; but, even though I seem a revolutionary in your prejudiced eyes, in the third campaign--in the third campaign I say--you will have the soldiers of 1794 who were no longer the soldiers enlisted in 1792." At this point interruption broke out simultaneously from three or four quarters. "Monsieur," said the president to Julien, "Go and make a precis in the next room of the beginning of the report which you have written out." Julien went out to his great regret. The speaker was just dealing with the question of probabilities which formed the usual subject for his meditations. "They are frightened of my making fun of them," he thought. When he was called back, M. de la Mole was saying with a seriousness which seemed quite humorous to Julien who knew him so well, "Yes, gentlemen, one finds the phrase, 'is it god, table or tub?' especially applicable to this unhappy people. '_It is god_' exclaims the writer of fables. It is to you, gentlemen, that this noble and profound phrase seems to apply. Act on your own initiative, and noble France will appear again, almost such as our ancestors made her, and as our own eyes have seen her before the death of Louis XVI. "England execrates disgraceful Jacobinism as much as we do, or at any rate her noble lords do. Without English gold, Austria and Prussia would only be able to give battle two or three times. Would that be sufficient to ensure a successful occupation like the one which M. de Richelieu so foolishly failed to exploit in 1817? I do not think so." At this point there was an interruption which was stifled by the hushes of the whole room. It came again from the old Imperial general who wanted the blue ribbon and wished to figure among the authors of the secret note. "I do not think so," replied M. de la Mole, after the uproar had subsided. He laid stress on the "I" with an insolence which charmed Julien. "That's a pretty piece of acting," he said to himself, as he made his pen almost keep pace with the marquis' words. M. de la Mole annihilated the twenty campaigns of the turncoat with a well turned phrase. "It is not only on foreign powers," continued the marquis in a more even tone, "on whom we shall be able to rely for a new military occupation. All those young men who write inflammatory articles in the _Globe_ will provide you with three or four thousand young captains among whom you may find men with the genius, but not the good intentions of a Kleber, a Hoche, a Jourdan, a Pichegru." "We did not know how to glorify him," said the president. "He should have been immortalized." "Finally, it is necessary for France to have two parties," went on M. de la Mole; "but two parties not merely in name, but with clear-cut lines of cleavage. Let us realise what has got to be crushed. On the one hand the journalists and the electors, in a word, public opinion; youth and all that admire it. While it is stupefying itself with the noise of its own vain words, we have certain advantages of administrating the expenditure of the budget." At this point there was another interruption. "As for you, monsieur," said M. de la Mole to the interrupter, with an admirable haughtiness and ease of manner, "you do not spend, if the words chokes you, but you devour the forty thousand francs put down to you in the State budget, and the eighty thousand which you receive from the civil list." "Well, monsieur, since you force me to it, I will be bold enough to take you for an example. Like your noble ancestors, who followed Saint Louis to the crusade, you ought in return for those hundred and twenty thousand francs to show us at any rate a regiment; a company, why, what am I saying? say half a company, even if it only had fifty men, ready to fight and devoted to the good cause to the point of risking their lives in its service. You have nothing but lackeys, who in the event of a rebellion would frighten you yourselves." "Throne, Church, Nobility are liable to perish to-morrow, gentlemen, so long as you refrain from creating in each department a force of five hundred devoted men, devoted I mean, not only with all the French courage, but with all the Spanish constancy. "Half of this force ought to be composed of our children, our nephews, of real gentlemen, in fact. Each of them will have beside him not a little talkative bourgeois ready to hoist the tricolor cockade, if 1815 turns up again, but a good, frank and simple peasant like Cathelineau. Our gentleman will have educated him, it will be his own foster brother if it is possible. Let each of us sacrifice the fifth of his income in order to form this little devoted force of five hundred men in each department. Then you will be able to reckon on a foreign occupation. The foreign soldier will never penetrate even as far as Dijon if he is not certain of finding five hundred friendly soldiers in each department. "The foreign kings will only listen to you when you are in a position to announce to them that you have twenty thousand gentlemen ready to take up arms in order to open to them the gates of France. The service is troublesome, you say. Gentlemen, it is the only way of saving our lives. There is war to the death between the liberty of the press and our existence as gentlemen. Become manufacturers, become peasants, or take up your guns. Be timid if you like, but do not be stupid. Open your eyes. "'_Form your battalions_,' I would say to you in the words of the Jacobin songs. Some noble Gustavus Adolphus will then be found who, touched by the imminent peril of the monarchical principle, will make a dash three hundred leagues from his own country, and will do for you what Gustavus did for the Protestant princes. Do you want to go on talking without acting? In fifty years' time there will be only presidents or republics in Europe and not one king, and with those three letters R. O. I. you will see the last of the priests and the gentlemen. I can see nothing but candidates paying court to squalid majorities. "It is no use your saying that at the present time France has not a single accredited general who is universally known and loved, that the army is only known and organised in the interests of the throne and the church, and that it has been deprived of all its old troopers, while each of the Prussian and Austrian regiments count fifty non-commissioned officers who have seen fire. "Two hundred thousand young men of the middle classes are spoiling for war--" "A truce to disagreeable truths," said a grave personage in a pompous tone. He was apparently a very high ecclesiastical dignitary, for M. de la Mole smiled pleasantly, instead of getting angry, a circumstance which greatly impressed Julien. "A truce to unpleasant truths, let us resume, gentlemen. The man who needs to have a gangrened leg cut off would be ill advised to say to his surgeon, 'this disease is very healthy.' If I may use the metaphor, gentlemen, the noble duke of ---- is our surgeon." "So the great words have at last been uttered," thought Julien. "It is towards the ---- that I shall gallop to-night." CHAPTER LIII THE CLERGY, THE FORESTS, LIBERTY The first law of every being, is to preserve itself and live. You sow hemlock, and expect to see ears of corn ripen.--_Machiavelli_. The great personage continued. One could see that he knew his subject. He proceeded to expound the following great truths with a soft and tempered eloquence with which Julien was inordinately delighted:-- "1. England has not a guinea to help us with; economy and Hume are the fashion there. Even the saints will not give us any money, and M. Brougham will make fun of us. "2. The impossibility of getting the kings of Europe to embark on more than two campaigns without English gold; two campaigns will not be enough to dispose of the middle classes. "3. The necessity of forming an armed party in France. Without this, the monarchical principle in Europe will not risk even two campaigns. "The fourth point which I venture to suggest to you, as self-evident, is this: "The impossibility of forming an armed party in France without the clergy. I am bold enough to tell you this because I will prove it to you, gentlemen. You must make every sacrifice for the clergy. "Firstly, because as it is occupied with its mission by day and by night, and guided by highly capable men established far from these storms at three hundred leagues from your frontiers----" "Ah, Rome, Rome!" exclaimed the master of the house. "Yes, monsieur, Rome," replied the Cardinal haughtily. "Whatever more or less ingenious jokes may have been the fashion when you were young, I have no hesitation in saying that in 1830 it is only the clergy, under the guidance of Rome, who has the ear of the lower classes. "Fifty thousand priests repeat the same words on the day appointed by their chiefs, and the people--who after all provide soldiers--will be more touched by the voices of its priests than by all the versifying in the whole world." (This personality provoked some murmurs.) "The clergy has a genius superior to yours," went on the cardinal raising his voice. "All the progress that has been made towards this essential point of having an armed party in France has been made by us." At this juncture facts were introduced. "Who used eighty thousand rifles in Vendee?" etc., etc. "So long as the clergy is without its forests it is helpless. At the first war the minister of finance will write to his agents that there is no money to be had except for the cure. At bottom France does not believe, and she loves war. Whoever gives her war will be doubly popular, for making war is, to use a vulgar phrase, the same as starving the Jesuits; making war means delivering those monsters of pride--the men of France--from the menace of foreign intervention." The cardinal had a favourable hearing. "M. de Nerval," he said, "will have to leave the ministry, his name irritates and to no purpose." At these words everybody got up and talked at the same time. "I will be sent away again," thought Julien, but the sapient president himself had forgotten both the presence and existence of Julien. All eyes were turned upon a man whom Julien recognised. It was M. de Nerval, the prime minister, whom he had seen at M. the duc de Retz's ball. The disorder was at its height, as the papers say when they talk of the Chamber. At the end of a long quarter of an hour a little quiet was established. Then M. de Nerval got up and said in an apostolic tone and a singular voice: "I will not go so far as to say that I do not set great store on being a minister. "It has been demonstrated to me, gentlemen, that my name will double the forces of the Jacobins by making many moderates divide against us. I should therefore be willing to retire; but the ways of the Lord are only visible to a small number; but," he added, looking fixedly at the cardinal, "I have a mission. Heaven has said: 'You will either loose your head on the scaffold or you will re-establish the monarchy of France and reduce the Chambers to the condition of the parliament of Louis XV.,' and that, gentlemen, I shall do." He finished his speech, sat down, and there was a long silence. "What a good actor," thought Julien. He made his usual mistake of ascribing too much intelligence to the people. Excited by the debates of so lively an evening, and above all by the sincerity of the discussion, M. de Nerval did at this moment believe in his mission. This man had great courage, but at the same time no sense. During the silence that followed the impressive words, "I shall do it," midnight struck. Julien thought that the striking of the clock had in it a certain element of funereal majesty. He felt moved. The discussion was soon resumed with increasing energy, and above all with an incredible naivety. "These people will have me poisoned," thought Julien at times. "How can they say such things before a plebian." They were still talking when two o'clock struck. The master of the house had been sleeping for some time. M. de la Mole was obliged to ring for new candles. M. de Nerval, the minister, had left at the quarter to two, but not without having repeatedly studied Julien's face in a mirror which was at the minister's side. His departure had seemed to put everybody at their ease. While they were bringing new candles, the man in the waistcoats, whispered to his neighbour: "God knows what that man will say to the king. He may throw ridicule upon us and spoil our future." "One must own that he must possess an unusual self-assurance, not to say impudence, to put in an appearance here There were signs of it before he became a minister; but a portfolio changes everything and swamps all a man's interests; he must have felt its effect." The minister had scarcely left before the general of Buonaparte closed his eyes. He now talked of his health and his wounds, consulted his watch, and went away. "I will wager," said the man in the waistcoats, "that the general is running after the minister; he will apologise for having been here and pretend that he is our leader." "Let us now deliberate, gentlemen," said the president, after the sleepy servants had finished bringing and lighting new candles. "Let us leave off trying to persuade each other. Let us think of the contents of the note which will be read by our friends outside in forty-eight hours from now. We have heard ministers spoken of. Now that M. de Nerval has left us, we are at liberty to say 'what we do care for ministers.'" The cardinal gave a subtle smile of approval. "Nothing is easier it seems to me than summing up our position," said the young bishop of Agde, with the restrained concentrated fire of the most exalted fanaticism. He had kept silent up to this time; his eye, which Julien had noticed as being soft and calm at the beginning, had become fiery during the first hour of the discussion. His soul was now bubbling over like lava from Vesuvius. "England only made one mistake from 1806 to 1814," he said, "and that was in not taking direct and personal measures against Napoleon. As soon as that man had made dukes and chamberlains, as soon as he had re-established the throne, the mission that God had entrusted to him was finished. The only thing to do with him was to sacrifice him. The scriptures teach us in more than one place how to make an end of tyrants" (at this point there were several Latin quotations). "To-day, gentlemen, it is not a man who has to be sacrificed, it is Paris. What is the use of arming your five hundred men in each department, a hazardous and interminable enterprise? What is the good of involving France in a matter which is personal to Paris? Paris alone has done the evil, with its journals and it salons. Let the new Babylon perish. "We must bring to an end the conflict between the church and Paris. Such a catastrophe would even be in the worldly interests of the throne. Why did not Paris dare to whisper a word under Buonaparte? Ask the cannon of Saint-Roch?" Julien did not leave with M. de la Mole before three o'clock in the morning. The marquis seemed tired and ashamed. For the first time in his life in conversation with Julien, his tone was plaintive. He asked him for his word never to reveal the excesses of zeal, that was his expression, of which chance had just made him a witness. "Only mention it to our foreign friend, if he seriously insists on knowing what our young madmen are like. What does it matter to them if a state is overthrown, they will become cardinals and will take refuge in Rome. As for us, we shall be massacred by the peasants in our chateaus." The secret note into which the marquis condensed Julien's full report of twenty-six pages was not ready before a quarter to five. "I am dead tired," said the marquis, "as is quite obvious from the lack of clearness at the end of this note; I am more dissatisfied with it than with anything I ever did in my whole life. Look here, my friend," he added, "go and rest for some hours, and as I am frightened you might be kidnapped, I shall lock you up in your room." The marquis took Julien on the following day to a lonely chateau at a good distance from Paris. There were strange guests there whom Julien thought were priests. He was given a passport which was made out in a fictitious name, but indicated the real destination of his journey, which he had always pretended not to know. He got into a carriage alone. The marquis had no anxiety on the score of his memory. Julien had recited the secret note to him several times but he was very apprehensive of his being intercepted. "Above all, mind you look like a coxcomb who is simply travelling to kill time," he said affectionately to him when he was leaving the salon. "Perhaps there was more than one treacherous brother in this evening's meeting." The journey was quick and very melancholy. Julien had scarcely got out of the marquis's sight before he forgot his secret note and his mission, and only thought about Mathilde's disdain. At a village some leagues beyond Metz, the postmaster came and told him that there were no horses. It was ten o'clock in the evening. Julien was very annoyed and asked for supper. He walked in front of the door and gradually without being noticed passed into the stable-yard. He did not see any horses there. "That man looked strange though," thought Julien to himself. "He was scrutinizing me with his brutal eyes." As one sees he was beginning to be slightly sceptical of all he heard. He thought of escaping after supper, and in order to learn at any rate something about the surrounding country, he left his room to go and warm himself at the kitchen fire. He was overjoyed to find there the celebrated singer, signor Geronimo. The Neopolitan was ensconced in an armchair which he had had brought near the fire. He was groaning aloud, and was speaking more to himself than to the twenty dumbfounded German peasants who surrounded him. "Those people will be my ruin," he cried to Julien, "I have promised to sing to-morrow at Mayence. Seven sovereign princes have gone there to hear me. Let us go and take the air," he added, meaningly. When he had gone a hundred yards down the road, and it was impossible to be overheard, he said to Julien: "Do you know the real truth, the postmaster is a scoundrel. When I went out for a walk I gave twenty sous to a little ragamuffin who told me everything. There are twelve horses in the stable at the other end of the village. They want to stop some courier." "Really," said Julien innocently. Discovering the fraud was not enough; the thing was to get away, but Geronimo and his friends could not succeed in doing this. "Let us wait for daybreak," said the singer at last, "they are mistrustful of us. It is perhaps you or me whom they suspect. We will order a good breakfast to-morrow morning, we will go for a walk while they are getting it ready, we will then escape, we will hire horses, and gain the next station." "And how about your luggage?" said Julien, who thought perhaps Geronimo himself might have been sent to intercept him. They had to have supper and go to bed. Julien was still in his first sleep when he was woken up with a start by the voices of two persons who were speaking in his room with utmost freedom. He recognised the postmaster armed with a dark lantern. The light was turned on the carriage-seat which Julien had had taken up into his room. Beside the postmaster was a man who was calmly searching the open seat. Julien could see nothing except the sleeves of his coat which were black and very tight. "It's a cassock," he said to himself and he softly seized the little pistol which he had placed under his pillow. "Don't be frightened of his waking up, cure," said the postmaster, "the wine that has been served him was the stuff prepared by yourself." "I can't find any trace of papers," answered the cure. "A lot of linen and essences, pommades, and vanities. It's a young man of the world on pleasure bent. The other one who effects an Italian accent is more likely to be the emissary." The men approached Julien to search the pockets of his travelling coat. He felt very tempted to kill them for thieves. Nothing could be safer in its consequences. He was very desirous of doing so.... "I should only be a fool," he said to himself, "I should compromise my mission." "He is not a diplomatist," said the priest after searching his coat. He went away and did well to do so. "It will be a bad business for him," Julien was saying to himself, "if he touches me in my bed. He may have quite well come to stab me, and I won't put up with that." The cure turned his head, Julien half opened his eyes. He was inordinately astonished, he was the abbe Castanede. As a matter of fact, although these two persons had made a point of talking in a fairly low voice, he had thought from the first that he recognised one of the voices. Julien was seized with an inordinate desire to purge the earth of one of its most cowardly villains; "But my mission," he said to himself. The cure and his acolyte went out. A quarter of an hour afterwards Julien pretended to have just woken up. He called out and woke up the whole house. "I am poisoned," he exclaimed, "I am suffering horribly!" He wanted an excuse to go to Geronimo's help. He found him half suffocated by the laudanum that had been contained in the wine. Julien had been apprehensive of some trick of this character and had supped on some chocolate which he had brought from Paris. He could not wake Geronimo up sufficiently to induce him to leave. "If they were to give me the whole kingdom of Naples," said the singer, "I would not now give up the pleasure of sleeping." "But the seven sovereign princes?" "Let them wait." Julien left alone, and arrived at the house of the great personage without other incident. He wasted a whole morning in vainly soliciting an audience. Fortunately about four o'clock the duke wanted to take the air. Julien saw him go out on foot and he did not hesitate to ask him for alms. When at two yards' distance from the great personage he pulled out the Marquis de la Mole's watch and exhibited it ostentatiously. "_Follow me at a distance_," said the man without looking at him. At a quarter of a league's distance the duke suddenly entered a little _coffee-house_. It was in a room of this low class inn that Julien had the honour of reciting his four pages to the duke. When he had finished he was told to "_start again and go more slowly_." The prince took notes. "Reach the next posting station on foot. Leave your luggage and your carriage here. Get to Strasbourg as best you can and at half-past twelve on the twenty-second of the month (it was at present the tenth) come to this same coffee-house. Do not leave for half-an-hour. Silence!" These were the only words which Julien heard. They sufficed to inspire him with the highest admiration. "That is the way," he thought, "that real business is done; what would this great statesman say if he were to listen to the impassioned ranters heard three days ago?" Julien took two days to reach Strasbourg. He thought he would have nothing to do there. He made a great detour. "If that devil of an abbe Castanede has recognised me he is not the kind of man to loose track of me easily.... And how he would revel in making a fool of me, and causing my mission to fail." Fortunately the abbe Castanede, who was chief of the congregational police on all the northern frontier had not recognised him. And the Strasbourg Jesuits, although very zealous, never gave a thought to observing Julien, who with his cross and his blue tail-coat looked like a young military man, very much engrossed in his own personal appearance. CHAPTER LIV STRASBOURG Fascination! Love gives thee all his love, energy and all his power of suffering unhappiness. It is only his enchanting pleasures, his sweet delights, which are outside thy sphere. When I saw her sleep I was made to say "With all her angelic beauty and her sweet weaknesses she is absolutely mine! There she is, quite in my power, such as Heaven made her in its pity in order to ravish a man's heart."--_Ode of Schiller_. Julien was compelled to spend eight days in Strasbourg and tried to distract himself by thoughts of military glory and patriotic devotion. Was he in love then? he could not tell, he only felt in his tortured soul that Mathilde was the absolute mistress both of his happiness and of his imagination. He needed all the energy of his character to keep himself from sinking into despair. It was out of his power to think of anything unconnected with mademoiselle de la Mole. His ambition and his simple personal successes had formerly distracted him from the sentiments which madame de Renal had inspired. Mathilde was all-absorbing; she loomed large over his whole future. Julien saw failure in every phase of that future. This same individual whom we remember to have been so presumptuous and haughty at Verrieres, had fallen into an excess of grotesque modesty. Three days ago he would only have been too pleased to have killed the abbe Castanede, and now, at Strasbourg, if a child had picked a quarrel with him he would have thought the child was in the right. In thinking again about the adversaries and enemies whom he had met in his life he always thought that he, Julien, had been in the wrong. The fact was that the same powerful imagination which had formerly been continuously employed in painting a successful future in the most brilliant colours had now been transformed into his implacable enemy. The absolute solicitude of a traveller's life increased the ascendancy of this sinister imagination. What a boon a friend would have been! But Julien said to himself, "Is there a single heart which beats with affection for me? And even if I did have a friend, would not honour enjoin me to eternal silence?" He was riding gloomily in the outskirts of Kehl; it is a market town on the banks of the Rhine and immortalised by Desaix and Gouvion Saint-Cyr. A German peasant showed him the little brooks, roads and islands of the Rhine, which have acquired a name through the courage of these great generals. Julien was guiding his horse with his left hand, while he held unfolded in his right the superb map which adorns the _Memoirs of the Marshal Saint Cyr_. A merry exclamation made him lift his head. It was the Prince Korasoff, that London friend of his, who had initiated him some months before into the elementary rules of high fatuity. Faithful to his great art, Korasoff, who had just arrived at Strasbourg, had been one hour in Kehl and had never read a single line in his whole life about the siege of 1796, began to explain it all to Julien. The German peasant looked at him in astonishment; for he knew enough French to appreciate the enormous blunders which the prince was making. Julien was a thousand leagues away from the peasant's thoughts. He was looking in astonishment at the handsome young man and admiring his grace in sitting a horse. "What a lucky temperament," he said to himself, "and how his trousers suit him and how elegantly his hair is cut! Alas, if I had been like him, it might have been that she would not have come to dislike me after loving me for three days." When the prince had finished his siege of Kehl, he said to Julien, "You look like a Trappist, you are carrying to excess that principle of gravity which I enjoined upon you in London. A melancholy manner cannot be good form. What is wanted is an air of boredom. If you are melancholy, it is because you lack something, because you have failed in something." "That means showing one's own inferiority; if, on the other hand you are bored, it is only what has made an unsuccessful attempt to please you, which is inferior. So realise, my dear friend, the enormity of your mistake." Julien tossed a crown to the gaping peasant who was listening to them. "Good," said the prince, "that shows grace and a noble disdain, very good!" And he put his horse to the gallop. Full of a stupid admiration, Julien followed him. "Ah! if I have been like that, she would not have preferred Croisenois to me!" The more his reason was offended by the grotesque affectations of the prince the more he despised himself for not having them. It was impossible for self-disgust to be carried further. The prince still finding him distinctly melancholy, said to him as they re-entered Strasbourg, "Come, my dear fellow, have you lost all your money, or perhaps you are in love with some little actress. "The Russians copy French manners, but always at an interval of fifty years. They have now reached the age of Louis XV." These jests about love brought the tears to Julien's eyes. "Why should I not consult this charming man," he suddenly said to himself. "Well, yes, my dear friend," he said to the prince, "you see in me a man who is very much in love and jilted into the bargain. A charming woman who lives in a neighbouring town has left me stranded here after three passionate days, and the change kills me." Using fictitious names, he described to the prince Mathilde's conduct and character. "You need not finish," said Korasoff. "In order to give you confidence in your doctor, I will finish the story you have confided to me. This young woman's husband enjoys an enormous income, or even more probably, she belongs herself to the high nobility of the district. She must be proud about something." Julien nodded his head, he had no longer the courage to speak. "Very good," said the prince, "here are three fairly bitter pills that you will take without delay. "1. See madame ----. What is her name, any way?" "Madame de Dubois." "What a name!" said the prince bursting into laughter. "But forgive me, you find it sublime. Your tactics must be to see Madame de Dubois every day; above all do not appear to be cold and piqued. Remember the great principle of your century: be the opposite of what is expected. Be exactly as you were the week before you were honoured by her favours." "Ah! I was calm enough then," exclaimed Julien in despair, "I thought I was taking pity on her...." "The moth is burning itself at the candle," continued the prince using a metaphor as old as the world. "1. You will see her every day. "2. You will pay court to a woman in her own set, but without manifesting a passion, do you understand? I do not disguise from you that your role is difficult; you are playing a part, and if she realises you are playing it you are lost." "She has so much intelligence and I have so little, I shall be lost," said Julien sadly. "No, you are only more in love than I thought. Madame de Dubois is preoccupied with herself as are all women who have been favoured by heaven either with too much pedigree or too much money. She contemplates herself instead of contemplating you, consequently she does not know you. During the two or three fits of love into which she managed to work herself for your especial benefit, she saw in you the hero of her dreams, and not the man you really are. "But, deuce take it, this is elementary, my dear Sorel, are you an absolute novice? "Oddslife! Let us go into this shop. Look at that charming black cravat, one would say it was made by John Anderson of Burlington Street. Be kind enough to take it and throw far away that awful black cord which you are wearing round your neck." "And now," continued the prince as they came out of the shop of the first hosier of Strasbourg, "what is the society in which madame de Dubois lives? Great God, what a name, don't be angry, my dear Sorel, I can't help it.... Now, whom are you going to pay court to?" "To an absolute prude, the daughter of an immensely rich stocking-merchant. She has the finest eyes in the world and they please me infinitely; she doubtless holds the highest place in the society of the district, but in the midst of all her greatness she blushes and becomes positively confused if anyone starts talking about trade or shops. And, unfortunately, her father was one of the best known merchants in Strasbourg." "So," said the prince with a laugh, "you are sure that when one talks about trade your fair lady thinks about herself and not about you. This silly weakness is divine and extremely useful, it will prevent you from yielding to a single moment's folly when near her sparkling eyes. Success is assured." Julien was thinking of madame the marechale de Fervaques who often came to the Hotel de la Mole. She was a beautiful foreigner who had married the marechal a year before his death. The one object of her whole life seemed to be to make people forget that she was the daughter of a manufacturer. In order to cut some figure in Paris she had placed herself at the head of the party of piety. Julien sincerely admired the prince; what would he not have given to have possessed his affectations! The conversation between the two friends was interminable. Korasoff was delighted: No Frenchman had ever listened to him for so long. "So I have succeeded at last," said the prince to himself complacently, "in getting a proper hearing and that too through giving lessons to my master." "So we are quite agreed," he repeated to Julien for the tenth time. "When you talk to the young beauty, I mean the daughter of the Strasbourg stocking merchant in the presence of madame de Dubois, not a trace of passion. But on the other hand be ardently passionate when you write. Reading a well-written love-letter is a prude's supremest pleasure. It is a moment of relaxation. She leaves off posing and dares to listen to her own heart; consequently two letters a day." "Never, never," said Julien despondently, "I would rather be ground in a mortar than make up three phrases. I am a corpse, my dear fellow, hope nothing from me. Let me die by the road side." "And who is talking about making up phrases? I have got six volumes of copied-out love-letters in my bag. I have letters to suit every variation of feminine character, including the most highly virtuous. Did not Kalisky pay court at Richmond-on-the-Thames at three leagues from London, you know, to the prettiest Quakeress in the whole of England?" Julien was less unhappy when he left his friend at two o'clock in the morning. The prince summoned a copyist on the following day, and two days afterwards Julien was the possessor of fifty-three carefully numbered love-letters intended for the most sublime and the most melancholy virtue. "The reason why there is not fifty-four," said the prince "is because Kalisky allowed himself to be dismissed. But what does it matter to you, if you are badly treated by the stocking-merchant's daughter since you only wish to produce an impression upon madame de Dubois' heart." They went out riding every day, the prince was mad on Julien. Not knowing how else to manifest his sudden friendship, he finished up by offering him the hand of one of his cousins, a rich Moscow heiress; "and once married," he added, "my influence and that cross of yours will get you made a Colonel within two years." "But that cross was not given me by Napoleon, far from it." "What does it matter?" said the prince, "didn't he invent it. It is still the first in Europe by a long way." Julien was on the point of accepting; but his duty called him back to the great personage. When he left Korasoff he promised to write. He received the answer to the secret note which he had brought, and posted towards Paris; but he had scarcely been alone for two successive days before leaving France, and Mathilde seemed a worse punishment than death. "I will not marry the millions Korasoff offers me," he said to himself, "and I will follow his advice. "After all the art of seduction is his speciality. He has thought about nothing else except that alone for more than fifteen years, for he is now thirty. "One can't say that he lacks intelligence; he is subtle and cunning; enthusiasm and poetry are impossible in such a character. He is an attorney: an additional reason for his not making a mistake. "I must do it, I will pay court to madame de Fervaques. "It is very likely she will bore me a little, but I will look at her beautiful eyes which are so like those other eyes which have loved me more than anyone in the world. "She is a foreigner; she is a new character to observe. "I feel mad, and as though I were going to the devil. I must follow the advice of a friend and not trust myself." CHAPTER LV THE MINISTRY OF VIRTUE But if I take this pleasure with so much prudence and circumspection I shall no longer find it a pleasure.--_Lope de Vega_. As soon as our hero had returned to Paris and had come out of the study of the marquis de La Mole, who seemed very displeased with the despatches that were given him, he rushed off for the comte Altamira. This noble foreigner combined with the advantage of having once been condemned to death a very grave demeanour together with the good fortune of a devout temperament; these two qualities, and more than anything, the comte's high birth, made an especial appeal to madame de Fervaques who saw a lot of him. Julien solemnly confessed to him that he was very much in love with her. "Her virtue is the purest and the highest," answered Altamira, "only it is a little Jesuitical and dogmatic. "There are days when, though I understand each of the expressions which she makes use of, I never understand the whole sentence. She often makes me think that I do not know French as well as I am said to. But your acquaintance with her will get you talked about; it will give you weight in the world. But let us go to Bustos," said Count Altamira who had a methodical turn of mind; "he once paid court to madame la marechale." Don Diego Bustos had the matter explained to him at length, while he said nothing, like a barrister in his chambers. He had a big monk-like face with black moustaches and an inimitable gravity; he was, however, a good carbonaro. "I understand," he said to Julien at last. "Has the marechale de Fervaques had lovers, or has she not? Have you consequently any hope of success? That is the question. I don't mind telling you, for my own part, that I have failed. Now that I am no more piqued I reason it out to myself in this way; she is often bad tempered, and as I will tell you in a minute, she is quite vindictive. "I fail to detect in her that bilious temperament which is the sign of genius, and shows as it were a veneer of passion over all its actions. On the contrary, she owes her rare beauty and her fresh complexion to the phlegmatic, tranquil character of the Dutch." Julien began to lose patience with the phlegmatic slowness of the imperturbable Spaniard; he could not help giving vent to some monosyllables from time to time. "Will you listen to me?" Don Diego Bustos gravely said to him. "Forgive the _furia franchese_; I am all ears," said Julien. "The marechale de Fervaques then is a great hater; she persecutes ruthlessly people she has never seen--advocates, poor devils of men of letters who have composed songs like Colle, you know? "J'ai la marotte D'aimer Marote, etc." And Julien had to put up with the whole quotation. The Spaniard was very pleased to get a chance of singing in French. That divine song was never listened to more impatiently. When it was finished Don Diego said--"The marechale procured the dismissal of the author of the song: "Un jour l'amour au cabaret." Julien shuddered lest he should want to sing it. He contented himself with analysing it. As a matter of fact, it was blasphemous and somewhat indecent. "When the marechale become enraged against that song," said Don Diego, "I remarked to her that a woman of her rank ought not to read all the stupid things that are published. Whatever progress piety and gravity may make France will always have a cabaret literature. "'Be careful,' I said to madame de Fervaques when she had succeeded in depriving the author, a poor devil on half-pay, of a place worth eighteen hundred francs a year, 'you have attacked this rhymster with your own arms, he may answer you with his rhymes; he will make a song about virtue. The gilded salons will be on your side; but people who like to laugh will repeat his epigrams.' Do you know, monsieur, what the marechale answered? 'Let all Paris come and see me walking to my martyrdom for the sake of the Lord. It will be a new spectacle for France. The people will learn to respect the quality. It will be the finest day of my life.' Her eyes never looked finer." "And she has superb ones," exclaimed Julien. "I see that you are in love. Further," went on Don Diego Bustos gravely, "she has not the bilious constitution which causes vindictiveness. If, however, she likes to do harm, it is because she is unhappy, I suspect some secret misfortune. May it not be quite well a case of prude tired of her role?" The Spaniard looked at him in silence for a good minute. "That's the whole point," he added gravely, "and that's what may give you ground for some hope. I have often reflected about it during the two years that I was her very humble servant. All your future, my amorous sir, depends on this great problem. Is she a prude tired of her role and only malicious because she is unhappy?" "Or," said Altamira emerging at last from his deep silence, "can it be as I have said twenty times before, simply a case of French vanity; the memory of her father, the celebrated cloth merchant, constitutes the unhappiness of this frigid melancholy nature. The only happiness she could find would be to live in Toledo and to be tortured by a confessor who would show her hell wide open every day." "Altamira informs me you are one of us," said Don Diego, whose demeanour was growing graver and graver to Julien as he went out. "You will help us one day in re-winning our liberty, so I would like to help you in this little amusement. It is right that you should know the marechale's style; here are four letters in her hand-writing." "I will copy them out," exclaimed Julien, "and bring them back to you." "And you will never let anyone know a word of what we have been saying." "Never, on my honour," cried Julien. "Well, God help you," added the Spaniard, and he silently escorted Altamira and Julien as far as the staircase. This somewhat amused our hero; he was on the point of smiling. "So we have the devout Altamira," he said to himself, "aiding me in an adulterous enterprise." During Don Diego's solemn conversation Julien had been attentive to the hours struck by the clock of the Hotel d'Aligre. The dinner hour was drawing near, he was going to see Mathilde again. He went in and dressed with much care. "Mistake No. 1," he said to himself as he descended the staircase: "I must follow the prince's instructions to the letter." He went up to his room again and put on a travelling suit which was as simple as it could be. "All I have to do now," he thought, "is to keep control of my expression." It was only half-past five and they dined at six. He thought of going down to the salon which he found deserted. He was moved to the point of tears at the sight of the blue sofa. "I must make an end of this foolish sensitiveness," he said angrily, "it will betray me." He took up a paper in order to keep himself in countenance and passed three or four times from the salon into the garden. It was only when he was well concealed by a large oak and was trembling all over, that he ventured to raise his eyes at mademoiselle de la Mole's window. It was hermetically sealed; he was on the point of fainting and remained for a long time leaning against the oak; then with a staggering step he went to have another look at the gardener's ladder. The chain which he had once forced asunder--in, alas, such different circumstances--had not yet been repaired. Carried away by a moment of madness, Julien pressed it to his lips. After having wandered about for a long time between the salon and the garden, Julien felt horribly tired; he was now feeling acutely the effects of a first success. My eyes will be expressionless and will not betray me! The guests gradually arrived in the salon; the door never opened without instilling anxiety into Julien's heart. They sat down at table. Mademoiselle de la Mole, always faithful to her habit of keeping people waiting, eventually appeared. She blushed a great deal on seeing Julien, she had not been told of his arrival. In accordance with Prince Korasoff's recommendation, Julien looked at his hands. They were trembling. Troubled though he was beyond words by this discovery, he was sufficiently happy to look merely tired. M. de la Mole sang his praises. The marquise spoke to him a minute afterwards and complimented him on his tired appearance. Julien said to himself at every minute, "I ought not to look too much at mademoiselle de la Mole, I ought not to avoid looking at her too much either. I must appear as I was eight days before my unhappiness----" He had occasion to be satisfied with his success and remained in the salon. Paying attention for the first time to the mistress of the house, he made every effort to make the visitors speak and to keep the conversation alive. His politeness was rewarded; madame la marechale de Fervaques was announced about eight o'clock. Julien retired and shortly afterwards appeared dressed with the greatest care. Madame de la Mole was infinitely grateful to him for this mark of respect and made a point of manifesting her satisfaction by telling madame de Fervaques about his journey. Julien established himself near the marechale in such a position that Mathilde could not notice his eyes. In this position he lavished in accordance with all the rules in the art of love, the most abject admiration on madame de Fervaques. The first of the 53 letters with which Prince Korasoff had presented him commenced with a tirade on this sentiment. The marechale announced that she was going to the Opera-Bouffe. Julien rushed there. He ran across the Chevalier de Beauvoisis who took him into a box occupied by Messieurs the Gentlemen of the Chamber, just next to madame de Fervaques's box. Julien constantly looked at her. "I must keep a siege-journal," he said to himself as he went back to the hotel, "otherwise I shall forget my attacks." He wrote two or three pages on this boring theme, and in this way achieved the admirable result of scarcely thinking at all about mademoiselle de la Mole. Mathilde had almost forgotten him during his journey. "He is simply a commonplace person after all," she thought, "his name will always recall to me the greatest mistake in my life. I must honestly go back to all my ideas about prudence and honour; a woman who forgets them has everything to lose." She showed herself inclined to allow the contract with the marquis de Croisenois, which had been prepared so long ago, to be at last concluded. He was mad with joy; he would have been very much astonished had he been told that there was an element of resignation at the bottom of those feelings of Mathilde which made him so proud. All mademoiselle de la Mole's ideas changed when she saw Julien. "As a matter of fact he is my husband," she said to herself. "If I am sincere in my return to sensible notions, he is clearly the man I ought to marry." She was expecting importunities and airs of unhappiness on the part of Julien; she commenced rehearsing her answers, for he would doubtless try to address some words to her when they left the dinner table. Far from that he remained stubbornly in the salon and did not even look in the direction of the garden, though God knows what pain that caused him! "It is better to have this explanation out all at once," thought mademoiselle de la Mole; she went into the garden alone, Julien did not appear. Mathilde went and walked near the salon window. She found him very much occupied in describing to madame de Fervaques the old ruined chateau which crown the banks along the Rhine and invest them with so much atmosphere. He was beginning to acquit himself with some credit in that sentimental picturesque jargon which is called wit in certain salons. Prince Korasoff would have been very proud if he had been at Paris. This evening was exactly what he had predicted. He would have approved the line of conduct which Julien followed on the subsequent days. An intrigue among the members of the secret government was going to bestow a few blue ribbons; madame marechale de Fervaques was insisting on her great uncle being made a chevalier of the order. The marquis de la Mole had the same pretensions for his father-in-law; they joined forces and the marechale came to the Hotel de la Mole nearly every day. It was from her that Julien learned that the marquis was going to be a minister. He was offering to the _Camarilla_ a very ingenious plan for the annihilation of the charter within three years without any disturbance. If M. de la Mole became a minister, Julien could hope for a bishopric: but all these important interests seemed to be veiled and hazy. His imagination only perceived them very vaguely, and so to speak, in the far distance. The awful unhappiness which was making him into a madman could find no other interest in life except the character of his relations with mademoiselle de la Mole. He calculated that after five or six careful years he would manage to get himself loved again. This cold brain had been reduced, as one sees, to a state of complete disorder. Out of all the qualities which had formerly distinguished him, all that remained was a little firmness. He was literally faithful to the line of conduct which prince Korasoff had dictated, and placed himself every evening near madame Fervaques' armchair, but he found it impossible to think of a word to say to her. The strain of making Mathilde think that he had recovered exhausted his whole moral force, and when he was with the marechale he seemed almost lifeless; even his eyes had lost all their fire, as in cases of extreme physical suffering. As madame de la Mole's views were invariably a counterpart of the opinions of that husband of hers who could make her into a Duchess, she had been singing Julien's praises for some days. CHAPTER LVI MORAL LOVE There also was of course in Adeline That calm patrician polish in the address, Which ne'er can pass the equinoctial line Of anything which Nature would express; Just as a Mandarin finds nothing fine. At least his manner suffers not to guess That anything he views can greatly please. _Don Juan, c. xiii. st._ 84. "There is an element of madness in all this family's way of looking at things," thought the marechale; "they are infatuated with their young abbe, whose only accomplishment is to be a good listener, though his eyes are fine enough, it is true." Julien, on his side, found in the marechale's manners an almost perfect instance of that patrician calm which exhales a scrupulous politeness; and, what is more, announces at the same time the impossibility of any violent emotion. Madame de Fervaques would have been as much scandalised by any unexpected movement or any lack of self-control, as by a lack of dignity towards one's inferiors. She would have regarded the slightest symptom of sensibility as a kind of moral drunkenness which puts one to the blush and was extremely prejudicial to what a person of high rank owed to herself. Her great happiness was to talk of the king's last hunt; her favourite book, was the Memoirs of the Duke de Saint Simon, especially the genealogical part. Julien knew the place where the arrangement of the light suited madame de Fervaques' particular style of beauty. He got there in advance, but was careful to turn his chair in such a way as not to see Mathilde. Astonished one day at this consistent policy of hiding himself from her, she left the blue sofa and came to work by the little table near the marechale's armchair. Julien had a fairly close view of her over madame de Fervaques' hat. Those eyes, which were the arbiters of his fate, frightened him, and then hurled him violently out of his habitual apathy. He talked, and talked very well. He was speaking to the marechale, but his one aim was to produce an impression upon Mathilde's soul. He became so animated that eventually madame de Fervaques did not manage to understand a word he said. This was a prime merit. If it had occurred to Julien to follow it up by some phrases of German mysticism, lofty religion, and Jesuitism, the marechale would have immediately given him a rank among the superior men whose mission it was to regenerate the age. "Since he has bad enough taste," said mademoiselle de la Mole, "to talk so long and so ardently to madame de Fervaques, I shall not listen to him any more." She kept her resolution during the whole latter part of the evening, although she had difficulty in doing so. At midnight, when she took her mother's candle to accompany her to her room, madame de la Mole stopped on the staircase to enter into an exhaustive eulogy of Julien. Mathilde ended by losing her temper. She could not get to sleep. She felt calmed by this thought: "the very things which I despise in a man may none the less constitute a great merit in the eyes of the marechale." As for Julien, he had done something, he was less unhappy; his eyes chanced to fall on the Russian leather portfolio in which prince Korasoff had placed the fifty-three love letters which he had presented to him. Julien saw a note at the bottom of the first letter: No. 1 is sent eight days after the first meeting. "I am behind hand," exclaimed Julien. "It is quite a long time since I met madame de Fervaques." He immediately began to copy out this first love letter. It was a homily packed with moral platitudes and deadly dull. Julien was fortunate enough to fall asleep at the second page. Some hours afterwards he was surprised to see the broad daylight as he lent on his desk. The most painful moments in his life were those when he woke up every morning to realise his unhappiness. On this particular day he finished copying out his letter in a state verging on laughter. "Is it possible," he said to himself, "that there ever lived a young man who actually wrote like that." He counted several sentences of nine lines each. At the bottom of the original he noticed a pencilled note. "These letters are delivered personally, on horseback, black cravat, blue tail-coat. You give the letter to the porter with a contrite air; expression of profound melancholy. If you notice any chambermaid, dry your eyes furtively and speak to her." All this was duly carried out. "I am taking a very bold course!" thought Julien as he came out of the Hotel de Fervaques, "but all the worse for Korasoff. To think of daring to write to so virtuous a celebrity. I shall be treated with the utmost contempt, and nothing will amuse me more. It is really the only comedy that I can in any way appreciate. Yes, it will amuse me to load with ridicule that odious creature whom I call myself. If I believed in myself, I would commit some crime to distract myself." The moment when Julien brought his horse back to the stable was the happiest he had experienced for a whole month. Korasoff had expressly forbidden him to look at the mistress who had left him, on any pretext whatsoever. But the step of that horse, which she knew so well, and Julien's way of knocking on the stable door with his riding-whip to call a man, sometimes attracted Mathilde to behind the window-curtain. The muslin was so light that Julien could see through it. By looking under the brim of his hat in a certain way, he could get a view of Mathilde's figure without seeing her eyes. "Consequently," he said to himself, "she cannot see mine, and that is not really looking at her." In the evening madame de Fervaques behaved towards him, exactly as though she had never received the philosophic mystical and religious dissertation which he had given to her porter in the morning with so melancholy an air. Chance had shown Julien on the preceding day how to be eloquent; he placed himself in such a position that he could see Mathilde's eyes. She, on her side, left the blue sofa a minute after the marechale's arrival; this involved abandoning her usual associates. M. de Croisenois seemed overwhelmed by this new caprice: his palpable grief alleviated the awfulness of Julien's agony. This unexpected turn in his life made him talk like an angel, and inasmuch as a certain element of self-appreciation will insinuate itself even into those hearts which serve as a temple for the most august virtue, the marechale said to herself as she got into her carriage, "Madame de la Mole is right, this young priest has distinction. My presence must have overawed him at first. As a matter of fact, the whole tone of this house is very frivolous; I can see nothing but instances of virtue helped by oldness, and standing in great need of the chills of age. This young man must have managed to appreciate the difference; he writes well, but I fear very much that this request of his in his letter for me to enlighten him with my advice, is really nothing less than an, as yet, unconscious sentiment. "Nevertheless how many conversions have begun like that! What makes me consider this a good omen is the difference between his style and that of the young people whose letters I have had an opportunity of seeing. One cannot avoid recognising unction, profound seriousness, and much conviction in the prose of this young acolyte; he has no doubt the sweet virtue of a Massillon." CHAPTER LVII THE FINEST PLACES IN THE CHURCH Services! talents! merits! bah! belong to a coterie. _Telemaque_. The idea of a bishopric had thus become associated with the idea of Julien in the mind of a woman, who would sooner or later have at her disposal the finest places in the Church of France. This idea had not struck Julien at all; at the present time his thoughts were strictly limited to his actual unhappiness. Everything tended to intensify it. The sight of his room, for instance, had become unbearable. When he came back in the evening with his candle, each piece of furniture and each little ornament seemed to become articulate, and to announce harshly some new phase of his unhappiness. "I have a hard task before me today," he said to himself as he came in with a vivacity which he had not experienced for a long time; "let us hope that the second letter will be as boring as the first." It was more so. What he was copying seemed so absurd that he finished up by transcribing it line for line without thinking of the sense. "It is even more bombastic," he said to himself, "than those official documents of the treaty of Munster which my professor of diplomacy made me copy out at London." It was only then that he remembered madame de Fervaque's letters which he had forgotten to give back to the grave Spaniard Don Diego Bustos. He found them. They were really almost as nonsensical as those of the young Russian nobleman. Their vagueness was unlimited. It meant everything and nothing. "It's the AEolian harp of style," thought Julien. "The only real thing I see in the middle of all these lofty thoughts about annihilation, death, infinity, etc., is an abominable fear of ridicule." The monologue which we have just condensed was repeated for fifteen days on end. Falling off to sleep as he copied out a sort of commentary on the Apocalypse, going with a melancholy expression to deliver it the following day, taking his horse back to the stable in the hope of catching sight of Mathilde's dress, working, going in the evening to the opera on those evenings when madame de Fervaques did not come to the Hotel de la Mole, such were the monotonous events in Julien's life. His life had more interest, when madame la Fervaques visited the marquise; he could then catch a glimpse of Mathilde's eyes underneath a feather of the marechale's hat, and he would wax eloquent. His picturesque and sentimental phrases began to assume a style, which was both more striking and more elegant. He quite realised that what he said was absurd in Mathilde's eyes, but he wished to impress her by the elegance of his diction. "The falser my speeches are the more I ought to please," thought Julien, and he then had the abominable audacity to exaggerate certain elements in his own character. He soon appreciated that to avoid appearing vulgar in the eyes of the marechale it was necessary to eschew simple and rational ideas. He would continue on these lines, or would cut short his grand eloquence according as he saw appreciation or indifference in the eyes of the two great ladies whom he had set out to please. Taking it all round, his life was less awful than when his days were passed in inaction. "But," he said to himself one evening, "here I am copying out the fifteenth of these abominable dissertations; the first fourteen have been duly delivered to the marechale's porter. I shall have the honour of filling all the drawers in her escritoire. And yet she treats me as though I never wrote. What can be the end of all this? Will my constancy bore her as much as it does me? I must admit that that Russian friend of Korasoff's who was in love with the pretty Quakeress of Richmond, was a terrible man in his time; no one could be more overwhelming." Like all mediocre individuals, who chance to come into contact with the manoeuvres of a great general, Julien understood nothing of the attack executed by the young Russian on the heart of the young English girl. The only purpose of the first forty letters was to secure forgiveness for the boldness of writing at all. The sweet person, who perhaps lived a life of inordinate boredom, had to be induced to contract the habit of receiving letters, which were perhaps a little less insipid than her everyday life. One morning a letter was delivered to Julien. He recognised the arms of madame la Fervaques, and broke the seal with an eagerness which would have seemed impossible to him some days before. It was only an invitation to dinner. He rushed to prince Korasoffs instructions. Unfortunately the young Russian had taken it into his head to be as flippant as Dorat, just when he should have been simple and intelligible! Julien was not able to form any idea of the moral position which he ought to take up at the marechale's dinner. The salon was extremely magnificent and decorated like the gallery de Diane in the Tuileries with panelled oil-paintings. There were some light spots on these pictures. Julien learnt later that the mistress of the house had thought the subject somewhat lacking in decency and that she had had the pictures corrected. "What a moral century!" he thought. He noticed in this salon three of the persons who had been present at the drawing up of the secret note. One of them, my lord bishop of ---- the marechale's uncle had the disposition of the ecclesiastical patronage, and could, it was said, refuse his niece nothing. "What immense progress I have made," said Julien to himself with a melancholy smile, "and how indifferent I am to it. Here I am dining with the famous bishop of ----." The dinner was mediocre and the conversation wearisome. "It's like the small talk in a bad book," thought Julien. "All the greatest subjects of human thought are proudly tackled. After listening for three minutes one asks oneself which is greater--the speaker's bombast, or his abominable ignorance?" The reader has doubtless forgotten the little man of letters named Tanbeau, who was the nephew of the Academician, and intended to be professor, who seemed entrusted with the task of poisoning the salon of the Hotel de la Mole with his base calumnies. It was this little man who gave Julien the first inkling that though, madame de Fervaques did not answer, she might quite well take an indulgent view of the sentiment which dictated them. M. Tanbeau's sinister soul was lacerated by the thought of Julien's success; "but since, on the other hand, a man of merit cannot be in two places at the same time any more than a fool," said the future professor to himself, "if Sorel becomes the lover of the sublime marechale, she will obtain some lucrative position for him in the church, and I shall be rid of him in the Hotel de la Mole." M. the abbe Pirard addressed long sermons to Julien concerning his success at the hotel de Fervaques. There was a sectarian jealousy between the austere Jansenist and the salon of the virtuous marechale which was Jesuitical, reactionary, and monarchical. CHAPTER LVIII MANON LESCAUT Accordingly once he was thoroughly convinced of the asinine stupidity of the prior, he would usually succeed well enough by calling white black, and black white. _Lichtenberg_. The Russian instructions peremptorily forbade the writer from ever contradicting in conversation the recipient of the letters. No pretext could excuse any deviation from the role of that most ecstatic admiration. The letters were always based on that hypothesis. One evening at the opera, when in madame de Fervaques' box, Julien spoke of the ballet of _Manon Lescaut_ in the most enthusiastic terms. His only reason for talking in that strain was the fact that he thought it insignificant. The marechale said that the ballet was very inferior to the abbe Prevost's novel. "The idea," thought Julien, both surprised and amused, "of so highly virtuous a person praising a novel! Madame de Fervaques used to profess two or three times a week the most absolute contempt for those writers, who, by means of their insipid works, try to corrupt a youth which is, alas! only too inclined to the errors of the senses." "_Manon Lescaut_" continued the marechale, "is said to be one of the best of this immoral and dangerous type of book. The weaknesses and the deserved anguish of a criminal heart are, they say, portrayed with a truth which is not lacking in depth; a fact which does not prevent your Bonaparte from stating at St. Helena that it is simply a novel written for lackeys." The word Bonaparte restored to Julien all the activity of his mind. "They have tried to ruin me with the marechale; they have told her of my enthusiasm for Napoleon. This fact has sufficiently piqued her to make her yield to the temptation to make me feel it." This discovery amused him all the evening, and rendered him amusing. As he took leave of the marechale in the vestibule of the opera, she said to him, "Remember, monsieur, one must not like Bonaparte if you like me; at the best he can only be accepted as a necessity imposed by Providence. Besides, the man did not have a sufficiently supple soul to appreciate masterpieces of art." "When you like me," Julien kept on repeating to himself, "that means nothing or means everything. Here we have mysteries of language which are beyond us poor provincials." And he thought a great deal about madame de Renal, as he copied out an immense letter destined for the marechale. "How is it," she said to him the following day, with an assumed indifference which he thought was clumsily assumed, "that you talk to me about London and Richmond in a letter which you wrote last night, I think, when you came back from the opera?" Julien was very embarrassed. He had copied line by line without thinking about what he was writing, and had apparently forgotten to substitute Paris and Saint Cloud for the words London and Richmond which occurred in the original. He commenced two or three sentences, but found it impossible to finish them. He felt on the point of succumbing to a fit of idiotic laughter. Finally by picking his words he succeeded in formulating this inspiration: "Exalted as I was by the discussion of the most sublime and greatest interests of the human soul, my own soul may have been somewhat absent in my letter to you." "I am making an impression," he said to himself, "so I can spare myself the boredom of the rest of the evening." He left the Hotel de Fervaques at a run. In the evening he had another look at the original of the letter which he had copied out on the previous night, and soon came to the fatal place where the young Russian made mention of London and of Richmond. Julien was very astonished to find this letter almost tender. It had been the contrast between the apparent lightness of his conversation, and the sublime and almost apocalyptic profundity of his letters which had marked him out for favour. The marechale was particularly pleased by the longness of the sentences; this was very far from being that sprightly style which that immoral man Voltaire had brought into fashion. Although our hero made every possible human effort to eliminate from his conversation any symptom of good sense, it still preserved a certain anti-monarchical and blasphemous tinge which did not escape madame de Fervaques. Surrounded as she was by persons who, though eminently moral, had very often not a single idea during a whole evening, this lady was profoundly struck by anything resembling a novelty, but at the same time she thought she owed it to herself to be offended by it. She called this defect: Keeping the imprint of the lightness of the age. But such salons are only worth observing when one has a favour to procure. The reader doubtless shares all the ennui of the colourless life which Julien was leading. This period represents the steppes of our journey. Mademoiselle de la Mole needed to exercise her self-control to avoid thinking of Julien during the whole period filled by the de Fervaques episode. Her soul was a prey to violent battles; sometimes she piqued herself on despising that melancholy young man, but his conversation captivated her in spite of herself. She was particularly astonished by his absolute falseness. He did not say a single word to the marechale which was not a lie, or at any rate, an abominable travesty of his own way of thinking, which Mathilde knew so perfectly in every phase. This Machiavellianism impressed her. "What subtlety," she said to herself. "What a difference between the bombastic coxcombs, or the common rascals like Tanbeau who talk in the same strain." Nevertheless Julien went through awful days. It was only to accomplish the most painful of duties that he put in a daily appearance in the marechale's salon. The strain of playing a part ended by depriving his mind of all its strength. As he crossed each night the immense courtyard of the Hotel de Fervaques, it was only through sheer force in character and logic that he succeeded in keeping a little above the level of despair. "I overcame despair at the seminary," he said, "yet what an awful prospect I had then. I was then either going to make my fortune or come to grief just as I am now. I found myself obliged to pass all my life in intimate association with the most contemptible and disgusting things in the whole world. The following spring, just eleven short months later, I was perhaps the happiest of all young people of my own age." But very often all this fine logic proved unavailing against the awful reality. He saw Mathilde every day at breakfast and at dinner. He knew from the numerous letters which de la Mole dictated to him that she was on the eve of marrying de Croisenois. This charming man already called twice a day at the Hotel de la Mole; the jealous eye of a jilted lover was alive to every one of his movements. When he thought he had noticed that mademoiselle de la Mole was beginning to encourage her intended, Julien could not help looking tenderly at his pistols as he went up to his room. "Ah," he said to himself, "would it not be much wiser to take the marks out of my linen and to go into some solitary forest twenty leagues from Paris to put an end to this atrocious life? I should be unknown in the district, my death would remain a secret for a fortnight, and who would bother about me after a fortnight?" This reasoning was very logical. But on the following day a glimpse of Mathilde's arm between the sleeve of her dress and her glove sufficed to plunge our young philosopher into memories which, though agonising, none the less gave him a hold on life. "Well," he said to himself, "I will follow this Russian plan to the end. How will it all finish?" "So far as the marechale is concerned, after I have copied out these fifty-three letters, I shall not write any others. "As for Mathilde, these six weeks of painful acting will either leave her anger unchanged, or will win me a moment of reconciliation. Great God! I should die of happiness." And he could not finish his train of thought. After a long reverie he succeeded in taking up the thread of his argument. "In that case," he said to himself, "I should win one day of happiness, and after that her cruelties which are based, alas, on my lack of ability to please her will recommence. I should have nothing left to do, I should be ruined and lost for ever. With such a character as hers what guarantee can she give me? Alas! My manners are no doubt lacking in elegance, and my style of speech is heavy and monotonous. Great God, why am I myself?" CHAPTER LIX ENNUI Sacrificing one's self to one's passions, let it pass; but sacrificing one's self to passions which one has not got! Oh! melancholy nineteenth century! _Girodet_. Madame de Fervaques had begun reading Julien's long letters without any pleasure, but she now began to think about them; one thing, however, grieved her. "What a pity that M. Sorel was not a real priest! He could then be admitted to a kind of intimacy; but in view of that cross, and that almost lay dress, one is exposed to cruel questions and what is one to answer?" She did not finish the train of thought, "Some malicious woman friend may think, and even spread it about that he is some lower middle-class cousin or other, a relative of my father, some tradesman who has been decorated by the National Guard." Up to the time which she had seen Julien, madame de Fervaque's greatest pleasure had been writing the word marechale after her name. Consequently a morbid parvenu vanity, which was ready to take umbrage at everything, combatted the awakening of her interest in him. "It would be so easy for me," said the marechale, "to make him a grand vicar in some diocese near Paris! but plain M. Sorel, and what is more, a man who is the secretary of M. de la Mole! It is heart-breaking." For the first time in her life this soul, which was afraid of everything, was moved by an interest which was alien to its own pretensions to rank and superiority. Her old porter noticed that whenever he brought a letter from this handsome young man, who always looked so sad, he was certain to see that absent, discontented expression, which the marechale always made a point of assuming on the entry of any of her servants, immediately disappear. The boredom of a mode of life whose ambitions were concentrated on impressing the public without her having at heart any real faculty of enjoyment for that kind of success, had become so intolerable since she had begun to think of Julien that, all that was necessary to prevent her chambermaids being bullied for a whole day, was that their mistress should have passed an hour in the society of this strange young man on the evening of the preceding day. His budding credit was proof against very cleverly written anonymous letters. It was in vain that Tanbeau supplied M. de Luz, de Croisenois, de Caylus, with two or three very clever calumnies which these gentlemen were only too glad to spread, without making too many enquiries of the actual truth of the charges. The marechale, whose temperament was not calculated to be proof against these vulgar expedients related her doubts to Mathilde, and was always consoled by her. One day, madame de Fervaques, after having asked three times if there were any letters for her, suddenly decided to answer Julien. It was a case of the triumph of ennui. On reaching the second letter in his name the marechale almost felt herself pulled up sharp by the unbecomingness of writing with her own hand so vulgar an address as to M. Sorel, care of M. le Marquis de la Mole. "You must bring me envelopes with your address on," she said very drily to Julien in the evening. "Here I am appointed lover and valet in one," thought Julien, and he bowed, amused himself by wrinkling his face up like Arsene, the old valet of the marquis. He brought the envelopes that very evening, and he received the third letter very early on the following day: he read five or six lines at the beginning, and two or three towards the end. There were four pages of a small and very close writing. The lady gradually developed the sweet habit of writing nearly every day. Julien answered by faithful copies of the Russian letters; and such is the advantage of the bombastic style that madame de Fervaques was not a bit astonished by the lack of connection between his answers and her letters. How gravely irritated would her pride have been if the little Tanbeau who had constituted himself a voluntary spy on all Julien's movements had been able to have informed her that all these letters were left unsealed and thrown haphazard into Julien's drawer. One morning the porter was bringing into the library a letter to him from the marechale. Mathilde met the man, saw the letter together with the address in Julien's handwriting. She entered the library as the porter was leaving it, the letter was still on the edge of the table. Julien was very busy with his work and had not yet put it in his drawer. "I cannot endure this," exclaimed Mathilde, as she took possession of the letter, "you are completely forgetting me, me your wife, your conduct is awful, monsieur." At these words her pride, shocked by the awful unseemliness of her proceeding, prevented her from speaking. She burst into tears, and soon seemed to Julien scarcely able to breathe. Julien was so surprised and embarrassed that he did not fully appreciate how ideally fortunate this scene was for himself. He helped Mathilde to sit down; she almost abandoned herself in his arms. The first minute in which he noticed this movement, he felt an extreme joy. Immediately afterwards, he thought of Korasoff: "I may lose everything by a single word." The strain of carrying out his tactics was so great that his arms stiffened. "I dare not even allow myself to press this supple, charming frame to my heart, or she will despise me or treat me badly. What an awful character!" And while he cursed Mathilde's character, he loved her a hundred times more. He thought he had a queen in his arms. Julien's impassive coldness intensified the anguished pride which was lacerating the soul of mademoiselle de la Mole. She was far from having the necessary self-possession to try and read in his eyes what he felt for her at that particular moment. She could not make up her mind to look at him. She trembled lest she might encounter a contemptuous expression. Seated motionless on the library divan, with her head turned in the opposite direction to Julien, she was a prey to the most poignant anguish that pride and love can inflict upon a human soul. What an awful step had she just slipped into taking! "It has been reserved for me, unhappy woman that I am, to see my most unbecoming advances rebuffed! and rebuffed by whom?" added her maddened and wounded pride; "rebuffed by a servant of my father's! That's more than I will put up with," she said aloud, and rising in a fury, she opened the drawer of Julien's table, which was two yards in front of her. She stood petrified with horror when she saw eight or ten unopened letters, completely like the one the porter had just brought up. She recognised Julien's handwriting, though more or less disguised, on all the addresses. "So," she cried, quite beside herself, "you are not only on good terms with her, but you actually despise her. You, a nobody, despise madame la marechale de Fervaques!" "Oh, forgive me, my dear," she added, throwing herself on her knees; "despise me if you wish, but love me. I cannot live without your love." And she fell down in a dead faint. "So our proud lady is lying at my feet," said Julien to himself. CHAPTER LX A BOX AT THE BOUFFES As the blackest sky Foretells the heaviest tempest _Don Juan, c._ 1. _st_.76. In the midst of these great transports Julien felt more surprised than happy. Mathilde's abuse proved to him the shrewdness of the Russian tactics. "'Few words, few deeds,' that is my one method of salvation." He picked up Mathilde, and without saying a word, put her back on the divan. She was gradually being overcome by tears. In order to keep herself in countenance, she took madame de Fervaques' letters in her hands, and slowly broke the seals. She gave a noticeable nervous movement when she recognised the marechale's handwriting. She turned over the pages of these letters without reading them. Most of them were six pages. "At least answer me," Mathilde said at last, in the most supplicatory tone, but without daring to look at Julien: "You know how proud I am. It is the misfortune of my position, and of my temperament, too, I confess. Has madame de Fervaques robbed me of your heart? Has she made the sacrifices to which my fatal love swept me?" A dismal silence was all Julien's answer. "By what right," he thought, "does she ask me to commit an indiscretion unworthy of an honest man?" Mathilde tried to read the letters; her eyes were so wet with tears that it was impossible for her to do so. She had been unhappy for a month past, but this haughty soul had been very far from owning its own feelings even to itself. Chance alone had brought about this explosion. For one instant jealousy and love had won a victory over pride. She was sitting on the divan, and very near him. He saw her hair and her alabaster neck. For a moment he forgot all he owed to himself. He passed his arm around her waist, and clasped her almost to his breast. She slowly turned her head towards him. He was astonished by the extreme anguish in her eyes. There was not a trace of their usual expression. Julien felt his strength desert him. So great was the deadly pain of the courageous feat which he was imposing on himself. "Those eyes will soon express nothing but the coldest disdain," said Julien to himself, "if I allow myself to be swept away by the happiness of loving her." She, however, kept repeatedly assuring him at this moment, in a hushed voice, and in words which she had scarcely the strength to finish, of all her remorse for those steps which her inordinate pride had dictated. "I, too, have pride," said Julien to her, in a scarcely articulate voice, while his features portrayed the lowest depths of physical prostration. Mathilde turned round sharply towards him. Hearing his voice was a happiness which she had given up hoping. At this moment her only thought of her haughtiness was to curse it. She would have liked to have found out some abnormal and incredible actions, in order to prove to him the extent to which she adored him and detested herself. "That pride is probably the reason," continued Julien, "why you singled me out for a moment. My present courageous and manly firmness is certainly the reason why you respect me. I may entertain love for the marechale." Mathilde shuddered; a strange expression came into her eyes. She was going to hear her sentence pronounced. This shudder did not escape Julien. He felt his courage weaken. "Ah," he said to himself, as he listened to the sound of the vain words which his mouth was articulating, as he thought it were some strange sound, "if I could only cover those pale cheeks with kisses without your feeling it." "I may entertain love for the marechale," he continued, while his voice became weaker and weaker, "but I certainly have no definite proof of her interest in me." Mathilde looked at him. He supported that look. He hoped, at any rate, that his expression had not betrayed him. He felt himself bathed in a love that penetrated even into the most secret recesses of his heart. He had never adored her so much; he was almost as mad as Mathilde. If she had mustered sufficient self-possession and courage to manoeuvre, he would have abandoned all his play-acting, and fallen at her feet. He had sufficient strength to manage to continue speaking: "Ah, Korasoff," he exclaimed mentally, "why are you not here? How I need a word from you to guide me in my conduct." During this time his voice was saying, "In default of any other sentiment, gratitude would be sufficient to attach me to the marechale. She has been indulgent to me; she has consoled me when I have been despised. I cannot put unlimited faith in certain appearances which are, no doubt, extremely flattering, but possibly very fleeting." "Oh, my God!" exclaimed Mathilde. "Well, what guarantee will you give me?" replied Julien with a sharp, firm intonation, which seemed to abandon for a moment the prudent forms of diplomacy. "What guarantee, what god will warrant that the position to which you seem inclined to restore me at the present moment will last more than two days?" "The excess of my love, and my unhappiness if you do not love me," she said to him, taking his hands and turning towards him. The spasmodic movement which she had just made had slightly displaced her tippet; Julien caught a view of her charming shoulders. Her slightly dishevelled hair recalled a delicious memory.... He was on the point of succumbing. "One imprudent word," he said to himself, "and I have to start all over again that long series of days which I have passed in despair. Madame de Renal used to find reasons for doing what her heart dictated. This young girl of high society never allows her heart to be moved except when she has proved to herself by sound logic that it ought to be moved." He saw this proof in the twinkling of an eye, and in the twinkling of an eye too, he regained his courage. He took away his hands which Mathilde was pressing in her own, and moved a little away from her with a marked respect. Human courage could not go further. He then busied himself with putting together madame de Fervaque's letters which were spread out on the divan, and it was with all the appearance of extreme politeness that he cruelly exploited the psychological moment by adding, "Mademoiselle de la Mole will allow me to reflect over all this." He went rapidly away and left the library; she heard him shut all the doors one after the other. "The monster is not the least bit troubled," she said to herself. "But what am I saying? Monster? He is wise, prudent, good. It is I myself who have committed more wrong than one can imagine." This point of view lasted. Mathilde was almost happy today, for she gave herself up to love unreservedly. One would have said that this soul had never been disturbed by pride (and what pride!) She shuddered with horror when a lackey announced madame le Fervaques into the salon in the evening. The man's voice struck her as sinister. She could not endure the sight of the marechale, and stopped suddenly. Julien who had felt little pride over his painful victory, had feared to face her, and had not dined at the Hotel de la Mole. His love and his happiness rapidly increased in proportion to the time that elapsed from the moment of the battle. He was blaming himself already. "How could I resist her?" he said to himself. "Suppose she were to go and leave off loving me! One single moment may change that haughty soul, and I must admit that I have treated her awfully." In the evening he felt that it was absolutely necessary to put in an appearance at the Bouffes in madame de Fervaques' box. She had expressly invited him. Mathilde would be bound to know of his presence or his discourteous absence. In spite of the clearness of this logic, he could not at the beginning of the evening bring himself to plunge into society. By speaking he would lose half his happiness. Ten o'clock struck and it was absolutely necessary to show himself. Luckily he found the marechale's box packed with women, and was relegated to a place near the door where he was completely hidden by the hats. This position saved him from looking ridiculous; Caroline's divine notes of despair in the _Matrimonio Segreto_ made him burst into tears. Madame de Fervaques saw these tears. They represented so great a contrast with the masculine firmness of his usual expression that the soul of the old-fashioned lady, saturated as it had been for many years with all the corroding acid of parvenu haughtiness, was none the less touched. Such remnants of a woman's heart as she still possessed impelled her to speak: she wanted to enjoy the sound of his voice at this moment. "Have you seen the de la Mole ladies?" she said to him. "They are in the third tier." Julien immediately craned out over the theatre, leaning politely enough on the front of the box. He saw Mathilde; her eyes were shining with tears. "And yet it is not their Opera day," thought Julien; "how eager she must be!" Mathilde had prevailed on her mother to come to the Bouffes in spite of the inconveniently high tier of the box, which a lady friend of the family had hastened to offer her. She wanted to see if Julien would pass the evening with the marechale. CHAPTER LXI FRIGHTEN HER So this is the fine miracle of your civilisation; you have turned love into an ordinary business.--_Barnave_. Julien rushed into madame de la Mole's box. His eyes first met the tearful eyes of Mathilde; she was crying without reserve. There were only insignificant personages present, the friend who had leant her box, and some men whom she knew. Mathilde placed her hand on Julien's; she seemed to have forgotten all fear of her mother. Almost stifled as she was by her tears, she said nothing but this one word: "Guarantees!" "So long as I don't speak to her," said Julien to himself. He was himself very moved, and concealed his eyes with his hand as best he could under the pretext of avoiding the dazzling light of the third tier of boxes. "If I speak she may suspect the excess of my emotion, the sound of my voice will betray me. All may yet be lost." His struggles were more painful than they had been in the morning, his soul had had the time to become moved. He had been frightened at seeing Mathilde piqued with vanity. Intoxicated as he was with love and pleasure he resolved not to speak. In my view this is one of the finest traits in his character, an individual capable of such an effort of self-control may go far si _fata sinant_. Mademoiselle de la Mole insisted on taking Julien back to the hotel. Luckily it was raining a great deal, but the marquise had him placed opposite her, talked to him incessantly, and prevented him saying a single word to her daughter. One might have thought that the marquise was nursing Julien's happiness for him; no longer fearing to lose everything through his excessive emotion, he madly abandoned himself to his happiness. Shall I dare to say that when he went back to his room Julien fell on his knees and covered with kisses the love letters which prince Korasoff had given him. "How much I owe you, great man," he exclaimed in his madness. Little by little he regained his self-possession. He compared himself to a general who had just won a great battle. "My advantage is definite and immense," he said to himself, "but what will happen to-morrow? One instant may ruin everything." With a passionate gesture he opened the _Memoirs_ which Napoleon had dictated at St. Helena and for two long hours forced himself to read them. Only his eyes read; no matter, he made himself do it. During this singular reading his head and his heart rose to the most exalted level and worked unconsciously. "Her heart is very different from madame de Renal's," he said to himself, but he did not go further. "Frighten her!" he suddenly exclaimed, hurling away the book. "The enemy will only obey me in so far as I frighten him, but then he will not dare to show contempt for me." Intoxicated with joy he walked up and down his little room. In point of fact his happiness was based rather on pride than on love. "Frighten her!" he repeated proudly, and he had cause to be proud. "Madame de Renal always doubted even in her happiest moments if my love was equal to her own. In this case I have to subjugate a demon, consequently I must subjugate her." He knew quite well that Mathilde would be in the library at eight o'clock in the morning of the following day. He did not appear before nine o'clock. He was burning with love, but his head dominated his heart. Scarcely a single minute passed without his repeating to himself. "Keep her obsessed by this great doubt. Does he love me?" Her own brilliant position, together with the flattery of all who speak to her, tend a little too much to make her reassure herself. He found her sitting on the divan pale and calm, but apparently completely incapable of making a single movement. She held out her hand, "Dear one, it is true I have offended you, perhaps you are angry with me." Julien had not been expecting this simple tone. He was on the point of betraying himself. "You want guarantees, my dear, she added after a silence which she had hoped would be broken. Take me away, let us leave for London. I shall be ruined, dishonoured for ever." She had the courage to take her hand away from Julien to cover her eyes with it. All her feelings of reserve and feminine virtue had come back into her soul. "Well, dishonour me," she said at last with a sigh, "that will be a guarantee." "I was happy yesterday, because I had the courage to be severe with myself," thought Julien. After a short silence he had sufficient control over his heart to say in an icy tone, "Once we are on the road to London, once you are dishonoured, to employ your own expression, who will answer that you will still love me? that my very presence in the post-chaise will not seem importunate? I am not a monster; to have ruined your reputation will only make me still more unhappy. It is not your position in society which is the obstacle, it is unfortunately your own character. Can you yourself guarantee that you will love me for eight days?" "Ah! let her love me for eight days, just eight days," whispered Julien to himself, "and I will die of happiness. What do I care for the future, what do I care for life? And yet if I wish that divine happiness can commence this very minute, it only depends on me." Mathilde saw that he was pensive. "So I am completely unworthy of you," she said to him, taking his hand. Julien kissed her, but at the same time the iron hand of duty gripped his heart. If she sees how much I adore her I shall lose her. And before leaving her arms, he had reassumed all that dignity which is proper to a man. He managed on this and the following days to conceal his inordinate happiness. There were moments when he even refused himself the pleasure of clasping her in his arms. At other times the delirium of happiness prevailed over all the counsels of prudence. He had been accustomed to station himself near a bower of honeysuckle in the garden arranged in such a way so as to conceal the ladder when he had looked up at Mathilde's blind in the distance, and lamented her inconstancy. A very big oak tree was quite near, and the trunk of that tree prevented him from being seen by the indiscreet. As he passed with Mathilde over this very place which recalled his excessive unhappiness so vividly, the contrast between his former despair and his present happiness proved too much for his character. Tears inundated his eyes, and he carried his sweetheart's hand to his lips: "It was here I used to live in my thoughts of you, it was from here that I used to look at that blind, and waited whole hours for the happy moment when I would see that hand open it." His weakness was unreserved. He portrayed the extremity of his former despair in genuine colours which could not possibly have been invented. Short interjections testified to that present happiness which had put an end to that awful agony. "My God, what am I doing?" thought Julien, suddenly recovering himself. "I am ruining myself." In his excessive alarm he thought that he already detected a diminution of the love in mademoiselle de la Mole's eyes. It was an illusion, but Julien's face suddenly changed its expression and became overspread by a mortal pallor. His eyes lost their fire, and an expression of haughtiness touched with malice soon succeeded to his look of the most genuine and unreserved love. "But what is the matter with you, my dear," said Mathilde to him, both tenderly and anxiously. "I am lying," said Julien irritably, "and I am lying to you. I am reproaching myself for it, and yet God knows that I respect you sufficiently not to lie to you. You love me, you are devoted to me, and I have no need of praises in order to please you." "Great heavens! are all the charming things you have been telling me for the last two minutes mere phrases?" "And I reproach myself for it keenly, dear one. I once made them up for a woman who loved me, and bored me--it is the weakness of my character. I denounce myself to you, forgive me." Bitter tears streamed over Mathilde's cheeks. "As soon as some trifle offends me and throws me back on my meditation," continued Julien, "my abominable memory, which I curse at this very minute, offers me a resource, and I abuse it." "So I must have slipped, without knowing it, into some action which has displeased you," said Mathilde with a charming simplicity. "I remember one day that when you passed near this honeysuckle you picked a flower, M. de Luz took it from you and you let him keep it. I was two paces away." "M. de Luz? It is impossible," replied Mathilde with all her natural haughtiness. "I do not do things like that." "I am sure of it," Julien replied sharply. "Well, my dear, it is true," said Mathilde, as she sadly lowered her eyes. She knew positively that many months had elapsed since she had allowed M. de Luz to do such a thing. Julien looked at her with ineffable tenderness, "No," he said to himself, "she does not love me less." In the evening she rallied him with a laugh on his fancy for madame de Fervaques. "Think of a bourgeois loving a parvenu, those are perhaps the only type of hearts that my Julien cannot make mad with love. She has made you into a real dandy," she said playing with his hair. During the period when he thought himself scorned by Mathilde, Julien had become one of the best dressed men in Paris. He had, moreover, a further advantage over other dandies, in as much as once he had finished dressing he never gave a further thought to his appearance. One thing still piqued Mathilde, Julien continued to copy out the Russian letters and send them to the marechale. CHAPTER LXII THE TIGER Alas, why these things and not other things?--_Beaumarchais_. An English traveller tells of the intimacy in which he lived with a tiger. He had trained it and would caress it, but he always kept a cocked pistol on his table. Julien only abandoned himself to the fulness of his happiness in those moments when Mathilde could not read the expression in his eyes. He scrupulously performed his duty of addressing some harsh word to her from time to time. When Mathilde's sweetness, which he noticed with some surprise, together with the completeness of her devotion were on the point of depriving him of all self-control, he was courageous enough to leave her suddenly. Mathilde loved for the first time in her life. Life had previously always dragged along at a tortoise pace, but now it flew. As, however, her pride required to find a vent in some way or other, she wished to expose herself to all the dangers in which her love could involve her. It was Julien who was prudent, and it was only when it was a question of danger that she did not follow her own inclination; but submissive, and almost humble as she was when with him, she only showed additional haughtiness to everyone in the house who came near her, whether relatives or friends. In the evening she would call Julien to her in the salon in the presence of sixty people, and have a long and private conversation with him. The little Tanbeau installed himself one day close to them. She requested him to go and fetch from the library the volume of Smollet which deals with the revolution of 1688, and when he hesitated, added with an expression of insulting haughtiness, which was a veritable balm to Julien's soul, "Don't hurry." "Have you noticed that little monster's expression?" he said to her. "His uncle has been in attendance in this salon for ten or twelve years, otherwise I would have had him packed off immediately." Her behaviour towards MM. de Croisenois, de Luz, etc., though outwardly perfectly polite, was in reality scarcely less provocative. Mathilde keenly reproached herself for all the confidential remarks about them which she had formerly made to Julien, and all the more so since she did not dare to confess that she had exaggerated to him the, in fact, almost absolutely innocent manifestations of interest of which these gentlemen had been the objects. In spite of her best resolutions her womanly pride invariably prevented her from saying to Julien, "It was because I was talking to you that I found a pleasure in describing my weakness in not drawing my hand away, when M. de Croisenois had placed his on a marble table and had just touched it." But now, as soon as one of these gentlemen had been speaking to her for some moments, she found she had a question to put to Julien, and she made this an excuse for keeping him by her side. She discovered that she was _enceinte_ and joyfully informed Julien of the fact. "Do you doubt me now? Is it not a guarantee? I am your wife for ever." This announcement struck Julien with profound astonishment. He was on the point of forgetting the governing principle of his conduct. How am I to be deliberately cold and insulting towards this poor young girl, who is ruining herself for my sake. And if she looked at all ill, he could not, even on those days when the terrible voice of wisdom made itself heard, find the courage to address to her one of those harsh remarks which his experience had found so indispensable to the preservation of their love. "I will write to my father," said Mathilde to him one day, "he is more than a father to me, he is a friend; that being so, I think it unworthy both of you and of myself to try and deceive him, even for a single minute." "Great heavens, what are you going to do?" said Julien in alarm. "My duty," she answered with eyes shining with joy. She thought she was showing more nobility than her lover. "But he will pack me off in disgrace." "It is his right to do so, we must respect it. I will give you my arm, and we will go out by the front door in full daylight." Julien was thunderstruck and requested her to put it off for a week. "I cannot," she answered, "it is the voice of honour, I have seen my duty, I must follow it, and follow it at once." "Well, I order you to put it off," said Julien at last. "Your honour is safe for the present. I am your husband. The position of us will be changed by this momentous step. I too am within my rights. To-day is Tuesday, next Tuesday is the duke de Retz's at home; when M. de la Mole comes home in the evening the porter will give him the fatal letter. His only thought is to make you a duchess, I am sure of it. Think of his unhappiness." "You mean, think of his vengeance?" "It may be that I pity my benefactor, and am grieved at injuring him, but I do not fear, and shall never fear anyone." Mathilde yielded. This was the first occasion, since she had informed Julien of her condition, that he had spoken to her authoritatively. She had never loved him so much. The tender part of his soul had found happiness in seizing on Mathilde's condition as an excuse for refraining from his cruel remarks to her. The question of the confession to M. de la Mole deeply moved him. Was he going to be separated from Mathilde? And, however grieved she would be to see him go, would she have a thought for him after his departure? He was almost equally horrified by the thought of the justified reproaches which the marquis might address to him. In the evening he confessed to Mathilde the second reason for his anxiety, and then led away by his love, confessed the first as well. She changed colour. "Would it really make you unhappy," she said to him, "to pass six months far away from me?" "Infinitely so. It is the only thing in the world which terrifies me." Mathilde was very happy. Julien had played his part so assiduously that he had succeeded in making her think that she was the one of the two who loved the more. The fatal Tuesday arrived. When the marquis came in at midnight he found a letter addressed to him, which was only to be opened himself when no one was there:-- "My father, "All social ties have been broken between us, only those of nature remain. Next to my husband, you are and always will be the being I shall always hold most dear. My eyes are full of tears, I am thinking of the pain that I am causing you, but if my shame was to be prevented from becoming public, and you were to be given time to reflect and act, I could not postpone any longer the confession that I owe you. If your affection for me, which I know is extremely deep, is good enough to grant me a small allowance, I will go and settle with my husband anywhere you like, in Switzerland, for instance. His name is so obscure that no one would recognize in Madame Sorel, the daughter-in-law of a Verrieres carpenter, your daughter. That is the name which I have so much difficulty in writing. I fear your wrath against Julien, it seems so justified. I shall not be a duchess, my father; but I knew it when I loved him; for I was the one who loved him first, it was I who seduced him. I have inherited from you too lofty a soul to fix my attention on what either is or appears to be vulgar. It is in vain that I thought of M. Croisenois with a view to pleasing you. Why did you place real merit under my eyes? You told me yourself on my return from Hyeres, 'that young Sorel is the one person who amuses me,' the poor boy is as grieved as I am if it is possible, at the pain this letter will give you. I cannot prevent you being irritated as a father, but love me as a friend. "Julien respected me. If he sometimes spoke to me, it was only by reason of his deep gratitude towards yourself, for the natural dignity of his character induces him to keep to his official capacity in any answers he may make to anyone who is so much above him. He has a keen and instinctive appreciation of the difference of social rank. It was I (I confess it with a blush to my best friend, and I shall never make such a confession to anyone else) who clasped his arm one day in the garden. "Why need you be irritated with him, after twenty-four hours have elapsed? My own lapse is irreparable. If you insist on it, the assurance of his profound respect and of his desperate grief at having displeased you, can be conveyed to you through me. You need not see him at all, but I shall go and join him wherever he wishes. It is his right and it is my duty. He is the father of my child. If your kindness will go so far as to grant us six thousand francs to live on, I will receive it with gratitude; if not, Julien reckons on establishing himself at Besancon, where he will set up as a Latin and literature master. However low may have been the station from which he springs, I am certain he will raise himself. With him I do not fear obscurity. If there is a revolution, I am sure that he will play a prime part. Can you say as much for any of those who have asked for my hand? They have fine estates, you say. I cannot consider that circumstance a reason for admiring them. My Julien would attain a high position, even under the present regime, if he had a million and my father's protection...." Mathilde, who knew that the marquis was a man who always abandoned himself to his first impulse, had written eight pages. "What am I to do?" said Julien to himself while M. de la Mole was reading this letter. "Where is (first) my duty; (second) my interest? My debt to him is immense. Without him I should have been a menial scoundrel, and not even enough of a scoundrel to be hated and persecuted by the others. He has made me a man of the world. The villainous acts which I now have to do are (first) less frequent; (second) less mean. That is more than as if he had given me a million. I am indebted to him for this cross and the reputation of having rendered those alleged diplomatic services, which have lifted me out of the ruck. "If he himself were writing instructions for my conduct, what would he prescribe?" Julien was sharply interrupted by M. de la Mole's old valet. "The marquis wants to see you at once, dressed or not dressed." The valet added in a low voice, as he walked by Julien's side, "He is beside himself: look out!" CHAPTER LXIII THE HELL OF WEAKNESS A clumsy lapidary, in cutting this diamond, deprived it of some of its most brilliant facets. In the middle ages, nay, even under Richelieu, the Frenchman had _force of will_.--_Mirabeau_. Julien found the marquis furious. For perhaps the first time in his life this nobleman showed bad form. He loaded Julien with all the insults that came to his lips. Our hero was astonished, and his patience was tried, but his gratitude remained unshaken. "The poor man now sees the annihilation, in a single minute, of all the fine plans which he has long cherished in his heart. But I owe it to him to answer. My silence tends to increase his anger." The part of Tartuffe supplied the answer; "I am not an angel.... I served you well; you paid me generously.... I was grateful, but I am twenty-two.... Only you and that charming person understood my thoughts in this household." "Monster," exclaimed the marquis. "Charming! Charming, to be sure! The day when you found her charming you ought to have fled." "I tried to. It was then that I asked permission to leave for Languedoc." Tired of stampeding about and overcome by his grief, the marquis threw himself into an arm-chair. Julien heard him whispering to himself, "No, no, he is not a wicked man." "No, I am not, towards you," exclaimed Julien, falling on his knees. But he felt extremely ashamed of this manifestation, and very quickly got up again. The marquis was really transported. When he saw this movement, he began again to load him with abominable insults, which were worthy of the driver of a fiacre. The novelty of these oaths perhaps acted as a distraction. "What! is my daughter to go by the name of madame Sorel? What! is my daughter not to be a duchess?" Each time that these two ideas presented themselves in all their clearness M. de la Mole was a prey to torture, and lost all power over the movements of his mind. Julien was afraid of being beaten. In his lucid intervals, when he was beginning to get accustomed to his unhappiness, the marquis addressed to Julien reproaches which were reasonable enough. "You should have fled, sir," he said to him. "Your duty was to flee. You are the lowest of men." Julien approached the table and wrote: "I have found my life unbearable for a long time; I am putting an end to it. I request monsieur the marquis to accept my apologies (together with the expression of my infinite gratitude) for any embarrassment that may be occasioned by my death in his hotel." "Kindly run your eye over this paper, M. the marquis," said Julien. "Kill me, or have me killed by your valet. It is one o'clock in the morning. I will go and walk in the garden in the direction of the wall at the bottom." "Go to the devil," cried the marquis, as he went away. "I understand," thought Julien. "He would not be sorry if I were to spare his valet the trouble of killing me.... "Let him kill me, if he likes; it is a satisfaction which I offer him.... But, by heaven, I love life. I owe it to my son." This idea, which had not previously presented itself with so much definiteness to his imagination, completely engrossed him during his walk after the first few minutes which he had spent thinking about his danger. This novel interest turned him into a prudent man. "I need advice as to how to behave towards this infuriated man.... He is devoid of reason; he is capable of everything. Fouque is too far away; besides, he would not understand the emotions of a heart like the marquis's." "Count Altamira ... am I certain of eternal silence? My request for advice must not be a fresh step which will raise still further complications. Alas! I have no one left but the gloomy abbe Pirard. His mind is crabbed by Jansenism.... A damned Jesuit would know the world, and would be more in my line. M. Pirard is capable of beating me at the very mention of my crime." The genius of Tartuffe came to Julien's help. "Well, I will go and confess to him." This was his final resolution after having walked about in the garden for two good hours. He no longer thought about being surprised by a gun shot. He was feeling sleepy. Very early the next day, Julien was several leagues away from Paris and knocked at the door of the severe Jansenist. He found to his great astonishment that he was not unduly surprised at his confidence. "I ought perhaps to reproach myself," said the abbe, who seemed more anxious than irritated. "I thought I guessed that love. My affection for you, my unhappy boy, prevented me from warning the father." "What will he do?" said Julien keenly. At that moment he loved the abbe, and would have found a scene between them very painful. "I see three alternatives," continued Julien. "M. de la Mole can have me put to death," and he mentioned the suicide letter which he had left with the Marquis; (2) "He can get Count Norbert to challenge me to a duel, and shoot at me point blank." "You would accept?" said the abbe furiously as he got up. "You do not let me finish. I should certainly never fire upon my benefactor's son. (3) He can send me away. If he says go to Edinburgh or New York, I will obey him. They can then conceal mademoiselle de la Mole's condition, but I will never allow them to suppress my son." "Have no doubt about it, that will be the first thought of that depraved man." At Paris, Mathilde was in despair. She had seen her father about seven o'clock. He had shown her Julien's letter. She feared that he might have considered it noble to put an end to his life; "and without my permission?" she said to herself with a pain due solely to her anger. "If he dies I shall die," she said to her father. "It will be you who will be the cause of his death.... Perhaps you will rejoice at it but I swear by his shades that I shall at once go into mourning, and shall publicly appear as _Madame the widow Sorel_, I shall send out my invitations, you can count on it.... You will find me neither pusillanimous nor cowardly." Her love went to the point of madness. M. de la Mole was flabbergasted in his turn. He began to regard what had happened with a certain amount of logic. Mathilde did not appear at breakfast. The marquis felt an immense weight off his mind, and was particularly flattered when he noticed that she had said nothing to her mother. Julien was dismounting from his horse. Mathilde had him called and threw herself into his arms almost beneath the very eyes of her chambermaid. Julien was not very appreciative of this transport. He had come away from his long consultation with the abbe Pirard in a very diplomatic and calculating mood. The calculation of possibilities had killed his imagination. Mathilde told him, with tears in her eyes, that she had read his suicide letter. "My father may change his mind; do me the favour of leaving for Villequier this very minute. Mount your horse again, and leave the hotel before they get up from table." When Julien's coldness and astonishment showed no sign of abatement, she burst into tears. "Let me manage our affairs," she exclaimed ecstatically, as she clasped him in her arms. "You know, dear, it is not of my own free will that I separate from you. Write under cover to my maid. Address it in a strange hand-writing, I will write volumes to you. Adieu, flee." This last word wounded Julien, but he none the less obeyed. "It will be fatal," he thought "if, in their most gracious moments these aristocrats manage to shock me." Mathilde firmly opposed all her father's prudent plans. She would not open negotiations on any other basis except this. She was to be Madame Sorel, and was either to live with her husband in poverty in Switzerland, or with her father in Paris. She rejected absolutely the suggestion of a secret accouchement. "In that case I should begin to be confronted with a prospect of calumny and dishonour. I shall go travelling with my husband two months after the marriage, and it will be easy to pretend that my son was born at a proper time." This firmness though at first received with violent fits of anger, eventually made the marquis hesitate. "Here," he said to his daughter in a moment of emotion, "is a gift of ten thousand francs a year. Send it to your Julien, and let him quickly make it impossible for me to retract it." In order to obey Mathilde, whose imperious temper he well knew, Julien had travelled forty useless leagues; he was superintending the accounts of the farmers at Villequier. This act of benevolence on the part of the marquis occasioned his return. He went and asked asylum of the abbe Pirard, who had become Mathilde's most useful ally during his absence. Every time that he was questioned by the marquis, he would prove to him that any other course except public marriage would be a crime in the eyes of God. "And happily," added the abbe, "worldly wisdom is in this instance in agreement with religion. Could one, in view of Mdlle. de la Mole's passionate character, rely for a minute on her keeping any secret which she did not herself wish to preserve? If one does not reconcile oneself to the frankness of a public marriage, society will concern itself much longer with this strange mesalliance__. Everything must be said all at once without either the appearance or the reality of the slightest mystery." "It is true," said the marquis pensively. Two or three friends of M. de la Mole were of the same opinion as the abbe Pirard. The great obstacle in their view was Mathilde's decided character. But in spite of all these fine arguments the marquis's soul could not reconcile itself to giving up all hopes of a coronet for his daughter. He ransacked his memory and his imagination for all the variations of knavery and duplicity which had been feasible in his youth. Yielding to necessity and having fear of the law seemed absurd and humiliating for a man in his position. He was paying dearly now for the luxury of those enchanting dreams concerning the future of his cherished daughter in which he had indulged for the last ten years. "Who could have anticipated it?" he said to himself. "A girl of so proud a character, of so lofty a disposition, who is even prouder than I am of the name she bears? A girl whose hand has already been asked for by all the cream of the nobility of France." "We must give up all faith in prudence. This age is made to confound everything. We are marching towards chaos." CHAPTER LXIV A MAN OF INTELLECT The prefect said to himself as he rode along the highway on horseback, "why should I not be a minister, a president of the council, a duke? This is how I should make war.... By these means I should have all the reformers put in irons."--_The Globe_. No argument will succeed in destroying the paramount influence of ten years of agreeable dreaming. The marquis thought it illogical to be angry, but could not bring himself to forgive. "If only this Julien could die by accident," he sometimes said to himself. It was in this way that his depressed imagination found a certain relief in running after the most absurd chimaeras. They paralysed the influence of the wise arguments of the abbe Pirard. A month went by in this way without negotiations advancing one single stage. The marquis had in this family matter, just as he had in politics, brilliant ideas over which he would be enthusiastic for two or three days. And then a line of tactics would fail to please him because it was based on sound arguments, while arguments only found favour in his eyes in so far as they were based on his favourite plan. He would work for three days with all the ardour and enthusiasm of a poet on bringing matters to a certain stage; on the following day he would not give it a thought. Julien was at first disconcerted by the slowness of the marquis; but, after some weeks, he began to surmise that M. de La Mole had no definite plan with regard to this matter. Madame de La Mole and the whole household believed that Julien was travelling in the provinces in connection with the administration of the estates; he was in hiding in the parsonage of the abbe Pirard and saw Mathilde every day; every morning she would spend an hour with her father, but they would sometimes go for weeks on end without talking of the matter which engrossed all their thoughts. "I don't want to know where the man is," said the marquis to her one day. "Send him this letter." Mathilde read: "The Languedoc estates bring in 20,600 francs. I give 10,600 francs to my daughter, and 10,000 francs to M. Julien Sorel. It is understood that I give the actual estates. Tell the notary to draw up two separate deeds of gift, and to bring them to me to-morrow, after this there are to be no more relations between us. Ah, Monsieur, could I have expected all this? The marquis de La Mole." "I thank you very much," said Mathilde gaily. "We will go and settle in the Chateau d'Aiguillon, between Agen and Marmande. The country is said to be as beautiful as Italy." This gift was an extreme surprise to Julien. He was no longer the cold, severe man whom we have hitherto known. His thoughts were engrossed in advance by his son's destiny. This unexpected fortune, substantial as it was for a man as poor as himself, made him ambitious. He pictured a time when both his wife and himself would have an income of 36,000 francs. As for Mathilde, all her emotions were concentrated on her adoration for her husband, for that was the name by which her pride insisted on calling Julien. Her one great ambition was to secure the recognition of her marriage. She passed her time in exaggerating to herself the consummate prudence which she had manifested in linking her fate to that of a superior man. The idea of personal merit became a positive craze with her. Julien's almost continuous absence, coupled with the complications of business matters and the little time available in which to talk love, completed the good effect produced by the wise tactics which Julien had previously discovered. Mathilde finished by losing patience at seeing so little of the man whom she had come really to love. In a moment of irritation she wrote to her father and commenced her letter like Othello: "My very choice is sufficient proof that I have preferred Julien to all the advantages which society offered to the daughter of the marquis de la Mole. Such pleasures, based as they are on prestige and petty vanity mean nothing to me. It is now nearly six weeks since I have lived separated from my husband. That is sufficient to manifest my respect for yourself. Before next Thursday I shall leave the paternal house. Your acts of kindness have enriched us. No one knows my secret except the venerable abbe Pirard. I shall go to him: he will marry us, and an hour after the ceremony we shall be on the road to Languedoc, and we will never appear again in Paris except by your instructions. But what cuts me to the quick is that all this will provide the subject matter for piquant anecdotes against me and against yourself. May not the epigrams of a foolish public compel our excellent Norbert to pick a quarrel with Julien, under such circumstances I know I should have no control over him. We should discover in his soul the mark of the rebel plebian. Oh father, I entreat you on my knees, come and be present at my marriage in M. Pirard's church next Thursday. It will blunt the sting of malignant scandal and will guarantee the life's happiness of your only daughter, and of that of my husband, etc., etc." This letter threw the marquis's soul into a strange embarrassment. He must at last take a definite line. All his little habits: all his vulgar friends had lost their influence. In these strange circumstances the great lines of his character, which had been formed by the events of his youth, reassumed all their original force. The misfortunes of the emigration had made him into an imaginative man. After having enjoyed for two years an immense fortune and all the distinctions of the court, 1790 had flung him into the awful miseries of the emigration. This hard schooling had changed the character of a spirit of twenty-two. In essence, he was not so much dominated by his present riches as encamped in their midst. But that very imagination which had preserved his soul from the taint of avarice, had made him a victim of a mad passion for seeing his daughter decorated by a fine title. During the six weeks which had just elapsed, the marquis had felt at times impelled by a caprice for making Julien rich. He considered poverty mean, humiliating for himself, M. de la Mole, and impossible in his daughter's husband; he was ready to lavish money. On the next day his imagination would go off on another tack, and he would think that Julien would read between the lines of this financial generosity, change his name, exile himself to America, and write to Mathilde that he was dead for her. M. de la Mole imagined this letter written, and went so far as to follow its effect on his daughter's character. The day when he was awakened from these highly youthful dreams by Mathilde's actual letter after he had been thinking for along time of killing Julien or securing his disappearance he was dreaming of building up a brilliant position for him. He would make him take the name of one of his estates, and why should he not make him inherit a peerage? His father-in-law, M. the duke de Chaulnes, had, since the death of his own son in Spain, frequently spoken to him about his desire to transmit his title to Norbert.... "One cannot help owning that Julien has a singular aptitude for affairs, had boldness, and is possibly even brilliant," said the marquis to himself ... "but I detect at the root of his character a certain element which alarms me. He produces the same impression upon everyone, consequently there must be something real in it," and the more difficult this reality was to seize hold of, the more it alarmed the imaginative mind of the old marquis. "My daughter expressed the same point very neatly the other day (in a suppressed letter). "Julien has not joined any salon or any coterie. He has nothing to support himself against me, and has absolutely no resource if I abandon him. Now is that ignorance of the actual state of society? I have said to him two or three times, the only real and profitable candidature is the candidature of the salons. "No, he has not the adroit, cunning genius of an attorney who never loses a minute or an opportunity. He is very far from being a character like Louis XL. On the other hand, I have seen him quote the most ungenerous maxims ... it is beyond me. Can it be that he simply repeats these maxims in order to use them as a _dam_ against his passions? "However, one thing comes to the surface; he cannot bear contempt, that's my hold on him. "He has not, it is true, the religious reverence for high birth. He does not instinctively respect us.... That is wrong; but after all, the only things which are supposed to make the soul of a seminary student impatient are lack of enjoyment and lack of money. He is quite different, and cannot stand contempt at any price." Pressed as he was by his daughter's letter, M. de la Mole realised the necessity for making up his mind. "After all, the great question is this:--Did Julien's audacity go to the point of setting out to make advances to my daughter because he knows I love her more than anything else in the world, and because I have an income of a hundred thousand crowns?" Mathilde protests to the contrary.... "No, monsieur Julien, that is a point on which I am not going to be under any illusion. "Is it really a case of spontaneous and authentic love? or is it just a vulgar desire to raise himself to a fine position? Mathilde is far-seeing; she appreciated from the first that this suspicion might ruin him with me--hence that confession of hers. It was she who took upon herself to love him the first. "The idea of a girl of so proud a character so far forgetting herself as to make physical advances! To think of pressing his arm in the garden in the evening! How horrible! As though there were not a hundred other less unseemly ways of notifying him that he was the object of her favour. "_Qui s'excuse s'accuse_; I distrust Mathilde." The marquis's reasoning was more conclusive to-day than it was usually. Nevertheless, force of habit prevailed, and he resolved to gain time by writing to his daughter, for a correspondence was being carried on between one wing of the hotel and the other. M. de la Mole did not dare to discuss matters with Mathilde and to see her face to face. He was frightened of clinching the whole matter by yielding suddenly. "Mind you commit no new acts of madness; here is a commission of lieutenant of Hussars for M. the chevalier, Julien Sorel de la Vernaye. You see what I am doing for him. Do not irritate me. Do not question me. Let him leave within twenty-four hours and present himself at Strasbourg where his regiment is. Here is an order on my banker. Obey me." Mathilde's love and joy were unlimited. She wished to profit by her victory and immediately replied. "If M. de la Vernaye knew all that you are good enough to do for him, he would be overwhelmed with gratitude and be at your feet. But amidst all this generosity, my father has forgotten me; your daughter's honour is in peril. An indiscretion may produce an everlasting blot which an income of twenty thousand crowns could not put right. I will only send the commission to M. de la Vernaye if you give me your word that my marriage will be publicly celebrated at Villequier in the course of next month. Shortly after that period, which I entreat you not to prolong, your daughter will only be able to appear in public under the name of Madame de la Vernaye. How I thank you, dear papa, for having saved me from the name of Sorel, etc., etc." The reply was unexpected: "Obey or I retract everything. Tremble, you imprudent young girl. I do not yet know what your Julien is, and you yourself know less than I. Let him leave for Strasbourg, and try to act straightly. I will notify him from here of my wishes within a fortnight." Mathilde was astonished by this firm answer. _I do not know Julien_. These words threw her into a reverie which soon finished in the most fascinating suppositions; but she believed in their truth. My Julien's intellect is not clothed in the petty mean uniform of the salons, and my father refuses to believe in his superiority by reason of the very fact which proves it. All the same, if I do not obey this whim of his, I see the possibility of a public scene; a scandal would lower my position in society, and might render me less fascinating in Julien's eyes. After the scandal ... ten years of poverty; and the only thing which can prevent marrying for merit becoming ridiculous is the most brilliant wealth. If I live far away from my father, he is old and may forget me.... Norbert will marry some clever, charming woman; old Louis XIV. was seduced by the duchess of Burgundy. She decided to obey, but refrained from communicating her father's letter to Julien. It might perhaps have been that ferocious character driven to some act of madness. Julien's joy was unlimited when she informed him in the evening that he was a lieutenant of Hussars. Its extent can be imagined from the fact that this had constituted the ambition of his whole life, and also from the passion which he now had for his son. The change of name struck him with astonishment. "After all," he thought, "I have got to the end of my romance, and I deserve all the credit. I have managed to win the love of that monster of pride," he added, looking at Mathilde. "Her father cannot live without her, nor she without me."

https://web.archive.org/web/20210301223854/https://www.sparknotes.com/lit/redblack/section8/

Julien tries to divert his attention from Mathilde. He goes on a secret mission for the Marquis to help organize a conservative conspiracy that will strengthen the political power of the clergy in France. The Marquis, along with some of the most powerful men in France, wants to organize an army controlled by the Vatican. Julien's excellent powers of memorization impress the Marquis and his associates, so they send him around France to deliver their message to co- conspirators. Nevertheless, a group of conservative priests finds out about the conspiracy, forcing Julien to disguise himself as a soldier. Upon his return to Paris, Julien decides to make Mathilde jealous. He begins writing copied love letters to an extremely religious member of the Marquis's salon, Mme. de Fervaques. Julien knows that she is too pious to even understand his fake declarations of love, and is just using her attention to upset Mathilde. He is still very much in love with Mathilde. For the two months that he forces himself to avoid her, he is miserable. During this period, Julien becomes an expert dresser and even manages to make Mme. de Fervaques begin to like him. Mathilde cannot help but notice Julien's surge in popularity, and blushes whenever they are in the same room. Julien's ploy to make Mathilde jealous works perfectly. She finds out about the letters to Mme. de Fervaques and falls at Julien's feet proclaiming her undying love. Julien is madly in love with her too, but has learned how volatile Mathilde's emotions can be. He decides to say little and do little until he has guarantees from Mathilde that she will not change her mind. Julien now knows how to manipulate Mathilde's emotions, and succeeds in making her completely devoted to him. They resume their relationship, but Julien is careful not too show too much emotion in order to keep Mathilde interested in him. However, she soon finds out that she is pregnant and wants Julien to become her husband. Mathilde immediately confesses everything to her father, blaming herself for seducing Julien in the first place. The Marquis is enraged but will not have Julien killed. He cannot imagine his daughter having the last name Sorel, and tries to think of some way to get rid of Julien. Instead, after a month of negotiations and the help of M. Pirard, the Marquis both gives Julien a large income and ennobles him as Julien de La Vernaye. Julien is also made a lieutenant in the army. Having made Julien a man of rank and wealth, the Marquis finally consents to Julien's marriage to Mathilde.

Commentary Julien's hypocrisy finally comes full circle as he finds himself working as an agent for a conservative conspiracy. Stendhal uses this political interlude to separate Julien and Mathilde as well as mock both liberal and conservative politics. Writing immediately following the bourgeois liberal Revolution of 1830, Stendhal replaces the liberal conspiracy with a conservative one, cynically suggesting that the two parties are really interchangeable. He further ridicules conservative politics when he introduces a second conservative conspiracy that attempts to thwart the first plot. Revealingly, nothing Julien does on his mission matters or has any effect. Just like during the king's visit to Verrieres, Julien switches from the black clothes of the clergy to the red uniform of a soldier to avoid being recognized. Like liberal and conservative politics, the red and the black are really not that different from each other. Stendhal suggests that, like Julien's forgotten conspiracy, French politics are more comedy than drama. Julien finally masters the psychological power of triangular desire in this section. The first part of his affair with Mathilde is hampered by her inability to decide whether she loves him or not. She especially cannot forget Julien's humble social status. However, Julien soon figures out that jealousy is the best way to win her devotion. Forming a love triangle with Mme. de Fervaques as an intermediary, he succeeds in making Mathilde completely fall in love with him and give him assurances of her devotion. Yet Julien is careful not to immediately declare his own love, making sure that he keeps Mathilde dependent on him and not the other way around. More so than ever, he evokes the example of Napoleon and treats her like an enemy on a battlefield that must be intimidated. Stendhal notes that Mathilde is pregnant in a very brief sentence that does not fit well with the surrounding text. Did Julien get her pregnant on purpose to further his ambitions? Stendhal's reticence on this subject does seem to suggest some intent on Julien's part, but Julien is very shocked that Mathilde wants to tell her father. The Marquis's choices in this matter are clear: he must either have Julien killed or ennoble him. Julien still feels a deep obligation to the Marquis and offers to commit suicide, a declaration that makes Mathilde love him even more. Her ensuing argument with her father raises an interesting question regarding Julien's character. Neither of them feels that they know him very well. Indeed, Julien himself does not seem to know who he really is and what he really wants in life. Both Mathilde and the Marquis feel that Julien's political ambitions present a danger to the aristocracy and decide that the best way to engender his trust is to make him one of them; he could otherwise prove to be a revolutionary leader. Julien's lack of identity is thus molded into the title of de la Vernaye. Even though she is in love with Julien, Mathilde can not get over his low birth, and thus spreads a rumor that he is the illegitimate son of a nobleman. But his new title and army commission are the realization of Julien's dreams only in name: he has been acting like an aristocrat and a soldier since the beginning of the novel.

shmoop

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The Prince.chapter 2

chapter 2

{"name": "Chapter 2", "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20210420060055/https://www.shmoop.com/study-guides/literature/prince-machiavelli/summary/chapter-2", "summary": "This book is not about republics. It's about monarchies--how to get 'em and how to keep 'em. So remember those old monarchies, the ones where the kids become the new ruler? Those are a piece of cake to rule. Unless you are a total idiot, you can't mess up this sweet deal. Even if other people invade, you'll probably get your power back once they have any kind of trouble because the people love you. Come on, they watched you in your royal, diamond-studded diapers--how could they not? Dynasties are pretty chill, but upheavals? That's another story.", "analysis": ""}

I will leave out all discussion on republics, inasmuch as in another place I have written of them at length, and will address myself only to principalities. In doing so I will keep to the order indicated above, and discuss how such principalities are to be ruled and preserved. I say at once there are fewer difficulties in holding hereditary states, and those long accustomed to the family of their prince, than new ones; for it is sufficient only not to transgress the customs of his ancestors, and to deal prudently with circumstances as they arise, for a prince of average powers to maintain himself in his state, unless he be deprived of it by some extraordinary and excessive force; and if he should be so deprived of it, whenever anything sinister happens to the usurper, he will regain it. We have in Italy, for example, the Duke of Ferrara, who could not have withstood the attacks of the Venetians in '84, nor those of Pope Julius in '10, unless he had been long established in his dominions. For the hereditary prince has less cause and less necessity to offend; hence it happens that he will be more loved; and unless extraordinary vices cause him to be hated, it is reasonable to expect that his subjects will be naturally well disposed towards him; and in the antiquity and duration of his rule the memories and motives that make for change are lost, for one change always leaves the toothing for another.

Chapter 2

https://web.archive.org/web/20210420060055/https://www.shmoop.com/study-guides/literature/prince-machiavelli/summary/chapter-2

This book is not about republics. It's about monarchies--how to get 'em and how to keep 'em. So remember those old monarchies, the ones where the kids become the new ruler? Those are a piece of cake to rule. Unless you are a total idiot, you can't mess up this sweet deal. Even if other people invade, you'll probably get your power back once they have any kind of trouble because the people love you. Come on, they watched you in your royal, diamond-studded diapers--how could they not? Dynasties are pretty chill, but upheavals? That's another story.

cliffnotes

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Lord Jim.chapter 3

chapter 3

{"name": "Chapter 3", "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20201219145744/https://www.cliffsnotes.com/literature/l/lord-jim/summary-and-analysis/chapter-3", "summary": "The stillness of the night and the serenity of the stars seemed to shed an assurance of everlasting security, and the Patna, moving smoothly and routinely across the Arabian Sea, seemed to be a perfect part of a safe universe. On deck, Jim paced during his night watch. As usual, he was dreaming, his imagination lulled by romantic visions of courageous deeds and bold action. He had a full and wonderful sense of self-confidence. Minutes before he was relieved, he saw the pig-like outline of the skipper come up on deck; he was repulsed by the man's disgustingly naked belly, glistening and obscene with greasy sweat. The second engineer also came up, and he began to argue drunkenly with the skipper. Then suddenly, everything changed. The gesturing engineer, descending below the deck, lurched violently and pitched head-down, cursing loudly. Jim and the skipper staggered forward. Distant thunder rumbled, then there was silence. The ship quivered, then regained its slow, peaceful progress.", "analysis": "This chapter devotes itself to presenting a repulsive picture of Jim's captain and fellow officers. The captain, the chief engineer, and the second engineer are all described in derogatory terms in order to foreshadow their despicable, disreputable, horrible immoral actions -- that is, the desertion of the 800 Moslem pilgrims to certain death. For example, the immoral nature of the captain is first expressed in his physical description -- \"There was something obscene in . . . his naked flesh . . . odious and fleshly figure . . . fixed itself in his memory as the incarnation of everything vile and base that lurked in the world we love.\" In addition to the captain's obesity is the drunkenness of the second engineer. Against these people, Jim and his romantic purity and ideals stand in sharp relief. And yet in the crucial moment, as we later learn, Jim \"Jumps\" along with these immoral derelicts. Later in the novel, and especially at the end of Chapter 3, note Conrad's technique of impressionistically suggesting that \"something\" has happened. Conrad, however, will not reveal fully \"the jump\" until quite later. In fact, the reader should try to determine at what point in this novel it becomes perfectly clear that Jim did indeed \"Jump\" and abandon the Patna and the Moslem pilgrims."}

A marvellous stillness pervaded the world, and the stars, together with the serenity of their rays, seemed to shed upon the earth the assurance of everlasting security. The young moon recurved, and shining low in the west, was like a slender shaving thrown up from a bar of gold, and the Arabian Sea, smooth and cool to the eye like a sheet of ice, extended its perfect level to the perfect circle of a dark horizon. The propeller turned without a check, as though its beat had been part of the scheme of a safe universe; and on each side of the Patna two deep folds of water, permanent and sombre on the unwrinkled shimmer, enclosed within their straight and diverging ridges a few white swirls of foam bursting in a low hiss, a few wavelets, a few ripples, a few undulations that, left behind, agitated the surface of the sea for an instant after the passage of the ship, subsided splashing gently, calmed down at last into the circular stillness of water and sky with the black speck of the moving hull remaining everlastingly in its centre. Jim on the bridge was penetrated by the great certitude of unbounded safety and peace that could be read on the silent aspect of nature like the certitude of fostering love upon the placid tenderness of a mother's face. Below the roof of awnings, surrendered to the wisdom of white men and to their courage, trusting the power of their unbelief and the iron shell of their fire-ship, the pilgrims of an exacting faith slept on mats, on blankets, on bare planks, on every deck, in all the dark corners, wrapped in dyed cloths, muffled in soiled rags, with their heads resting on small bundles, with their faces pressed to bent forearms: the men, the women, the children; the old with the young, the decrepit with the lusty--all equal before sleep, death's brother. A draught of air, fanned from forward by the speed of the ship, passed steadily through the long gloom between the high bulwarks, swept over the rows of prone bodies; a few dim flames in globe-lamps were hung short here and there under the ridge-poles, and in the blurred circles of light thrown down and trembling slightly to the unceasing vibration of the ship appeared a chin upturned, two closed eyelids, a dark hand with silver rings, a meagre limb draped in a torn covering, a head bent back, a naked foot, a throat bared and stretched as if offering itself to the knife. The well-to-do had made for their families shelters with heavy boxes and dusty mats; the poor reposed side by side with all they had on earth tied up in a rag under their heads; the lone old men slept, with drawn-up legs, upon their prayer-carpets, with their hands over their ears and one elbow on each side of the face; a father, his shoulders up and his knees under his forehead, dozed dejectedly by a boy who slept on his back with tousled hair and one arm commandingly extended; a woman covered from head to foot, like a corpse, with a piece of white sheeting, had a naked child in the hollow of each arm; the Arab's belongings, piled right aft, made a heavy mound of broken outlines, with a cargo-lamp swung above, and a great confusion of vague forms behind: gleams of paunchy brass pots, the foot-rest of a deck-chair, blades of spears, the straight scabbard of an old sword leaning against a heap of pillows, the spout of a tin coffee-pot. The patent log on the taffrail periodically rang a single tinkling stroke for every mile traversed on an errand of faith. Above the mass of sleepers a faint and patient sigh at times floated, the exhalation of a troubled dream; and short metallic clangs bursting out suddenly in the depths of the ship, the harsh scrape of a shovel, the violent slam of a furnace-door, exploded brutally, as if the men handling the mysterious things below had their breasts full of fierce anger: while the slim high hull of the steamer went on evenly ahead, without a sway of her bare masts, cleaving continuously the great calm of the waters under the inaccessible serenity of the sky. Jim paced athwart, and his footsteps in the vast silence were loud to his own ears, as if echoed by the watchful stars: his eyes, roaming about the line of the horizon, seemed to gaze hungrily into the unattainable, and did not see the shadow of the coming event. The only shadow on the sea was the shadow of the black smoke pouring heavily from the funnel its immense streamer, whose end was constantly dissolving in the air. Two Malays, silent and almost motionless, steered, one on each side of the wheel, whose brass rim shone fragmentarily in the oval of light thrown out by the binnacle. Now and then a hand, with black fingers alternately letting go and catching hold of revolving spokes, appeared in the illumined part; the links of wheel-chains ground heavily in the grooves of the barrel. Jim would glance at the compass, would glance around the unattainable horizon, would stretch himself till his joints cracked, with a leisurely twist of the body, in the very excess of well-being; and, as if made audacious by the invincible aspect of the peace, he felt he cared for nothing that could happen to him to the end of his days. From time to time he glanced idly at a chart pegged out with four drawing-pins on a low three-legged table abaft the steering-gear case. The sheet of paper portraying the depths of the sea presented a shiny surface under the light of a bull's-eye lamp lashed to a stanchion, a surface as level and smooth as the glimmering surface of the waters. Parallel rulers with a pair of dividers reposed on it; the ship's position at last noon was marked with a small black cross, and the straight pencil-line drawn firmly as far as Perim figured the course of the ship--the path of souls towards the holy place, the promise of salvation, the reward of eternal life--while the pencil with its sharp end touching the Somali coast lay round and still like a naked ship's spar floating in the pool of a sheltered dock. 'How steady she goes,' thought Jim with wonder, with something like gratitude for this high peace of sea and sky. At such times his thoughts would be full of valorous deeds: he loved these dreams and the success of his imaginary achievements. They were the best parts of life, its secret truth, its hidden reality. They had a gorgeous virility, the charm of vagueness, they passed before him with an heroic tread; they carried his soul away with them and made it drunk with the divine philtre of an unbounded confidence in itself. There was nothing he could not face. He was so pleased with the idea that he smiled, keeping perfunctorily his eyes ahead; and when he happened to glance back he saw the white streak of the wake drawn as straight by the ship's keel upon the sea as the black line drawn by the pencil upon the chart. The ash-buckets racketed, clanking up and down the stoke-hold ventilators, and this tin-pot clatter warned him the end of his watch was near. He sighed with content, with regret as well at having to part from that serenity which fostered the adventurous freedom of his thoughts. He was a little sleepy too, and felt a pleasurable languor running through every limb as though all the blood in his body had turned to warm milk. His skipper had come up noiselessly, in pyjamas and with his sleeping-jacket flung wide open. Red of face, only half awake, the left eye partly closed, the right staring stupid and glassy, he hung his big head over the chart and scratched his ribs sleepily. There was something obscene in the sight of his naked flesh. His bared breast glistened soft and greasy as though he had sweated out his fat in his sleep. He pronounced a professional remark in a voice harsh and dead, resembling the rasping sound of a wood-file on the edge of a plank; the fold of his double chin hung like a bag triced up close under the hinge of his jaw. Jim started, and his answer was full of deference; but the odious and fleshy figure, as though seen for the first time in a revealing moment, fixed itself in his memory for ever as the incarnation of everything vile and base that lurks in the world we love: in our own hearts we trust for our salvation, in the men that surround us, in the sights that fill our eyes, in the sounds that fill our ears, and in the air that fills our lungs. The thin gold shaving of the moon floating slowly downwards had lost itself on the darkened surface of the waters, and the eternity beyond the sky seemed to come down nearer to the earth, with the augmented glitter of the stars, with the more profound sombreness in the lustre of the half-transparent dome covering the flat disc of an opaque sea. The ship moved so smoothly that her onward motion was imperceptible to the senses of men, as though she had been a crowded planet speeding through the dark spaces of ether behind the swarm of suns, in the appalling and calm solitudes awaiting the breath of future creations. 'Hot is no name for it down below,' said a voice. Jim smiled without looking round. The skipper presented an unmoved breadth of back: it was the renegade's trick to appear pointedly unaware of your existence unless it suited his purpose to turn at you with a devouring glare before he let loose a torrent of foamy, abusive jargon that came like a gush from a sewer. Now he emitted only a sulky grunt; the second engineer at the head of the bridge-ladder, kneading with damp palms a dirty sweat-rag, unabashed, continued the tale of his complaints. The sailors had a good time of it up here, and what was the use of them in the world he would be blowed if he could see. The poor devils of engineers had to get the ship along anyhow, and they could very well do the rest too; by gosh they--'Shut up!' growled the German stolidly. 'Oh yes! Shut up--and when anything goes wrong you fly to us, don't you?' went on the other. He was more than half cooked, he expected; but anyway, now, he did not mind how much he sinned, because these last three days he had passed through a fine course of training for the place where the bad boys go when they die--b'gosh, he had--besides being made jolly well deaf by the blasted racket below. The durned, compound, surface-condensing, rotten scrap-heap rattled and banged down there like an old deck-winch, only more so; and what made him risk his life every night and day that God made amongst the refuse of a breaking-up yard flying round at fifty-seven revolutions, was more than _he_ could tell. He must have been born reckless, b'gosh. He . . . 'Where did you get drink?' inquired the German, very savage; but motionless in the light of the binnacle, like a clumsy effigy of a man cut out of a block of fat. Jim went on smiling at the retreating horizon; his heart was full of generous impulses, and his thought was contemplating his own superiority. 'Drink!' repeated the engineer with amiable scorn: he was hanging on with both hands to the rail, a shadowy figure with flexible legs. 'Not from you, captain. You're far too mean, b'gosh. You would let a good man die sooner than give him a drop of schnapps. That's what you Germans call economy. Penny wise, pound foolish.' He became sentimental. The chief had given him a four-finger nip about ten o'clock--'only one, s'elp me!'--good old chief; but as to getting the old fraud out of his bunk--a five-ton crane couldn't do it. Not it. Not to-night anyhow. He was sleeping sweetly like a little child, with a bottle of prime brandy under his pillow. From the thick throat of the commander of the Patna came a low rumble, on which the sound of the word schwein fluttered high and low like a capricious feather in a faint stir of air. He and the chief engineer had been cronies for a good few years--serving the same jovial, crafty, old Chinaman, with horn-rimmed goggles and strings of red silk plaited into the venerable grey hairs of his pigtail. The quay-side opinion in the Patna's home-port was that these two in the way of brazen peculation 'had done together pretty well everything you can think of.' Outwardly they were badly matched: one dull-eyed, malevolent, and of soft fleshy curves; the other lean, all hollows, with a head long and bony like the head of an old horse, with sunken cheeks, with sunken temples, with an indifferent glazed glance of sunken eyes. He had been stranded out East somewhere--in Canton, in Shanghai, or perhaps in Yokohama; he probably did not care to remember himself the exact locality, nor yet the cause of his shipwreck. He had been, in mercy to his youth, kicked quietly out of his ship twenty years ago or more, and it might have been so much worse for him that the memory of the episode had in it hardly a trace of misfortune. Then, steam navigation expanding in these seas and men of his craft being scarce at first, he had 'got on' after a sort. He was eager to let strangers know in a dismal mumble that he was 'an old stager out here.' When he moved, a skeleton seemed to sway loose in his clothes; his walk was mere wandering, and he was given to wander thus around the engine-room skylight, smoking, without relish, doctored tobacco in a brass bowl at the end of a cherrywood stem four feet long, with the imbecile gravity of a thinker evolving a system of philosophy from the hazy glimpse of a truth. He was usually anything but free with his private store of liquor; but on that night he had departed from his principles, so that his second, a weak-headed child of Wapping, what with the unexpectedness of the treat and the strength of the stuff, had become very happy, cheeky, and talkative. The fury of the New South Wales German was extreme; he puffed like an exhaust-pipe, and Jim, faintly amused by the scene, was impatient for the time when he could get below: the last ten minutes of the watch were irritating like a gun that hangs fire; those men did not belong to the world of heroic adventure; they weren't bad chaps though. Even the skipper himself . . . His gorge rose at the mass of panting flesh from which issued gurgling mutters, a cloudy trickle of filthy expressions; but he was too pleasurably languid to dislike actively this or any other thing. The quality of these men did not matter; he rubbed shoulders with them, but they could not touch him; he shared the air they breathed, but he was different. . . . Would the skipper go for the engineer? . . . The life was easy and he was too sure of himself--too sure of himself to . . . The line dividing his meditation from a surreptitious doze on his feet was thinner than a thread in a spider's web. The second engineer was coming by easy transitions to the consideration of his finances and of his courage. 'Who's drunk? I? No, no, captain! That won't do. You ought to know by this time the chief ain't free-hearted enough to make a sparrow drunk, b'gosh. I've never been the worse for liquor in my life; the stuff ain't made yet that would make _me_ drunk. I could drink liquid fire against your whisky peg for peg, b'gosh, and keep as cool as a cucumber. If I thought I was drunk I would jump overboard--do away with myself, b'gosh. I would! Straight! And I won't go off the bridge. Where do you expect me to take the air on a night like this, eh? On deck amongst that vermin down there? Likely--ain't it! And I am not afraid of anything you can do.' The German lifted two heavy fists to heaven and shook them a little without a word. 'I don't know what fear is,' pursued the engineer, with the enthusiasm of sincere conviction. 'I am not afraid of doing all the bloomin' work in this rotten hooker, b'gosh! And a jolly good thing for you that there are some of us about the world that aren't afraid of their lives, or where would you be--you and this old thing here with her plates like brown paper--brown paper, s'elp me? It's all very fine for you--you get a power of pieces out of her one way and another; but what about me--what do I get? A measly hundred and fifty dollars a month and find yourself. I wish to ask you respectfully--respectfully, mind--who wouldn't chuck a dratted job like this? 'Tain't safe, s'elp me, it ain't! Only I am one of them fearless fellows . . .' He let go the rail and made ample gestures as if demonstrating in the air the shape and extent of his valour; his thin voice darted in prolonged squeaks upon the sea, he tiptoed back and forth for the better emphasis of utterance, and suddenly pitched down head-first as though he had been clubbed from behind. He said 'Damn!' as he tumbled; an instant of silence followed upon his screeching: Jim and the skipper staggered forward by common accord, and catching themselves up, stood very stiff and still gazing, amazed, at the undisturbed level of the sea. Then they looked upwards at the stars. What had happened? The wheezy thump of the engines went on. Had the earth been checked in her course? They could not understand; and suddenly the calm sea, the sky without a cloud, appeared formidably insecure in their immobility, as if poised on the brow of yawning destruction. The engineer rebounded vertically full length and collapsed again into a vague heap. This heap said 'What's that?' in the muffled accents of profound grief. A faint noise as of thunder, of thunder infinitely remote, less than a sound, hardly more than a vibration, passed slowly, and the ship quivered in response, as if the thunder had growled deep down in the water. The eyes of the two Malays at the wheel glittered towards the white men, but their dark hands remained closed on the spokes. The sharp hull driving on its way seemed to rise a few inches in succession through its whole length, as though it had become pliable, and settled down again rigidly to its work of cleaving the smooth surface of the sea. Its quivering stopped, and the faint noise of thunder ceased all at once, as though the ship had steamed across a narrow belt of vibrating water and of humming air.

Chapter 3

https://web.archive.org/web/20201219145744/https://www.cliffsnotes.com/literature/l/lord-jim/summary-and-analysis/chapter-3

The stillness of the night and the serenity of the stars seemed to shed an assurance of everlasting security, and the Patna, moving smoothly and routinely across the Arabian Sea, seemed to be a perfect part of a safe universe. On deck, Jim paced during his night watch. As usual, he was dreaming, his imagination lulled by romantic visions of courageous deeds and bold action. He had a full and wonderful sense of self-confidence. Minutes before he was relieved, he saw the pig-like outline of the skipper come up on deck; he was repulsed by the man's disgustingly naked belly, glistening and obscene with greasy sweat. The second engineer also came up, and he began to argue drunkenly with the skipper. Then suddenly, everything changed. The gesturing engineer, descending below the deck, lurched violently and pitched head-down, cursing loudly. Jim and the skipper staggered forward. Distant thunder rumbled, then there was silence. The ship quivered, then regained its slow, peaceful progress.

This chapter devotes itself to presenting a repulsive picture of Jim's captain and fellow officers. The captain, the chief engineer, and the second engineer are all described in derogatory terms in order to foreshadow their despicable, disreputable, horrible immoral actions -- that is, the desertion of the 800 Moslem pilgrims to certain death. For example, the immoral nature of the captain is first expressed in his physical description -- "There was something obscene in . . . his naked flesh . . . odious and fleshly figure . . . fixed itself in his memory as the incarnation of everything vile and base that lurked in the world we love." In addition to the captain's obesity is the drunkenness of the second engineer. Against these people, Jim and his romantic purity and ideals stand in sharp relief. And yet in the crucial moment, as we later learn, Jim "Jumps" along with these immoral derelicts. Later in the novel, and especially at the end of Chapter 3, note Conrad's technique of impressionistically suggesting that "something" has happened. Conrad, however, will not reveal fully "the jump" until quite later. In fact, the reader should try to determine at what point in this novel it becomes perfectly clear that Jim did indeed "Jump" and abandon the Patna and the Moslem pilgrims.

cliffnotes

all_chapterized_books/5658-chapters/08.txt

finished_summaries/cliffnotes/Lord Jim/section_7_part_0.txt

Lord Jim.chapter 8

chapter 8

{"name": "Chapter 8", "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20201219145744/https://www.cliffsnotes.com/literature/l/lord-jim/summary-and-analysis/chapter-8", "summary": "Marlow now recounts more of what Jim told him. On that fateful night, Jim could recall that he was running along the deck, stepping with difficulty over the sleeping Moslems. One man asked for water, and Jim hit him, then thrust his own water bottle at him. Later, on the bridge, Jim again felt alone and doomed. He stood frozen, unable to decide what action to take. He was not afraid to die, but he was paralyzed by the possibility of his dying anonymously among hundreds of screaming natives, disappearing forever beneath the exploding ship. Marlow admits that had he been aboard ship, he probably would not have \"given a counterfeit farthing\" for the possibility that the Patna would not sink. Then he recalls that as he was listening to Jim, he realized that Jim was not speaking to him as a person, but as a symbol -- someone who would justify what Jim had done, as though Marlow were \"an inseparable partner . . . another possessor of his soul.\" For Marlow, this was additional proof that Jim was \"one of us.\" Marlow reminded Jim that a man couldn't continually \"be prepared\" for any and all preconceived emergencies. It was the unexpected which always happened, Marlow told him, never what one expected to happen. Jim scoffed and began to sulk. The Patna, his fellow officers, and even the sea had tricked him. It had all been a cruel, unfair, and tragic joke. Then Jim returned to the events that happened the night he deserted the Patna. One of the officers, he said, pleaded with him to help free a lifeboat, but he refused, and later he slugged the officer. Then the officer shouted out that Jim was a coward. Remembering that moment, Jim laughed with such a savage bitterness that the hotel guests stopped talking and turned to look at Jim in bewilderment.", "analysis": "Chapter 8 continues in an indirect manner, further unraveling the mysterious catastrophe connected with the Patna. Conrad, through Marlow, continues to approach the incident indirectly . For example, instead of attacking the narrative directly, he gives us the reactions of the various members of the crew. He examines Jim first because as first mate, Jim has all of the lifeboats ready for use in spite of the fact that there are not enough to save even half of the pilgrims. Then we see Jim panicking when one of the pilgrims asks for some drinking water for his sick child; Jim interprets the request as a threat and reacts with hostility. Further panicking is seen when Jim feels a \"heavy blow on shoulder\" only to discover that it is the second engineer, and the captain himself charges against Jim until he realizes that it is actually Jim. Then Jim hears the captain say that he is going to \"clear out\" -- a horribly shocking statement. Throughout this narration, Conrad is conveying the confusion and horror of the situation which creates the panic and confusion, causing Jim to jump without ever really knowing why he jumped. Again in this chapter, Marlow and the reader are reinvolved in the mystery when Jim once again cries out: \"You think me a cur for standing there, but what would you have done? What! You can't tell nobody can tell.\" And then in the very next paragraph, Marlow reinforces this idea and again repeats it: \"The occasion was obscure, insignificant -- what you will: a lost youngster, one of a million -- but then he was one of us,\" and thus each of us might have done exactly as Jim did. Later in the novel, Stein will categorize Jim as being an extreme romantic. Here in this chapter, Conrad is already preparing us for this scene as he emphasizes Jim's simplicity and his innocence -- two qualities most often associated with the romantic. It is Jim's innocence which makes it so hard for him to deal with the deviousness of the other members of the crew, especially when the first engineer attacks Jim and then cries out: \"Won't you save your own life -- you infernal coward?\" Jim cannot react to this except to laugh bitterly over the irony of it, especially now that he has been internationally branded as a coward because he did save his life by jumping. Even though the reader is still not informed precisely as to the true nature of the Patna episode, this chapter does provide a final clue: \"And still she floated! These sleeping pilgrims were destined to accomplish their whole pilgrimage to the bitterness of some other end.\" By now there should be enough clues for the reader to form a very definite view -- that the crew, thinking that the ship would sink, abandoned the ship and yet the ship miraculously did not sink."}

'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.'

Chapter 8

https://web.archive.org/web/20201219145744/https://www.cliffsnotes.com/literature/l/lord-jim/summary-and-analysis/chapter-8

Marlow now recounts more of what Jim told him. On that fateful night, Jim could recall that he was running along the deck, stepping with difficulty over the sleeping Moslems. One man asked for water, and Jim hit him, then thrust his own water bottle at him. Later, on the bridge, Jim again felt alone and doomed. He stood frozen, unable to decide what action to take. He was not afraid to die, but he was paralyzed by the possibility of his dying anonymously among hundreds of screaming natives, disappearing forever beneath the exploding ship. Marlow admits that had he been aboard ship, he probably would not have "given a counterfeit farthing" for the possibility that the Patna would not sink. Then he recalls that as he was listening to Jim, he realized that Jim was not speaking to him as a person, but as a symbol -- someone who would justify what Jim had done, as though Marlow were "an inseparable partner . . . another possessor of his soul." For Marlow, this was additional proof that Jim was "one of us." Marlow reminded Jim that a man couldn't continually "be prepared" for any and all preconceived emergencies. It was the unexpected which always happened, Marlow told him, never what one expected to happen. Jim scoffed and began to sulk. The Patna, his fellow officers, and even the sea had tricked him. It had all been a cruel, unfair, and tragic joke. Then Jim returned to the events that happened the night he deserted the Patna. One of the officers, he said, pleaded with him to help free a lifeboat, but he refused, and later he slugged the officer. Then the officer shouted out that Jim was a coward. Remembering that moment, Jim laughed with such a savage bitterness that the hotel guests stopped talking and turned to look at Jim in bewilderment.

Chapter 8 continues in an indirect manner, further unraveling the mysterious catastrophe connected with the Patna. Conrad, through Marlow, continues to approach the incident indirectly . For example, instead of attacking the narrative directly, he gives us the reactions of the various members of the crew. He examines Jim first because as first mate, Jim has all of the lifeboats ready for use in spite of the fact that there are not enough to save even half of the pilgrims. Then we see Jim panicking when one of the pilgrims asks for some drinking water for his sick child; Jim interprets the request as a threat and reacts with hostility. Further panicking is seen when Jim feels a "heavy blow on shoulder" only to discover that it is the second engineer, and the captain himself charges against Jim until he realizes that it is actually Jim. Then Jim hears the captain say that he is going to "clear out" -- a horribly shocking statement. Throughout this narration, Conrad is conveying the confusion and horror of the situation which creates the panic and confusion, causing Jim to jump without ever really knowing why he jumped. Again in this chapter, Marlow and the reader are reinvolved in the mystery when Jim once again cries out: "You think me a cur for standing there, but what would you have done? What! You can't tell nobody can tell." And then in the very next paragraph, Marlow reinforces this idea and again repeats it: "The occasion was obscure, insignificant -- what you will: a lost youngster, one of a million -- but then he was one of us," and thus each of us might have done exactly as Jim did. Later in the novel, Stein will categorize Jim as being an extreme romantic. Here in this chapter, Conrad is already preparing us for this scene as he emphasizes Jim's simplicity and his innocence -- two qualities most often associated with the romantic. It is Jim's innocence which makes it so hard for him to deal with the deviousness of the other members of the crew, especially when the first engineer attacks Jim and then cries out: "Won't you save your own life -- you infernal coward?" Jim cannot react to this except to laugh bitterly over the irony of it, especially now that he has been internationally branded as a coward because he did save his life by jumping. Even though the reader is still not informed precisely as to the true nature of the Patna episode, this chapter does provide a final clue: "And still she floated! These sleeping pilgrims were destined to accomplish their whole pilgrimage to the bitterness of some other end." By now there should be enough clues for the reader to form a very definite view -- that the crew, thinking that the ship would sink, abandoned the ship and yet the ship miraculously did not sink.

shmoop

all_chapterized_books/174-chapters/09.txt

finished_summaries/shmoop/The Picture of Dorian Gray/section_8_part_0.txt

The Picture of Dorian Gray.chapter 9

chapter 9

{"name": "Chapter 9", "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20210304030722/https://www.shmoop.com/study-guides/literature/picture-dorian-gray/summary/chapter-9", "summary": "The next morning, a distraught Basil Hallward shows up at Dorian's pad. He feels awful about Sibyl--he read about her death in the newspaper, and has come to comfort his friend. He assumes that Dorian is heartbroken, and wants to know if he went to visit Sibyl's mother. Dorian's heart is in one piece. He basically brushes off Basil's concern, and starts talking about the grand time he had at the Opera with Henry last night. Basil is shocked and horrified--how can Dorian prattle on unsympathetically while Sibyl lies dead? Dorian orders Basil to stop bringing up the past . Saddened, Basil says that this change in Dorian is all Lord Henry's fault, and that he wants the old Dorian back. Dorian tries to explain his reasoning to Basil; he goes through the argument that Sibyl's suicide was a great romantic act, and, while he can appreciate it aesthetically, he's pretty much over it. He reminds Basil that he's developed a lot since they first met, and asks that they remain friends. Basil rather sadly promises never to bring Sibyl up again, as long as Dorian's name isn't tangled up in the investigation of her death. Dorian assures him that he's in the clear. Dorian asks Basil to do up a sketch of Sibyl so he can have something to remember her by. Thinking of his work, Basil asks Dorian to come sit for him again--he refuses. Miffed, Basil asks if Dorian didn't like the portrait. This is not the right question. Dorian kind of freaks out, and makes Basil promise that he'll never look at the painting again. Basil protests, saying that he changed his mind and wants to exhibit the portrait after all; it is his best work, and he'd like to show it off. Dorian freaks out again, and asks why Basil why he didn't want to show it in the first place. Basil claims that there's something mysterious about the portrait, and we wonder for a second if knows the link it has with Dorian's soul. He then admits that he didn't want to exhibit it because he totally worshipped Dorian, and felt like his idolatry showed through somehow in the picture. Dorian is off the hook--Basil doesn't know. Still, he refuses to show the artist his work ever again. Dorian refuses again to sit for another painting, and Basil leaves in a bit of a mood. Something has changed between the two friends--and it's not good. When Basil's gone, Dorian immediately rings for his servant to remove the portrait.", "analysis": ""}

As he was sitting at breakfast next morning, Basil Hallward was shown into the room. "I am so glad I have found you, Dorian," he said gravely. "I called last night, and they told me you were at the opera. Of course, I knew that was impossible. But I wish you had left word where you had really gone to. I passed a dreadful evening, half afraid that one tragedy might be followed by another. I think you might have telegraphed for me when you heard of it first. I read of it quite by chance in a late edition of _The Globe_ that I picked up at the club. I came here at once and was miserable at not finding you. I can't tell you how heart-broken I am about the whole thing. I know what you must suffer. But where were you? Did you go down and see the girl's mother? For a moment I thought of following you there. They gave the address in the paper. Somewhere in the Euston Road, isn't it? But I was afraid of intruding upon a sorrow that I could not lighten. Poor woman! What a state she must be in! And her only child, too! What did she say about it all?" "My dear Basil, how do I know?" murmured Dorian Gray, sipping some pale-yellow wine from a delicate, gold-beaded bubble of Venetian glass and looking dreadfully bored. "I was at the opera. You should have come on there. I met Lady Gwendolen, Harry's sister, for the first time. We were in her box. She is perfectly charming; and Patti sang divinely. Don't talk about horrid subjects. If one doesn't talk about a thing, it has never happened. It is simply expression, as Harry says, that gives reality to things. I may mention that she was not the woman's only child. There is a son, a charming fellow, I believe. But he is not on the stage. He is a sailor, or something. And now, tell me about yourself and what you are painting." "You went to the opera?" said Hallward, speaking very slowly and with a strained touch of pain in his voice. "You went to the opera while Sibyl Vane was lying dead in some sordid lodging? You can talk to me of other women being charming, and of Patti singing divinely, before the girl you loved has even the quiet of a grave to sleep in? Why, man, there are horrors in store for that little white body of hers!" "Stop, Basil! I won't hear it!" cried Dorian, leaping to his feet. "You must not tell me about things. What is done is done. What is past is past." "You call yesterday the past?" "What has the actual lapse of time got to do with it? It is only shallow people who require years to get rid of an emotion. A man who is master of himself can end a sorrow as easily as he can invent a pleasure. I don't want to be at the mercy of my emotions. I want to use them, to enjoy them, and to dominate them." "Dorian, this is horrible! Something has changed you completely. You look exactly the same wonderful boy who, day after day, used to come down to my studio to sit for his picture. But you were simple, natural, and affectionate then. You were the most unspoiled creature in the whole world. Now, I don't know what has come over you. You talk as if you had no heart, no pity in you. It is all Harry's influence. I see that." The lad flushed up and, going to the window, looked out for a few moments on the green, flickering, sun-lashed garden. "I owe a great deal to Harry, Basil," he said at last, "more than I owe to you. You only taught me to be vain." "Well, I am punished for that, Dorian--or shall be some day." "I don't know what you mean, Basil," he exclaimed, turning round. "I don't know what you want. What do you want?" "I want the Dorian Gray I used to paint," said the artist sadly. "Basil," said the lad, going over to him and putting his hand on his shoulder, "you have come too late. Yesterday, when I heard that Sibyl Vane had killed herself--" "Killed herself! Good heavens! is there no doubt about that?" cried Hallward, looking up at him with an expression of horror. "My dear Basil! Surely you don't think it was a vulgar accident? Of course she killed herself." The elder man buried his face in his hands. "How fearful," he muttered, and a shudder ran through him. "No," said Dorian Gray, "there is nothing fearful about it. It is one of the great romantic tragedies of the age. As a rule, people who act lead the most commonplace lives. They are good husbands, or faithful wives, or something tedious. You know what I mean--middle-class virtue and all that kind of thing. How different Sibyl was! She lived her finest tragedy. She was always a heroine. The last night she played--the night you saw her--she acted badly because she had known the reality of love. When she knew its unreality, she died, as Juliet might have died. She passed again into the sphere of art. There is something of the martyr about her. Her death has all the pathetic uselessness of martyrdom, all its wasted beauty. But, as I was saying, you must not think I have not suffered. If you had come in yesterday at a particular moment--about half-past five, perhaps, or a quarter to six--you would have found me in tears. Even Harry, who was here, who brought me the news, in fact, had no idea what I was going through. I suffered immensely. Then it passed away. I cannot repeat an emotion. No one can, except sentimentalists. And you are awfully unjust, Basil. You come down here to console me. That is charming of you. You find me consoled, and you are furious. How like a sympathetic person! You remind me of a story Harry told me about a certain philanthropist who spent twenty years of his life in trying to get some grievance redressed, or some unjust law altered--I forget exactly what it was. Finally he succeeded, and nothing could exceed his disappointment. He had absolutely nothing to do, almost died of _ennui_, and became a confirmed misanthrope. And besides, my dear old Basil, if you really want to console me, teach me rather to forget what has happened, or to see it from a proper artistic point of view. Was it not Gautier who used to write about _la consolation des arts_? I remember picking up a little vellum-covered book in your studio one day and chancing on that delightful phrase. Well, I am not like that young man you told me of when we were down at Marlow together, the young man who used to say that yellow satin could console one for all the miseries of life. I love beautiful things that one can touch and handle. Old brocades, green bronzes, lacquer-work, carved ivories, exquisite surroundings, luxury, pomp--there is much to be got from all these. But the artistic temperament that they create, or at any rate reveal, is still more to me. To become the spectator of one's own life, as Harry says, is to escape the suffering of life. I know you are surprised at my talking to you like this. You have not realized how I have developed. I was a schoolboy when you knew me. I am a man now. I have new passions, new thoughts, new ideas. I am different, but you must not like me less. I am changed, but you must always be my friend. Of course, I am very fond of Harry. But I know that you are better than he is. You are not stronger--you are too much afraid of life--but you are better. And how happy we used to be together! Don't leave me, Basil, and don't quarrel with me. I am what I am. There is nothing more to be said." The painter felt strangely moved. The lad was infinitely dear to him, and his personality had been the great turning point in his art. He could not bear the idea of reproaching him any more. After all, his indifference was probably merely a mood that would pass away. There was so much in him that was good, so much in him that was noble. "Well, Dorian," he said at length, with a sad smile, "I won't speak to you again about this horrible thing, after to-day. I only trust your name won't be mentioned in connection with it. The inquest is to take place this afternoon. Have they summoned you?" Dorian shook his head, and a look of annoyance passed over his face at the mention of the word "inquest." There was something so crude and vulgar about everything of the kind. "They don't know my name," he answered. "But surely she did?" "Only my Christian name, and that I am quite sure she never mentioned to any one. She told me once that they were all rather curious to learn who I was, and that she invariably told them my name was Prince Charming. It was pretty of her. You must do me a drawing of Sibyl, Basil. I should like to have something more of her than the memory of a few kisses and some broken pathetic words." "I will try and do something, Dorian, if it would please you. But you must come and sit to me yourself again. I can't get on without you." "I can never sit to you again, Basil. It is impossible!" he exclaimed, starting back. The painter stared at him. "My dear boy, what nonsense!" he cried. "Do you mean to say you don't like what I did of you? Where is it? Why have you pulled the screen in front of it? Let me look at it. It is the best thing I have ever done. Do take the screen away, Dorian. It is simply disgraceful of your servant hiding my work like that. I felt the room looked different as I came in." "My servant has nothing to do with it, Basil. You don't imagine I let him arrange my room for me? He settles my flowers for me sometimes--that is all. No; I did it myself. The light was too strong on the portrait." "Too strong! Surely not, my dear fellow? It is an admirable place for it. Let me see it." And Hallward walked towards the corner of the room. A cry of terror broke from Dorian Gray's lips, and he rushed between the painter and the screen. "Basil," he said, looking very pale, "you must not look at it. I don't wish you to." "Not look at my own work! You are not serious. Why shouldn't I look at it?" exclaimed Hallward, laughing. "If you try to look at it, Basil, on my word of honour I will never speak to you again as long as I live. I am quite serious. I don't offer any explanation, and you are not to ask for any. But, remember, if you touch this screen, everything is over between us." Hallward was thunderstruck. He looked at Dorian Gray in absolute amazement. He had never seen him like this before. The lad was actually pallid with rage. His hands were clenched, and the pupils of his eyes were like disks of blue fire. He was trembling all over. "Dorian!" "Don't speak!" "But what is the matter? Of course I won't look at it if you don't want me to," he said, rather coldly, turning on his heel and going over towards the window. "But, really, it seems rather absurd that I shouldn't see my own work, especially as I am going to exhibit it in Paris in the autumn. I shall probably have to give it another coat of varnish before that, so I must see it some day, and why not to-day?" "To exhibit it! You want to exhibit it?" exclaimed Dorian Gray, a strange sense of terror creeping over him. Was the world going to be shown his secret? Were people to gape at the mystery of his life? That was impossible. Something--he did not know what--had to be done at once. "Yes; I don't suppose you will object to that. Georges Petit is going to collect all my best pictures for a special exhibition in the Rue de Seze, which will open the first week in October. The portrait will only be away a month. I should think you could easily spare it for that time. In fact, you are sure to be out of town. And if you keep it always behind a screen, you can't care much about it." Dorian Gray passed his hand over his forehead. There were beads of perspiration there. He felt that he was on the brink of a horrible danger. "You told me a month ago that you would never exhibit it," he cried. "Why have you changed your mind? You people who go in for being consistent have just as many moods as others have. The only difference is that your moods are rather meaningless. You can't have forgotten that you assured me most solemnly that nothing in the world would induce you to send it to any exhibition. You told Harry exactly the same thing." He stopped suddenly, and a gleam of light came into his eyes. He remembered that Lord Henry had said to him once, half seriously and half in jest, "If you want to have a strange quarter of an hour, get Basil to tell you why he won't exhibit your picture. He told me why he wouldn't, and it was a revelation to me." Yes, perhaps Basil, too, had his secret. He would ask him and try. "Basil," he said, coming over quite close and looking him straight in the face, "we have each of us a secret. Let me know yours, and I shall tell you mine. What was your reason for refusing to exhibit my picture?" The painter shuddered in spite of himself. "Dorian, if I told you, you might like me less than you do, and you would certainly laugh at me. I could not bear your doing either of those two things. If you wish me never to look at your picture again, I am content. I have always you to look at. If you wish the best work I have ever done to be hidden from the world, I am satisfied. Your friendship is dearer to me than any fame or reputation." "No, Basil, you must tell me," insisted Dorian Gray. "I think I have a right to know." His feeling of terror had passed away, and curiosity had taken its place. He was determined to find out Basil Hallward's mystery. "Let us sit down, Dorian," said the painter, looking troubled. "Let us sit down. And just answer me one question. Have you noticed in the picture something curious?--something that probably at first did not strike you, but that revealed itself to you suddenly?" "Basil!" cried the lad, clutching the arms of his chair with trembling hands and gazing at him with wild startled eyes. "I see you did. Don't speak. Wait till you hear what I have to say. Dorian, from the moment I met you, your personality had the most extraordinary influence over me. I was dominated, soul, brain, and power, by you. You became to me the visible incarnation of that unseen ideal whose memory haunts us artists like an exquisite dream. I worshipped you. I grew jealous of every one to whom you spoke. I wanted to have you all to myself. I was only happy when I was with you. When you were away from me, you were still present in my art.... Of course, I never let you know anything about this. It would have been impossible. You would not have understood it. I hardly understood it myself. I only knew that I had seen perfection face to face, and that the world had become wonderful to my eyes--too wonderful, perhaps, for in such mad worships there is peril, the peril of losing them, no less than the peril of keeping them.... Weeks and weeks went on, and I grew more and more absorbed in you. Then came a new development. I had drawn you as Paris in dainty armour, and as Adonis with huntsman's cloak and polished boar-spear. Crowned with heavy lotus-blossoms you had sat on the prow of Adrian's barge, gazing across the green turbid Nile. You had leaned over the still pool of some Greek woodland and seen in the water's silent silver the marvel of your own face. And it had all been what art should be--unconscious, ideal, and remote. One day, a fatal day I sometimes think, I determined to paint a wonderful portrait of you as you actually are, not in the costume of dead ages, but in your own dress and in your own time. Whether it was the realism of the method, or the mere wonder of your own personality, thus directly presented to me without mist or veil, I cannot tell. But I know that as I worked at it, every flake and film of colour seemed to me to reveal my secret. I grew afraid that others would know of my idolatry. I felt, Dorian, that I had told too much, that I had put too much of myself into it. Then it was that I resolved never to allow the picture to be exhibited. You were a little annoyed; but then you did not realize all that it meant to me. Harry, to whom I talked about it, laughed at me. But I did not mind that. When the picture was finished, and I sat alone with it, I felt that I was right.... Well, after a few days the thing left my studio, and as soon as I had got rid of the intolerable fascination of its presence, it seemed to me that I had been foolish in imagining that I had seen anything in it, more than that you were extremely good-looking and that I could paint. Even now I cannot help feeling that it is a mistake to think that the passion one feels in creation is ever really shown in the work one creates. Art is always more abstract than we fancy. Form and colour tell us of form and colour--that is all. It often seems to me that art conceals the artist far more completely than it ever reveals him. And so when I got this offer from Paris, I determined to make your portrait the principal thing in my exhibition. It never occurred to me that you would refuse. I see now that you were right. The picture cannot be shown. You must not be angry with me, Dorian, for what I have told you. As I said to Harry, once, you are made to be worshipped." Dorian Gray drew a long breath. The colour came back to his cheeks, and a smile played about his lips. The peril was over. He was safe for the time. Yet he could not help feeling infinite pity for the painter who had just made this strange confession to him, and wondered if he himself would ever be so dominated by the personality of a friend. Lord Henry had the charm of being very dangerous. But that was all. He was too clever and too cynical to be really fond of. Would there ever be some one who would fill him with a strange idolatry? Was that one of the things that life had in store? "It is extraordinary to me, Dorian," said Hallward, "that you should have seen this in the portrait. Did you really see it?" "I saw something in it," he answered, "something that seemed to me very curious." "Well, you don't mind my looking at the thing now?" Dorian shook his head. "You must not ask me that, Basil. I could not possibly let you stand in front of that picture." "You will some day, surely?" "Never." "Well, perhaps you are right. And now good-bye, Dorian. You have been the one person in my life who has really influenced my art. Whatever I have done that is good, I owe to you. Ah! you don't know what it cost me to tell you all that I have told you." "My dear Basil," said Dorian, "what have you told me? Simply that you felt that you admired me too much. That is not even a compliment." "It was not intended as a compliment. It was a confession. Now that I have made it, something seems to have gone out of me. Perhaps one should never put one's worship into words." "It was a very disappointing confession." "Why, what did you expect, Dorian? You didn't see anything else in the picture, did you? There was nothing else to see?" "No; there was nothing else to see. Why do you ask? But you mustn't talk about worship. It is foolish. You and I are friends, Basil, and we must always remain so." "You have got Harry," said the painter sadly. "Oh, Harry!" cried the lad, with a ripple of laughter. "Harry spends his days in saying what is incredible and his evenings in doing what is improbable. Just the sort of life I would like to lead. But still I don't think I would go to Harry if I were in trouble. I would sooner go to you, Basil." "You will sit to me again?" "Impossible!" "You spoil my life as an artist by refusing, Dorian. No man comes across two ideal things. Few come across one." "I can't explain it to you, Basil, but I must never sit to you again. There is something fatal about a portrait. It has a life of its own. I will come and have tea with you. That will be just as pleasant." "Pleasanter for you, I am afraid," murmured Hallward regretfully. "And now good-bye. I am sorry you won't let me look at the picture once again. But that can't be helped. I quite understand what you feel about it." As he left the room, Dorian Gray smiled to himself. Poor Basil! How little he knew of the true reason! And how strange it was that, instead of having been forced to reveal his own secret, he had succeeded, almost by chance, in wresting a secret from his friend! How much that strange confession explained to him! The painter's absurd fits of jealousy, his wild devotion, his extravagant panegyrics, his curious reticences--he understood them all now, and he felt sorry. There seemed to him to be something tragic in a friendship so coloured by romance. He sighed and touched the bell. The portrait must be hidden away at all costs. He could not run such a risk of discovery again. It had been mad of him to have allowed the thing to remain, even for an hour, in a room to which any of his friends had access.

Chapter 9

https://web.archive.org/web/20210304030722/https://www.shmoop.com/study-guides/literature/picture-dorian-gray/summary/chapter-9

The next morning, a distraught Basil Hallward shows up at Dorian's pad. He feels awful about Sibyl--he read about her death in the newspaper, and has come to comfort his friend. He assumes that Dorian is heartbroken, and wants to know if he went to visit Sibyl's mother. Dorian's heart is in one piece. He basically brushes off Basil's concern, and starts talking about the grand time he had at the Opera with Henry last night. Basil is shocked and horrified--how can Dorian prattle on unsympathetically while Sibyl lies dead? Dorian orders Basil to stop bringing up the past . Saddened, Basil says that this change in Dorian is all Lord Henry's fault, and that he wants the old Dorian back. Dorian tries to explain his reasoning to Basil; he goes through the argument that Sibyl's suicide was a great romantic act, and, while he can appreciate it aesthetically, he's pretty much over it. He reminds Basil that he's developed a lot since they first met, and asks that they remain friends. Basil rather sadly promises never to bring Sibyl up again, as long as Dorian's name isn't tangled up in the investigation of her death. Dorian assures him that he's in the clear. Dorian asks Basil to do up a sketch of Sibyl so he can have something to remember her by. Thinking of his work, Basil asks Dorian to come sit for him again--he refuses. Miffed, Basil asks if Dorian didn't like the portrait. This is not the right question. Dorian kind of freaks out, and makes Basil promise that he'll never look at the painting again. Basil protests, saying that he changed his mind and wants to exhibit the portrait after all; it is his best work, and he'd like to show it off. Dorian freaks out again, and asks why Basil why he didn't want to show it in the first place. Basil claims that there's something mysterious about the portrait, and we wonder for a second if knows the link it has with Dorian's soul. He then admits that he didn't want to exhibit it because he totally worshipped Dorian, and felt like his idolatry showed through somehow in the picture. Dorian is off the hook--Basil doesn't know. Still, he refuses to show the artist his work ever again. Dorian refuses again to sit for another painting, and Basil leaves in a bit of a mood. Something has changed between the two friends--and it's not good. When Basil's gone, Dorian immediately rings for his servant to remove the portrait.

shmoop

all_chapterized_books/5658-chapters/29.txt

finished_summaries/shmoop/Lord Jim/section_28_part_0.txt

Lord Jim.chapter 29

chapter 29

{"name": "Chapter 29", "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20210118112654/https://www.shmoop.com/study-guides/literature/lord-jim/summary/chapter-29", "summary": "It's time for Marlow to take a breather. He considers Jim's situation on Patusan and expresses some concerns. Marlow notes that Jewel and Tamb' Itam both seem protective of Jim, and he notices that Cornelius seems to be skulking around a lot. As it turns out, Jim goes to stay with Cornelius after he leaves Doramins, which is a bit of a problem because Cornelius hates Jim. And no wonder - Stein sent Jim to take over Cornelius's job. Soon after he moves into Cornelius's, Jim learns that the Rajah is planning to assassinate him. Danger: rough waters ahead.", "analysis": ""}

'This was the theory of Jim's marital evening walks. I made a third on more than one occasion, unpleasantly aware every time of Cornelius, who nursed the aggrieved sense of his legal paternity, slinking in the neighbourhood with that peculiar twist of his mouth as if he were perpetually on the point of gnashing his teeth. But do you notice how, three hundred miles beyond the end of telegraph cables and mail-boat lines, the haggard utilitarian lies of our civilisation wither and die, to be replaced by pure exercises of imagination, that have the futility, often the charm, and sometimes the deep hidden truthfulness, of works of art? Romance had singled Jim for its own--and that was the true part of the story, which otherwise was all wrong. He did not hide his jewel. In fact, he was extremely proud of it. 'It comes to me now that I had, on the whole, seen very little of her. What I remember best is the even, olive pallor of her complexion, and the intense blue-black gleams of her hair, flowing abundantly from under a small crimson cap she wore far back on her shapely head. Her movements were free, assured, and she blushed a dusky red. While Jim and I were talking, she would come and go with rapid glances at us, leaving on her passage an impression of grace and charm and a distinct suggestion of watchfulness. Her manner presented a curious combination of shyness and audacity. Every pretty smile was succeeded swiftly by a look of silent, repressed anxiety, as if put to flight by the recollection of some abiding danger. At times she would sit down with us and, with her soft cheek dimpled by the knuckles of her little hand, she would listen to our talk; her big clear eyes would remain fastened on our lips, as though each pronounced word had a visible shape. Her mother had taught her to read and write; she had learned a good bit of English from Jim, and she spoke it most amusingly, with his own clipping, boyish intonation. Her tenderness hovered over him like a flutter of wings. She lived so completely in his contemplation that she had acquired something of his outward aspect, something that recalled him in her movements, in the way she stretched her arm, turned her head, directed her glances. Her vigilant affection had an intensity that made it almost perceptible to the senses; it seemed actually to exist in the ambient matter of space, to envelop him like a peculiar fragrance, to dwell in the sunshine like a tremulous, subdued, and impassioned note. I suppose you think that I too am romantic, but it is a mistake. I am relating to you the sober impressions of a bit of youth, of a strange uneasy romance that had come in my way. I observed with interest the work of his--well--good fortune. He was jealously loved, but why she should be jealous, and of what, I could not tell. The land, the people, the forests were her accomplices, guarding him with vigilant accord, with an air of seclusion, of mystery, of invincible possession. There was no appeal, as it were; he was imprisoned within the very freedom of his power, and she, though ready to make a footstool of her head for his feet, guarded her conquest inflexibly--as though he were hard to keep. The very Tamb' Itam, marching on our journeys upon the heels of his white lord, with his head thrown back, truculent and be-weaponed like a janissary, with kriss, chopper, and lance (besides carrying Jim's gun); even Tamb' Itam allowed himself to put on the airs of uncompromising guardianship, like a surly devoted jailer ready to lay down his life for his captive. On the evenings when we sat up late, his silent, indistinct form would pass and repass under the verandah, with noiseless footsteps, or lifting my head I would unexpectedly make him out standing rigidly erect in the shadow. As a general rule he would vanish after a time, without a sound; but when we rose he would spring up close to us as if from the ground, ready for any orders Jim might wish to give. The girl too, I believe, never went to sleep till we had separated for the night. More than once I saw her and Jim through the window of my room come out together quietly and lean on the rough balustrade--two white forms very close, his arm about her waist, her head on his shoulder. Their soft murmurs reached me, penetrating, tender, with a calm sad note in the stillness of the night, like a self-communion of one being carried on in two tones. Later on, tossing on my bed under the mosquito-net, I was sure to hear slight creakings, faint breathing, a throat cleared cautiously--and I would know that Tamb' Itam was still on the prowl. Though he had (by the favour of the white lord) a house in the compound, had "taken wife," and had lately been blessed with a child, I believe that, during my stay at all events, he slept on the verandah every night. It was very difficult to make this faithful and grim retainer talk. Even Jim himself was answered in jerky short sentences, under protest as it were. Talking, he seemed to imply, was no business of his. The longest speech I heard him volunteer was one morning when, suddenly extending his hand towards the courtyard, he pointed at Cornelius and said, "Here comes the Nazarene." I don't think he was addressing me, though I stood at his side; his object seemed rather to awaken the indignant attention of the universe. Some muttered allusions, which followed, to dogs and the smell of roast-meat, struck me as singularly felicitous. The courtyard, a large square space, was one torrid blaze of sunshine, and, bathed in intense light, Cornelius was creeping across in full view with an inexpressible effect of stealthiness, of dark and secret slinking. He reminded one of everything that is unsavoury. His slow laborious walk resembled the creeping of a repulsive beetle, the legs alone moving with horrid industry while the body glided evenly. I suppose he made straight enough for the place where he wanted to get to, but his progress with one shoulder carried forward seemed oblique. He was often seen circling slowly amongst the sheds, as if following a scent; passing before the verandah with upward stealthy glances; disappearing without haste round the corner of some hut. That he seemed free of the place demonstrated Jim's absurd carelessness or else his infinite disdain, for Cornelius had played a very dubious part (to say the least of it) in a certain episode which might have ended fatally for Jim. As a matter of fact, it had redounded to his glory. But everything redounded to his glory; and it was the irony of his good fortune that he, who had been too careful of it once, seemed to bear a charmed life. 'You must know he had left Doramin's place very soon after his arrival--much too soon, in fact, for his safety, and of course a long time before the war. In this he was actuated by a sense of duty; he had to look after Stein's business, he said. Hadn't he? To that end, with an utter disregard of his personal safety, he crossed the river and took up his quarters with Cornelius. How the latter had managed to exist through the troubled times I can't say. As Stein's agent, after all, he must have had Doramin's protection in a measure; and in one way or another he had managed to wriggle through all the deadly complications, while I have no doubt that his conduct, whatever line he was forced to take, was marked by that abjectness which was like the stamp of the man. That was his characteristic; he was fundamentally and outwardly abject, as other men are markedly of a generous, distinguished, or venerable appearance. It was the element of his nature which permeated all his acts and passions and emotions; he raged abjectly, smiled abjectly, was abjectly sad; his civilities and his indignations were alike abject. I am sure his love would have been the most abject of sentiments--but can one imagine a loathsome insect in love? And his loathsomeness, too, was abject, so that a simply disgusting person would have appeared noble by his side. He has his place neither in the background nor in the foreground of the story; he is simply seen skulking on its outskirts, enigmatical and unclean, tainting the fragrance of its youth and of its naiveness. 'His position in any case could not have been other than extremely miserable, yet it may very well be that he found some advantages in it. Jim told me he had been received at first with an abject display of the most amicable sentiments. "The fellow apparently couldn't contain himself for joy," said Jim with disgust. "He flew at me every morning to shake both my hands--confound him!--but I could never tell whether there would be any breakfast. If I got three meals in two days I considered myself jolly lucky, and he made me sign a chit for ten dollars every week. Said he was sure Mr. Stein did not mean him to keep me for nothing. Well--he kept me on nothing as near as possible. Put it down to the unsettled state of the country, and made as if to tear his hair out, begging my pardon twenty times a day, so that I had at last to entreat him not to worry. It made me sick. Half the roof of his house had fallen in, and the whole place had a mangy look, with wisps of dry grass sticking out and the corners of broken mats flapping on every wall. He did his best to make out that Mr. Stein owed him money on the last three years' trading, but his books were all torn, and some were missing. He tried to hint it was his late wife's fault. Disgusting scoundrel! At last I had to forbid him to mention his late wife at all. It made Jewel cry. I couldn't discover what became of all the trade-goods; there was nothing in the store but rats, having a high old time amongst a litter of brown paper and old sacking. I was assured on every hand that he had a lot of money buried somewhere, but of course could get nothing out of him. It was the most miserable existence I led there in that wretched house. I tried to do my duty by Stein, but I had also other matters to think of. When I escaped to Doramin old Tunku Allang got frightened and returned all my things. It was done in a roundabout way, and with no end of mystery, through a Chinaman who keeps a small shop here; but as soon as I left the Bugis quarter and went to live with Cornelius it began to be said openly that the Rajah had made up his mind to have me killed before long. Pleasant, wasn't it? And I couldn't see what there was to prevent him if he really _had_ made up his mind. The worst of it was, I couldn't help feeling I wasn't doing any good either for Stein or for myself. Oh! it was beastly--the whole six weeks of it."'

Chapter 29

https://web.archive.org/web/20210118112654/https://www.shmoop.com/study-guides/literature/lord-jim/summary/chapter-29

It's time for Marlow to take a breather. He considers Jim's situation on Patusan and expresses some concerns. Marlow notes that Jewel and Tamb' Itam both seem protective of Jim, and he notices that Cornelius seems to be skulking around a lot. As it turns out, Jim goes to stay with Cornelius after he leaves Doramins, which is a bit of a problem because Cornelius hates Jim. And no wonder - Stein sent Jim to take over Cornelius's job. Soon after he moves into Cornelius's, Jim learns that the Rajah is planning to assassinate him. Danger: rough waters ahead.

sparknotes

all_chapterized_books/1232-chapters/11.txt

finished_summaries/sparknotes/The Prince/section_4_part_2.txt

The Prince.chapter xi

chapter xi

{"name": "Chapter XI", "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20210303115306/https://www.sparknotes.com/philosophy/prince/section5/", "summary": "Concerning Ecclesiastical Principalities Ecclesiastical principalities, regions under the control of the Catholic Church, are different from other kinds of principalities. Taking control of these principalities is difficult, requiring either unusual good fortune or prowess. Machiavelli sarcastically remarks that principles of religion, rather than governments, rule ecclesiastical principalities, so the prince does not even need to govern. Ecclesiastical principalities do not need to be defended, and their subjects require no administration. Nonetheless, these states are always secure and happy. Since these principalities are \"sustained by higher powers which the human mind cannot comprehend,\" delving further into why this is the case would be presumptuous. It is useful, however, to look at how the Church has obtained its great temporal power. Italy was once divided among the pope and the city-states of Venice, Naples, Milan, and Florence. Each of these powers was wary of the others and prevented the intervention of any foreign power. Papal power was fairly weak during this time, due to disagreement among the Roman barons and the short duration of papacies. But Popes Alexander VI and Julius II greatly increased the power of the Church by using armed force to weaken the other factions, accumulating wealth to strengthen the Church's own position, and nurturing factionalism within any remaining factions. Thus, the current Church, under the leadership of Pope Leo X, has been made strong through the force of arms. It is now hoped that Pope Leo will use his goodness and virtue to maintain its power.", "analysis": "Although Chapter X focuses partly on maintaining the well-being of the people in a city during a period of difficulty, Machiavelli views this only as a necessary step in making the city itself strong and immune from attack. One surprising characteristic of The Prince is how completely it defines the city as an entity existing to serve its ruler rather than its populace. The discussion of fortification emphasizes this conception of the city: obtaining the support of the people is not a goal in itself but rather a means for ensuring that the city remain fortified and resistant to foreign conquest. The purpose of convincing the people that their hardships are temporary, for example, is not to lighten the burden of the people whose city is besieged, but rather a way to ensure the defense of the city. The ultimate goal is not happiness but patriotism: the defense of the state and its ruler. While Machiavelli often advocates the use of military force, he also recognizes that military strength alone cannot maintain a state's strength. Although the fortification of cities has a military value, Machiavelli focuses on fortification as a tool by which a prince can solidify popular support in times of war or siege"}

It only remains now to speak of ecclesiastical principalities, touching which all difficulties are prior to getting possession, because they are acquired either by capacity or good fortune, and they can be held without either; for they are sustained by the ancient ordinances of religion, which are so all-powerful, and of such a character that the principalities may be held no matter how their princes behave and live. These princes alone have states and do not defend them; and they have subjects and do not rule them; and the states, although unguarded, are not taken from them, and the subjects, although not ruled, do not care, and they have neither the desire nor the ability to alienate themselves. Such principalities only are secure and happy. But being upheld by powers, to which the human mind cannot reach, I shall speak no more of them, because, being exalted and maintained by God, it would be the act of a presumptuous and rash man to discuss them. Nevertheless, if any one should ask of me how comes it that the Church has attained such greatness in temporal power, seeing that from Alexander backwards the Italian potentates (not only those who have been called potentates, but every baron and lord, though the smallest) have valued the temporal power very slightly--yet now a king of France trembles before it, and it has been able to drive him from Italy, and to ruin the Venetians--although this may be very manifest, it does not appear to me superfluous to recall it in some measure to memory. Before Charles, King of France, passed into Italy,(*) this country was under the dominion of the Pope, the Venetians, the King of Naples, the Duke of Milan, and the Florentines. These potentates had two principal anxieties: the one, that no foreigner should enter Italy under arms; the other, that none of themselves should seize more territory. Those about whom there was the most anxiety were the Pope and the Venetians. To restrain the Venetians the union of all the others was necessary, as it was for the defence of Ferrara; and to keep down the Pope they made use of the barons of Rome, who, being divided into two factions, Orsini and Colonnesi, had always a pretext for disorder, and, standing with arms in their hands under the eyes of the Pontiff, kept the pontificate weak and powerless. And although there might arise sometimes a courageous pope, such as Sixtus, yet neither fortune nor wisdom could rid him of these annoyances. And the short life of a pope is also a cause of weakness; for in the ten years, which is the average life of a pope, he can with difficulty lower one of the factions; and if, so to speak, one people should almost destroy the Colonnesi, another would arise hostile to the Orsini, who would support their opponents, and yet would not have time to ruin the Orsini. This was the reason why the temporal powers of the pope were little esteemed in Italy. (*) Charles VIII invaded Italy in 1494. Alexander the Sixth arose afterwards, who of all the pontiffs that have ever been showed how a pope with both money and arms was able to prevail; and through the instrumentality of the Duke Valentino, and by reason of the entry of the French, he brought about all those things which I have discussed above in the actions of the duke. And although his intention was not to aggrandize the Church, but the duke, nevertheless, what he did contributed to the greatness of the Church, which, after his death and the ruin of the duke, became the heir to all his labours. Pope Julius came afterwards and found the Church strong, possessing all the Romagna, the barons of Rome reduced to impotence, and, through the chastisements of Alexander, the factions wiped out; he also found the way open to accumulate money in a manner such as had never been practised before Alexander's time. Such things Julius not only followed, but improved upon, and he intended to gain Bologna, to ruin the Venetians, and to drive the French out of Italy. All of these enterprises prospered with him, and so much the more to his credit, inasmuch as he did everything to strengthen the Church and not any private person. He kept also the Orsini and Colonnesi factions within the bounds in which he found them; and although there was among them some mind to make disturbance, nevertheless he held two things firm: the one, the greatness of the Church, with which he terrified them; and the other, not allowing them to have their own cardinals, who caused the disorders among them. For whenever these factions have their cardinals they do not remain quiet for long, because cardinals foster the factions in Rome and out of it, and the barons are compelled to support them, and thus from the ambitions of prelates arise disorders and tumults among the barons. For these reasons his Holiness Pope Leo(*) found the pontificate most powerful, and it is to be hoped that, if others made it great in arms, he will make it still greater and more venerated by his goodness and infinite other virtues.

Chapter XI

https://web.archive.org/web/20210303115306/https://www.sparknotes.com/philosophy/prince/section5/

Concerning Ecclesiastical Principalities Ecclesiastical principalities, regions under the control of the Catholic Church, are different from other kinds of principalities. Taking control of these principalities is difficult, requiring either unusual good fortune or prowess. Machiavelli sarcastically remarks that principles of religion, rather than governments, rule ecclesiastical principalities, so the prince does not even need to govern. Ecclesiastical principalities do not need to be defended, and their subjects require no administration. Nonetheless, these states are always secure and happy. Since these principalities are "sustained by higher powers which the human mind cannot comprehend," delving further into why this is the case would be presumptuous. It is useful, however, to look at how the Church has obtained its great temporal power. Italy was once divided among the pope and the city-states of Venice, Naples, Milan, and Florence. Each of these powers was wary of the others and prevented the intervention of any foreign power. Papal power was fairly weak during this time, due to disagreement among the Roman barons and the short duration of papacies. But Popes Alexander VI and Julius II greatly increased the power of the Church by using armed force to weaken the other factions, accumulating wealth to strengthen the Church's own position, and nurturing factionalism within any remaining factions. Thus, the current Church, under the leadership of Pope Leo X, has been made strong through the force of arms. It is now hoped that Pope Leo will use his goodness and virtue to maintain its power.

Although Chapter X focuses partly on maintaining the well-being of the people in a city during a period of difficulty, Machiavelli views this only as a necessary step in making the city itself strong and immune from attack. One surprising characteristic of The Prince is how completely it defines the city as an entity existing to serve its ruler rather than its populace. The discussion of fortification emphasizes this conception of the city: obtaining the support of the people is not a goal in itself but rather a means for ensuring that the city remain fortified and resistant to foreign conquest. The purpose of convincing the people that their hardships are temporary, for example, is not to lighten the burden of the people whose city is besieged, but rather a way to ensure the defense of the city. The ultimate goal is not happiness but patriotism: the defense of the state and its ruler. While Machiavelli often advocates the use of military force, he also recognizes that military strength alone cannot maintain a state's strength. Although the fortification of cities has a military value, Machiavelli focuses on fortification as a tool by which a prince can solidify popular support in times of war or siege

shmoop

all_chapterized_books/110-chapters/44.txt

finished_summaries/shmoop/Tess of the D'Urbervilles/section_42_part_0.txt

Tess of the D'Urbervilles.chapter 43

chapter 43

{"name": "Phase V: \"The Woman Pays,\" Chapter Forty-Three", "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20210424232301/http://www.shmoop.com/study-guides/literature/tess-of-the-durbervilles/summary/chapter-43", "summary": "The farm where Tess and Marian are working is described repeatedly as a \"starve-acre place\" . It really is a poor and dismal place. Their job basically consists of pulling turnips out of the ground--not very exciting, and kind of hard on the back. Marian offers a nip from her flask to Tess, and Tess refuses. Marian excuses her own drinking by saying that she lost Angel, and Tess didn't, so that's why she needs the booze more. Marian is so happy to have Tess there that she proposes that they write to Izz and Retty, and tell them to come and work there as well. It would be like old times. The winter weather is brutally cold. The next day, the weather is so bad that it keeps them from working in the fields, and they hang out in the barn. Izz arrives that afternoon--along with two other new farm workers, Car and Nancy Darch, the two women who wanted to fight with Tess in Trantridge the night Alec raped her. They don't seem to recognize her, though, and everyone sets to work in the field the next day. The farmer gets back, and it turns out he's the Trantridge man whom Angel popped in the face, and who scared Tess on the road. And now she's signed something agreeing to work for him through the winter. He gives her a hard time about it, but she takes it calmly. Marian and Izz want to reminisce about the good old days at Talbothays, and how they all used to be in love with Angel, but Tess refuses to join in--after all, she married the guy. Izz makes a few sarcastic remarks about Angel's having left her, but she's really not a mean girl, so she lets up when she sees how it upsets Tess. After working in silence for a while, Tess sinks to the ground in exhaustion. Marian offers to help her, and Tess accepts, although she feels bad about it. While she's resting, Tess has the feeling that Marian and Izz are discussing Angel, and she doesn't like it. After a while, Tess gets up and gets back to work. Izz goes in early--she'd been walking all day, after all. Once Izz is gone, Marian shakes her head and says she wouldn't have believed it. Tess asks what she means--Marian's been drinking from her hip flask, and is inclined to be honest. Izz has told Marian about how Angel asked her to go to Brazil with him, and then changed his mind, and now Marian tells Tess. Tess bursts into tears, and resolves to write him a letter. But she never finishes the letter, and doesn't mail it.", "analysis": ""}

There was no exaggeration in Marian's definition of Flintcomb-Ash farm as a starve-acre place. The single fat thing on the soil was Marian herself; and she was an importation. Of the three classes of village, the village cared for by its lord, the village cared for by itself, and the village uncared for either by itself or by its lord (in other words, the village of a resident squires's tenantry, the village of free- or copy-holders, and the absentee-owner's village, farmed with the land) this place, Flintcomb-Ash, was the third. But Tess set to work. Patience, that blending of moral courage with physical timidity, was now no longer a minor feature in Mrs Angel Clare; and it sustained her. The swede-field in which she and her companion were set hacking was a stretch of a hundred odd acres in one patch, on the highest ground of the farm, rising above stony lanchets or lynchets--the outcrop of siliceous veins in the chalk formation, composed of myriads of loose white flints in bulbous, cusped, and phallic shapes. The upper half of each turnip had been eaten off by the live-stock, and it was the business of the two women to grub up the lower or earthy half of the root with a hooked fork called a hacker, that it might be eaten also. Every leaf of the vegetable having already been consumed, the whole field was in colour a desolate drab; it was a complexion without features, as if a face, from chin to brow, should be only an expanse of skin. The sky wore, in another colour, the same likeness; a white vacuity of countenance with the lineaments gone. So these two upper and nether visages confronted each other all day long, the white face looking down on the brown face, and the brown face looking up at the white face, without anything standing between them but the two girls crawling over the surface of the former like flies. Nobody came near them, and their movements showed a mechanical regularity; their forms standing enshrouded in Hessian "wroppers"-- sleeved brown pinafores, tied behind to the bottom, to keep their gowns from blowing about--scant skirts revealing boots that reached high up the ankles, and yellow sheepskin gloves with gauntlets. The pensive character which the curtained hood lent to their bent heads would have reminded the observer of some early Italian conception of the two Marys. They worked on hour after hour, unconscious of the forlorn aspect they bore in the landscape, not thinking of the justice or injustice of their lot. Even in such a position as theirs it was possible to exist in a dream. In the afternoon the rain came on again, and Marian said that they need not work any more. But if they did not work they would not be paid; so they worked on. It was so high a situation, this field, that the rain had no occasion to fall, but raced along horizontally upon the yelling wind, sticking into them like glass splinters till they were wet through. Tess had not known till now what was really meant by that. There are degrees of dampness, and a very little is called being wet through in common talk. But to stand working slowly in a field, and feel the creep of rain-water, first in legs and shoulders, then on hips and head, then at back, front, and sides, and yet to work on till the leaden light diminishes and marks that the sun is down, demands a distinct modicum of stoicism, even of valour. Yet they did not feel the wetness so much as might be supposed. They were both young, and they were talking of the time when they lived and loved together at Talbothays Dairy, that happy green tract of land where summer had been liberal in her gifts; in substance to all, emotionally to these. Tess would fain not have conversed with Marian of the man who was legally, if not actually, her husband; but the irresistible fascination of the subject betrayed her into reciprocating Marian's remarks. And thus, as has been said, though the damp curtains of their bonnets flapped smartly into their faces, and their wrappers clung about them to wearisomeness, they lived all this afternoon in memories of green, sunny, romantic Talbothays. "You can see a gleam of a hill within a few miles o' Froom Valley from here when 'tis fine," said Marian. "Ah! Can you?" said Tess, awake to the new value of this locality. So the two forces were at work here as everywhere, the inherent will to enjoy, and the circumstantial will against enjoyment. Marian's will had a method of assisting itself by taking from her pocket as the afternoon wore on a pint bottle corked with white rag, from which she invited Tess to drink. Tess's unassisted power of dreaming, however, being enough for her sublimation at present, she declined except the merest sip, and then Marian took a pull from the spirits. "I've got used to it," she said, "and can't leave it off now. 'Tis my only comfort--You see I lost him: you didn't; and you can do without it perhaps." Tess thought her loss as great as Marian's, but upheld by the dignity of being Angel's wife, in the letter at least, she accepted Marian's differentiation. Amid this scene Tess slaved in the morning frosts and in the afternoon rains. When it was not swede-grubbing it was swede-trimming, in which process they sliced off the earth and the fibres with a bill-hook before storing the roots for future use. At this occupation they could shelter themselves by a thatched hurdle if it rained; but if it was frosty even their thick leather gloves could not prevent the frozen masses they handled from biting their fingers. Still Tess hoped. She had a conviction that sooner or later the magnanimity which she persisted in reckoning as a chief ingredient of Clare's character would lead him to rejoin her. Marian, primed to a humorous mood, would discover the queer-shaped flints aforesaid, and shriek with laughter, Tess remaining severely obtuse. They often looked across the country to where the Var or Froom was know to stretch, even though they might not be able to see it; and, fixing their eyes on the cloaking gray mist, imagined the old times they had spent out there. "Ah," said Marian, "how I should like another or two of our old set to come here! Then we could bring up Talbothays every day here afield, and talk of he, and of what nice times we had there, and o' the old things we used to know, and make it all come back a'most, in seeming!" Marian's eyes softened, and her voice grew vague as the visions returned. "I'll write to Izz Huett," she said. "She's biding at home doing nothing now, I know, and I'll tell her we be here, and ask her to come; and perhaps Retty is well enough now." Tess had nothing to say against the proposal, and the next she heard of this plan for importing old Talbothays' joys was two or three days later, when Marian informed her that Izz had replied to her inquiry, and had promised to come if she could. There had not been such a winter for years. It came on in stealthy and measured glides, like the moves of a chess-player. One morning the few lonely trees and the thorns of the hedgerows appeared as if they had put off a vegetable for an animal integument. Every twig was covered with a white nap as of fur grown from the rind during the night, giving it four times its usual stoutness; the whole bush or tree forming a staring sketch in white lines on the mournful gray of the sky and horizon. Cobwebs revealed their presence on sheds and walls where none had ever been observed till brought out into visibility by the crystallizing atmosphere, hanging like loops of white worsted from salient points of the out-houses, posts, and gates. After this season of congealed dampness came a spell of dry frost, when strange birds from behind the North Pole began to arrive silently on the upland of Flintcomb-Ash; gaunt spectral creatures with tragical eyes--eyes which had witnessed scenes of cataclysmal horror in inaccessible polar regions of a magnitude such as no human being had ever conceived, in curdling temperatures that no man could endure; which had beheld the crash of icebergs and the slide of snow-hills by the shooting light of the Aurora; been half blinded by the whirl of colossal storms and terraqueous distortions; and retained the expression of feature that such scenes had engendered. These nameless birds came quite near to Tess and Marian, but of all they had seen which humanity would never see, they brought no account. The traveller's ambition to tell was not theirs, and, with dumb impassivity, they dismissed experiences which they did not value for the immediate incidents of this homely upland--the trivial movements of the two girls in disturbing the clods with their hackers so as to uncover something or other that these visitants relished as food. Then one day a peculiar quality invaded the air of this open country. There came a moisture which was not of rain, and a cold which was not of frost. It chilled the eyeballs of the twain, made their brows ache, penetrated to their skeletons, affecting the surface of the body less than its core. They knew that it meant snow, and in the night the snow came. Tess, who continued to live at the cottage with the warm gable that cheered any lonely pedestrian who paused beside it, awoke in the night, and heard above the thatch noises which seemed to signify that the roof had turned itself into a gymnasium of all the winds. When she lit her lamp to get up in the morning she found that the snow had blown through a chink in the casement, forming a white cone of the finest powder against the inside, and had also come down the chimney, so that it lay sole-deep upon the floor, on which her shoes left tracks when she moved about. Without, the storm drove so fast as to create a snow-mist in the kitchen; but as yet it was too dark out-of-doors to see anything. Tess knew that it was impossible to go on with the swedes; and by the time she had finished breakfast beside the solitary little lamp, Marian arrived to tell her that they were to join the rest of the women at reed-drawing in the barn till the weather changed. As soon, therefore, as the uniform cloak of darkness without began to turn to a disordered medley of grays, they blew out the lamp, wrapped themselves up in their thickest pinners, tied their woollen cravats round their necks and across their chests, and started for the barn. The snow had followed the birds from the polar basin as a white pillar of a cloud, and individual flakes could not be seen. The blast smelt of icebergs, arctic seas, whales, and white bears, carrying the snow so that it licked the land but did not deepen on it. They trudged onwards with slanted bodies through the flossy fields, keeping as well as they could in the shelter of hedges, which, however, acted as strainers rather than screens. The air, afflicted to pallor with the hoary multitudes that infested it, twisted and spun them eccentrically, suggesting an achromatic chaos of things. But both the young women were fairly cheerful; such weather on a dry upland is not in itself dispiriting. "Ha-ha! the cunning northern birds knew this was coming," said Marian. "Depend upon't, they keep just in front o't all the way from the North Star. Your husband, my dear, is, I make no doubt, having scorching weather all this time. Lord, if he could only see his pretty wife now! Not that this weather hurts your beauty at all--in fact, it rather does it good." "You mustn't talk about him to me, Marian," said Tess severely. "Well, but--surely you care for'n! Do you?" Instead of answering, Tess, with tears in her eyes, impulsively faced in the direction in which she imagined South America to lie, and, putting up her lips, blew out a passionate kiss upon the snowy wind. "Well, well, I know you do. But 'pon my body, it is a rum life for a married couple! There--I won't say another word! Well, as for the weather, it won't hurt us in the wheat-barn; but reed-drawing is fearful hard work--worse than swede-hacking. I can stand it because I'm stout; but you be slimmer than I. I can't think why maister should have set 'ee at it." They reached the wheat-barn and entered it. One end of the long structure was full of corn; the middle was where the reed-drawing was carried on, and there had already been placed in the reed-press the evening before as many sheaves of wheat as would be sufficient for the women to draw from during the day. "Why, here's Izz!" said Marian. Izz it was, and she came forward. She had walked all the way from her mother's home on the previous afternoon, and, not deeming the distance so great, had been belated, arriving, however, just before the snow began, and sleeping at the alehouse. The farmer had agreed with her mother at market to take her on if she came to-day, and she had been afraid to disappoint him by delay. In addition to Tess, Marian, and Izz, there were two women from a neighbouring village; two Amazonian sisters, whom Tess with a start remembered as Dark Car, the Queen of Spades, and her junior, the Queen of Diamonds--those who had tried to fight with her in the midnight quarrel at Trantridge. They showed no recognition of her, and possibly had none, for they had been under the influence of liquor on that occasion, and were only temporary sojourners there as here. They did all kinds of men's work by preference, including well-sinking, hedging, ditching, and excavating, without any sense of fatigue. Noted reed-drawers were they too, and looked round upon the other three with some superciliousness. Putting on their gloves, all set to work in a row in front of the press, an erection formed of two posts connected by a cross-beam, under which the sheaves to be drawn from were laid ears outward, the beam being pegged down by pins in the uprights, and lowered as the sheaves diminished. The day hardened in colour, the light coming in at the barndoors upwards from the snow instead of downwards from the sky. The girls pulled handful after handful from the press; but by reason of the presence of the strange women, who were recounting scandals, Marian and Izz could not at first talk of old times as they wished to do. Presently they heard the muffled tread of a horse, and the farmer rode up to the barndoor. When he had dismounted he came close to Tess, and remained looking musingly at the side of her face. She had not turned at first, but his fixed attitude led her to look round, when she perceived that her employer was the native of Trantridge from whom she had taken flight on the high-road because of his allusion to her history. He waited till she had carried the drawn bundles to the pile outside, when he said, "So you be the young woman who took my civility in such ill part? Be drowned if I didn't think you might be as soon as I heard of your being hired! Well, you thought you had got the better of me the first time at the inn with your fancy-man, and the second time on the road, when you bolted; but now I think I've got the better you." He concluded with a hard laugh. Tess, between the Amazons and the farmer, like a bird caught in a clap-net, returned no answer, continuing to pull the straw. She could read character sufficiently well to know by this time that she had nothing to fear from her employer's gallantry; it was rather the tyranny induced by his mortification at Clare's treatment of him. Upon the whole she preferred that sentiment in man and felt brave enough to endure it. "You thought I was in love with 'ee I suppose? Some women are such fools, to take every look as serious earnest. But there's nothing like a winter afield for taking that nonsense out o' young wenches' heads; and you've signed and agreed till Lady-Day. Now, are you going to beg my pardon?" "I think you ought to beg mine." "Very well--as you like. But we'll see which is master here. Be they all the sheaves you've done to-day?" "Yes, sir." "'Tis a very poor show. Just see what they've done over there" (pointing to the two stalwart women). "The rest, too, have done better than you." "They've all practised it before, and I have not. And I thought it made no difference to you as it is task work, and we are only paid for what we do." "Oh, but it does. I want the barn cleared." "I am going to work all the afternoon instead of leaving at two as the others will do." He looked sullenly at her and went away. Tess felt that she could not have come to a much worse place; but anything was better than gallantry. When two o'clock arrived the professional reed-drawers tossed off the last half-pint in their flagon, put down their hooks, tied their last sheaves, and went away. Marian and Izz would have done likewise, but on hearing that Tess meant to stay, to make up by longer hours for her lack of skill, they would not leave her. Looking out at the snow, which still fell, Marian exclaimed, "Now, we've got it all to ourselves." And so at last the conversation turned to their old experiences at the dairy; and, of course, the incidents of their affection for Angel Clare. "Izz and Marian," said Mrs Angel Clare, with a dignity which was extremely touching, seeing how very little of a wife she was: "I can't join in talk with you now, as I used to do, about Mr Clare; you will see that I cannot; because, although he is gone away from me for the present, he is my husband." Izz was by nature the sauciest and most caustic of all the four girls who had loved Clare. "He was a very splendid lover, no doubt," she said; "but I don't think he is a too fond husband to go away from you so soon." "He had to go--he was obliged to go, to see about the land over there!" pleaded Tess. "He might have tided 'ee over the winter." "Ah--that's owing to an accident--a misunderstanding; and we won't argue it," Tess answered, with tearfulness in her words. "Perhaps there's a good deal to be said for him! He did not go away, like some husbands, without telling me; and I can always find out where he is." After this they continued for some long time in a reverie, as they went on seizing the ears of corn, drawing out the straw, gathering it under their arms, and cutting off the ears with their bill-hooks, nothing sounding in the barn but the swish of the straw and the crunch of the hook. Then Tess suddenly flagged, and sank down upon the heap of wheat-ears at her feet. "I knew you wouldn't be able to stand it!" cried Marian. "It wants harder flesh than yours for this work." Just then the farmer entered. "Oh, that's how you get on when I am away," he said to her. "But it is my own loss," she pleaded. "Not yours." "I want it finished," he said doggedly, as he crossed the barn and went out at the other door. "Don't 'ee mind him, there's a dear," said Marian. "I've worked here before. Now you go and lie down there, and Izz and I will make up your number." "I don't like to let you do that. I'm taller than you, too." However, she was so overcome that she consented to lie down awhile, and reclined on a heap of pull-tails--the refuse after the straight straw had been drawn--thrown up at the further side of the barn. Her succumbing had been as largely owning to agitation at the re-opening the subject of her separation from her husband as to the hard work. She lay in a state of percipience without volition, and the rustle of the straw and the cutting of the ears by the others had the weight of bodily touches. She could hear from her corner, in addition to these noises, the murmur of their voices. She felt certain that they were continuing the subject already broached, but their voices were so low that she could not catch the words. At last Tess grew more and more anxious to know what they were saying, and, persuading herself that she felt better, she got up and resumed work. Then Izz Huett broke down. She had walked more than a dozen miles the previous evening, had gone to bed at midnight, and had risen again at five o'clock. Marian alone, thanks to her bottle of liquor and her stoutness of build, stood the strain upon back and arms without suffering. Tess urged Izz to leave off, agreeing, as she felt better, to finish the day without her, and make equal division of the number of sheaves. Izz accepted the offer gratefully, and disappeared through the great door into the snowy track to her lodging. Marian, as was the case every afternoon at this time on account of the bottle, began to feel in a romantic vein. "I should not have thought it of him--never!" she said in a dreamy tone. "And I loved him so! I didn't mind his having YOU. But this about Izz is too bad!" Tess, in her start at the words, narrowly missed cutting off a finger with the bill-hook. "Is it about my husband?" she stammered. "Well, yes. Izz said, 'Don't 'ee tell her'; but I am sure I can't help it! It was what he wanted Izz to do. He wanted her to go off to Brazil with him." Tess's face faded as white as the scene without, and its curves straightened. "And did Izz refuse to go?" she asked. "I don't know. Anyhow he changed his mind." "Pooh--then he didn't mean it! 'Twas just a man's jest!" "Yes he did; for he drove her a good-ways towards the station." "He didn't take her!" They pulled on in silence till Tess, without any premonitory symptoms, burst out crying. "There!" said Marian. "Now I wish I hadn't told 'ee!" "No. It is a very good thing that you have done! I have been living on in a thirtover, lackaday way, and have not seen what it may lead to! I ought to have sent him a letter oftener. He said I could not go to him, but he didn't say I was not to write as often as I liked. I won't dally like this any longer! I have been very wrong and neglectful in leaving everything to be done by him!" The dim light in the barn grew dimmer, and they could see to work no longer. When Tess had reached home that evening, and had entered into the privacy of her little white-washed chamber, she began impetuously writing a letter to Clare. But falling into doubt, she could not finish it. Afterwards she took the ring from the ribbon on which she wore it next her heart, and retained it on her finger all night, as if to fortify herself in the sensation that she was really the wife of this elusive lover of hers, who could propose that Izz should go with him abroad, so shortly after he had left her. Knowing that, how could she write entreaties to him, or show that she cared for him any more?

Phase V: "The Woman Pays," Chapter Forty-Three

https://web.archive.org/web/20210424232301/http://www.shmoop.com/study-guides/literature/tess-of-the-durbervilles/summary/chapter-43

The farm where Tess and Marian are working is described repeatedly as a "starve-acre place" . It really is a poor and dismal place. Their job basically consists of pulling turnips out of the ground--not very exciting, and kind of hard on the back. Marian offers a nip from her flask to Tess, and Tess refuses. Marian excuses her own drinking by saying that she lost Angel, and Tess didn't, so that's why she needs the booze more. Marian is so happy to have Tess there that she proposes that they write to Izz and Retty, and tell them to come and work there as well. It would be like old times. The winter weather is brutally cold. The next day, the weather is so bad that it keeps them from working in the fields, and they hang out in the barn. Izz arrives that afternoon--along with two other new farm workers, Car and Nancy Darch, the two women who wanted to fight with Tess in Trantridge the night Alec raped her. They don't seem to recognize her, though, and everyone sets to work in the field the next day. The farmer gets back, and it turns out he's the Trantridge man whom Angel popped in the face, and who scared Tess on the road. And now she's signed something agreeing to work for him through the winter. He gives her a hard time about it, but she takes it calmly. Marian and Izz want to reminisce about the good old days at Talbothays, and how they all used to be in love with Angel, but Tess refuses to join in--after all, she married the guy. Izz makes a few sarcastic remarks about Angel's having left her, but she's really not a mean girl, so she lets up when she sees how it upsets Tess. After working in silence for a while, Tess sinks to the ground in exhaustion. Marian offers to help her, and Tess accepts, although she feels bad about it. While she's resting, Tess has the feeling that Marian and Izz are discussing Angel, and she doesn't like it. After a while, Tess gets up and gets back to work. Izz goes in early--she'd been walking all day, after all. Once Izz is gone, Marian shakes her head and says she wouldn't have believed it. Tess asks what she means--Marian's been drinking from her hip flask, and is inclined to be honest. Izz has told Marian about how Angel asked her to go to Brazil with him, and then changed his mind, and now Marian tells Tess. Tess bursts into tears, and resolves to write him a letter. But she never finishes the letter, and doesn't mail it.

shmoop

all_chapterized_books/1232-chapters/22.txt

finished_summaries/shmoop/The Prince/section_22_part_0.txt

The Prince.chapter 22

chapter 22

{"name": "Chapter 22", "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20210420060055/https://www.shmoop.com/study-guides/literature/prince-machiavelli/summary/chapter-22", "summary": "Choosing ministers is a big deal. If you chose right, everyone will say how smart you are for choosing such a great minister. Machiavelli explains that there are three kinds of people: First, there are those that are just super smart and understand things without any help Second, there are those that can understand what someone else has come up with And third, there are those that just don't get anything Ministers are great because even if you are only the second kind of person, you can pick a minister that is the first kind and seem super smart. There is no hope for the third kind of person. Now how do we choose a good minister? Throw any minister who seems to be thinking only of himself out of the pile. When you get ministers, give them more than they could ever dream of, so that, unless they are completely worthless, they will only think of how to make things more awesome for you, since you gave them all of that stuff. Loyalty guaranteed.", "analysis": ""}

The choice of servants is of no little importance to a prince, and they are good or not according to the discrimination of the prince. And the first opinion which one forms of a prince, and of his understanding, is by observing the men he has around him; and when they are capable and faithful he may always be considered wise, because he has known how to recognize the capable and to keep them faithful. But when they are otherwise one cannot form a good opinion of him, for the prime error which he made was in choosing them. There were none who knew Messer Antonio da Venafro as the servant of Pandolfo Petrucci, Prince of Siena, who would not consider Pandolfo to be a very clever man in having Venafro for his servant. Because there are three classes of intellects: one which comprehends by itself; another which appreciates what others comprehended; and a third which neither comprehends by itself nor by the showing of others; the first is the most excellent, the second is good, the third is useless. Therefore, it follows necessarily that, if Pandolfo was not in the first rank, he was in the second, for whenever one has judgment to know good and bad when it is said and done, although he himself may not have the initiative, yet he can recognize the good and the bad in his servant, and the one he can praise and the other correct; thus the servant cannot hope to deceive him, and is kept honest. But to enable a prince to form an opinion of his servant there is one test which never fails; when you see the servant thinking more of his own interests than of yours, and seeking inwardly his own profit in everything, such a man will never make a good servant, nor will you ever be able to trust him; because he who has the state of another in his hands ought never to think of himself, but always of his prince, and never pay any attention to matters in which the prince is not concerned. On the other hand, to keep his servant honest the prince ought to study him, honouring him, enriching him, doing him kindnesses, sharing with him the honours and cares; and at the same time let him see that he cannot stand alone, so that many honours may not make him desire more, many riches make him wish for more, and that many cares may make him dread chances. When, therefore, servants, and princes towards servants, are thus disposed, they can trust each other, but when it is otherwise, the end will always be disastrous for either one or the other.

Chapter 22

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Choosing ministers is a big deal. If you chose right, everyone will say how smart you are for choosing such a great minister. Machiavelli explains that there are three kinds of people: First, there are those that are just super smart and understand things without any help Second, there are those that can understand what someone else has come up with And third, there are those that just don't get anything Ministers are great because even if you are only the second kind of person, you can pick a minister that is the first kind and seem super smart. There is no hope for the third kind of person. Now how do we choose a good minister? Throw any minister who seems to be thinking only of himself out of the pile. When you get ministers, give them more than they could ever dream of, so that, unless they are completely worthless, they will only think of how to make things more awesome for you, since you gave them all of that stuff. Loyalty guaranteed.

shmoop

all_chapterized_books/110-chapters/47.txt

finished_summaries/shmoop/Tess of the D'Urbervilles/section_45_part_0.txt

Tess of the D'Urbervilles.chapter 46

chapter 46

{"name": "Phase VI: \"The Convert,\" Chapter Forty-Six", "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20210424232301/http://www.shmoop.com/study-guides/literature/tess-of-the-durbervilles/summary/chapter-46", "summary": "Several days later, Tess is working in the field at her turnip chopping when Alec shows up. She's irritated that he's there at all--she told him before that she never wanted to see him again. He says that he's there to ask how she's doing, money-wise. She was dressed nicely when he met her on the road, so he didn't think to ask her. But now that he sees that she's working in the field, he's afraid she's strapped for cash, and that it might be his fault. Tess doesn't want to get drawn into this conversation emotionally, so she keeps working. Then Alec tells her what he really came for: he offers to marry her, because he thinks that would make things right. She refuses--she says she loves somebody else. He doesn't think that's a good enough reason, until Tess admits that she married that other man, and that he's far away--because he found out about Alec. Alec feels bad, and tries to take Tess's hand. She pulls back, and tells him to go away. Just then the farmer approaches, and gives her a hard time for slacking off. Alec tries to defend her, but Tess would rather get scolded by the farmer than defended by Alec. So the farmer continues to yell at her as Alec walks off. The farmer has it in for Tess because he's still embarrassed about the time Angel punched him in the face, but at least his dislike for her has nothing to do with sex. She wonders what she would have done if she were free to marry Alec, and then mentally slaps herself for even asking the question. She's always hated him, after all. That night she writes another letter to Angel, assuring him of her affection, but not telling him about her troubles. Anyone with half a brain would be able to read between the lines, though. She mails the letter that night. Candlemas rolls around, and most of the laborers go to a fair in the town. Tess remains behind, and Alec shows up again. He asks about her religion--he's curious about why she doesn't believe in instantaneous conversions. She says that she believes what her husband believed, even though he had tried to help her form her own opinions. Whatever he said of his own thoughts, she adopted into her own religion. Angel might be far from perfect, but she is so devoted to him that she practically memorized everything he ever said about his opinions on religion and the supernatural. Alec asks her to repeat some of what Angel had said, and she happily repeats it, word-for-word, even though she doesn't fully understand all of it herself. Alec listens with rapt attention. When she's finished her recital, he tells her that he was supposed to give a sermon in town that afternoon, but that he came to see her, instead. Seeing her again revived his old love for her, even though he thought he'd stamped all that passion stuff out when he converted. Tess becomes alarmed--after all, she didn't seek him out. Alec gets agitated and talks about how her husband deserted her, but Tess cuts him off, defends Angel, and asks Alec to leave. Alec wants a goodbye smooch, but Tess tells him off, and he's humiliated by his weakness. Alec has relapsed back to his old wicked ways. Being around Tess is just too much for him. As he walks away, he thinks about how ironic it is that Angel's teachings, repeated by Tess, should have had a part in bringing Alec back to her.", "analysis": ""}

Several days had passed since her futile journey, and Tess was afield. The dry winter wind still blew, but a screen of thatched hurdles erected in the eye of the blast kept its force away from her. On the sheltered side was a turnip-slicing machine, whose bright blue hue of new paint seemed almost vocal in the otherwise subdued scene. Opposite its front was a long mound or "grave", in which the roots had been preserved since early winter. Tess was standing at the uncovered end, chopping off with a bill-hook the fibres and earth from each root, and throwing it after the operation into the slicer. A man was turning the handle of the machine, and from its trough came the newly-cut swedes, the fresh smell of whose yellow chips was accompanied by the sounds of the snuffling wind, the smart swish of the slicing-blades, and the choppings of the hook in Tess's leather-gloved hand. The wide acreage of blank agricultural brownness, apparent where the swedes had been pulled, was beginning to be striped in wales of darker brown, gradually broadening to ribands. Along the edge of each of these something crept upon ten legs, moving without haste and without rest up and down the whole length of the field; it was two horses and a man, the plough going between them, turning up the cleared ground for a spring sowing. For hours nothing relieved the joyless monotony of things. Then, far beyond the ploughing-teams, a black speck was seen. It had come from the corner of a fence, where there was a gap, and its tendency was up the incline, towards the swede-cutters. From the proportions of a mere point it advanced to the shape of a ninepin, and was soon perceived to be a man in black, arriving from the direction of Flintcomb-Ash. The man at the slicer, having nothing else to do with his eyes, continually observed the comer, but Tess, who was occupied, did not perceive him till her companion directed her attention to his approach. It was not her hard taskmaster, Farmer Groby; it was one in a semi-clerical costume, who now represented what had once been the free-and-easy Alec d'Urberville. Not being hot at his preaching there was less enthusiasm about him now, and the presence of the grinder seemed to embarrass him. A pale distress was already on Tess's face, and she pulled her curtained hood further over it. D'Urberville came up and said quietly-- "I want to speak to you, Tess." "You have refused my last request, not to come near me!" said she. "Yes, but I have a good reason." "Well, tell it." "It is more serious than you may think." He glanced round to see if he were overheard. They were at some distance from the man who turned the slicer, and the movement of the machine, too, sufficiently prevented Alec's words reaching other ears. D'Urberville placed himself so as to screen Tess from the labourer, turning his back to the latter. "It is this," he continued, with capricious compunction. "In thinking of your soul and mine when we last met, I neglected to inquire as to your worldly condition. You were well dressed, and I did not think of it. But I see now that it is hard--harder than it used to be when I--knew you--harder than you deserve. Perhaps a good deal of it is owning to me!" She did not answer, and he watched her inquiringly, as, with bent head, her face completely screened by the hood, she resumed her trimming of the swedes. By going on with her work she felt better able to keep him outside her emotions. "Tess," he added, with a sigh of discontent,--"yours was the very worst case I ever was concerned in! I had no idea of what had resulted till you told me. Scamp that I was to foul that innocent life! The whole blame was mine--the whole unconventional business of our time at Trantridge. You, too, the real blood of which I am but the base imitation, what a blind young thing you were as to possibilities! I say in all earnestness that it is a shame for parents to bring up their girls in such dangerous ignorance of the gins and nets that the wicked may set for them, whether their motive be a good one or the result of simple indifference." Tess still did no more than listen, throwing down one globular root and taking up another with automatic regularity, the pensive contour of the mere fieldwoman alone marking her. "But it is not that I came to say," d'Urberville went on. "My circumstances are these. I have lost my mother since you were at Trantridge, and the place is my own. But I intend to sell it, and devote myself to missionary work in Africa. A devil of a poor hand I shall make at the trade, no doubt. However, what I want to ask you is, will you put it in my power to do my duty--to make the only reparation I can make for the trick played you: that is, will you be my wife, and go with me? ... I have already obtained this precious document. It was my old mother's dying wish." He drew a piece of parchment from his pocket, with a slight fumbling of embarrassment. "What is it?" said she. "A marriage licence." "O no, sir--no!" she said quickly, starting back. "You will not? Why is that?" And as he asked the question a disappointment which was not entirely the disappointment of thwarted duty crossed d'Urberville's face. It was unmistakably a symptom that something of his old passion for her had been revived; duty and desire ran hand-in-hand. "Surely," he began again, in more impetuous tones, and then looked round at the labourer who turned the slicer. Tess, too, felt that the argument could not be ended there. Informing the man that a gentleman had come to see her, with whom she wished to walk a little way, she moved off with d'Urberville across the zebra-striped field. When they reached the first newly-ploughed section he held out his hand to help her over it; but she stepped forward on the summits of the earth-rolls as if she did not see him. "You will not marry me, Tess, and make me a self-respecting man?" he repeated, as soon as they were over the furrows. "I cannot." "But why?" "You know I have no affection for you." "But you would get to feel that in time, perhaps--as soon as you really could forgive me?" "Never!" "Why so positive?" "I love somebody else." The words seemed to astonish him. "You do?" he cried. "Somebody else? But has not a sense of what is morally right and proper any weight with you?" "No, no, no--don't say that!" "Anyhow, then, your love for this other man may be only a passing feeling which you will overcome--" "No--no." "Yes, yes! Why not?" "I cannot tell you." "You must in honour!" "Well then ... I have married him." "Ah!" he exclaimed; and he stopped dead and gazed at her. "I did not wish to tell--I did not mean to!" she pleaded. "It is a secret here, or at any rate but dimly known. So will you, PLEASE will you, keep from questioning me? You must remember that we are now strangers." "Strangers--are we? Strangers!" For a moment a flash of his old irony marked his face; but he determinedly chastened it down. "Is that man your husband?" he asked mechanically, denoting by a sign the labourer who turned the machine. "That man!" she said proudly. "I should think not!" "Who, then?" "Do not ask what I do not wish to tell!" she begged, and flashed her appeal to him from her upturned face and lash-shadowed eyes. D'Urberville was disturbed. "But I only asked for your sake!" he retorted hotly. "Angels of heaven!--God forgive me for such an expression--I came here, I swear, as I thought for your good. Tess--don't look at me so--I cannot stand your looks! There never were such eyes, surely, before Christianity or since! There--I won't lose my head; I dare not. I own that the sight of you had waked up my love for you, which, I believed, was extinguished with all such feelings. But I thought that our marriage might be a sanctification for us both. 'The unbelieving husband is sanctified by the wife, and the unbelieving wife is sanctified by the husband,' I said to myself. But my plan is dashed from me; and I must bear the disappointment!" He moodily reflected with his eyes on the ground. "Married. Married! ... Well, that being so," he added, quite calmly, tearing the licence slowly into halves and putting them in his pocket; "that being prevented, I should like to do some good to you and your husband, whoever he may be. There are many questions that I am tempted to ask, but I will not do so, of course, in opposition to your wishes. Though, if I could know your husband, I might more easily benefit him and you. Is he on this farm?" "No," she murmured. "He is far away." "Far away? From YOU? What sort of husband can he be?" "O, do not speak against him! It was through you! He found out--" "Ah, is it so! ... That's sad, Tess!" "Yes." "But to stay away from you--to leave you to work like this!" "He does not leave me to work!" she cried, springing to the defence of the absent one with all her fervour. "He don't know it! It is by my own arrangement." "Then, does he write?" "I--I cannot tell you. There are things which are private to ourselves." "Of course that means that he does not. You are a deserted wife, my fair Tess--" In an impulse he turned suddenly to take her hand; the buff-glove was on it, and he seized only the rough leather fingers which did not express the life or shape of those within. "You must not--you must not!" she cried fearfully, slipping her hand from the glove as from a pocket, and leaving it in his grasp. "O, will you go away--for the sake of me and my husband--go, in the name of your own Christianity!" "Yes, yes; I will," he said abruptly, and thrusting the glove back to her he turned to leave. Facing round, however, he said, "Tess, as God is my judge, I meant no humbug in taking your hand!" A pattering of hoofs on the soil of the field, which they had not noticed in their preoccupation, ceased close behind them; and a voice reached her ear: "What the devil are you doing away from your work at this time o' day?" Farmer Groby had espied the two figures from the distance, and had inquisitively ridden across, to learn what was their business in his field. "Don't speak like that to her!" said d'Urberville, his face blackening with something that was not Christianity. "Indeed, Mister! And what mid Methodist pa'sons have to do with she?" "Who is the fellow?" asked d'Urberville, turning to Tess. She went close up to him. "Go--I do beg you!" she said. "What! And leave you to that tyrant? I can see in his face what a churl he is." "He won't hurt me. HE'S not in love with me. I can leave at Lady-Day." "Well, I have no right but to obey, I suppose. But--well, goodbye!" Her defender, whom she dreaded more than her assailant, having reluctantly disappeared, the farmer continued his reprimand, which Tess took with the greatest coolness, that sort of attack being independent of sex. To have as a master this man of stone, who would have cuffed her if he had dared, was almost a relief after her former experiences. She silently walked back towards the summit of the field that was the scene of her labour, so absorbed in the interview which had just taken place that she was hardly aware that the nose of Groby's horse almost touched her shoulders. "If so be you make an agreement to work for me till Lady-Day, I'll see that you carry it out," he growled. "'Od rot the women--now 'tis one thing, and then 'tis another. But I'll put up with it no longer!" Knowing very well that he did not harass the other women of the farm as he harassed her out of spite for the flooring he had once received, she did for one moment picture what might have been the result if she had been free to accept the offer just made her of being the monied Alec's wife. It would have lifted her completely out of subjection, not only to her present oppressive employer, but to a whole world who seemed to despise her. "But no, no!" she said breathlessly; "I could not have married him now! He is so unpleasant to me." That very night she began an appealing letter to Clare, concealing from him her hardships, and assuring him of her undying affection. Any one who had been in a position to read between the lines would have seen that at the back of her great love was some monstrous fear--almost a desperation--as to some secret contingencies which were not disclosed. But again she did not finish her effusion; he had asked Izz to go with him, and perhaps he did not care for her at all. She put the letter in her box, and wondered if it would ever reach Angel's hands. After this her daily tasks were gone through heavily enough, and brought on the day which was of great import to agriculturists--the day of the Candlemas Fair. It was at this fair that new engagements were entered into for the twelve months following the ensuing Lady-Day, and those of the farming population who thought of changing their places duly attended at the county-town where the fair was held. Nearly all the labourers on Flintcomb-Ash farm intended flight, and early in the morning there was a general exodus in the direction of the town, which lay at a distance of from ten to a dozen miles over hilly country. Though Tess also meant to leave at the quarter-day, she was one of the few who did not go to the fair, having a vaguely-shaped hope that something would happen to render another outdoor engagement unnecessary. It was a peaceful February day, of wonderful softness for the time, and one would almost have thought that winter was over. She had hardly finished her dinner when d'Urberville's figure darkened the window of the cottage wherein she was a lodger, which she had all to herself to-day. Tess jumped up, but her visitor had knocked at the door, and she could hardly in reason run away. D'Urberville's knock, his walk up to the door, had some indescribable quality of difference from his air when she last saw him. They seemed to be acts of which the doer was ashamed. She thought that she would not open the door; but, as there was no sense in that either, she arose, and having lifted the latch stepped back quickly. He came in, saw her, and flung himself down into a chair before speaking. "Tess--I couldn't help it!" he began desperately, as he wiped his heated face, which had also a superimposed flush of excitement. "I felt that I must call at least to ask how you are. I assure you I had not been thinking of you at all till I saw you that Sunday; now I cannot get rid of your image, try how I may! It is hard that a good woman should do harm to a bad man; yet so it is. If you would only pray for me, Tess!" The suppressed discontent of his manner was almost pitiable, and yet Tess did not pity him. "How can I pray for you," she said, "when I am forbidden to believe that the great Power who moves the world would alter His plans on my account?" "You really think that?" "Yes. I have been cured of the presumption of thinking otherwise." "Cured? By whom?" "By my husband, if I must tell." "Ah--your husband--your husband! How strange it seems! I remember you hinted something of the sort the other day. What do you really believe in these matters, Tess?" he asked. "You seem to have no religion--perhaps owing to me." "But I have. Though I don't believe in anything supernatural." D'Urberville looked at her with misgiving. "Then do you think that the line I take is all wrong?" "A good deal of it." "H'm--and yet I've felt so sure about it," he said uneasily. "I believe in the SPIRIT of the Sermon on the Mount, and so did my dear husband... But I don't believe--" Here she gave her negations. "The fact is," said d'Urberville drily, "whatever your dear husband believed you accept, and whatever he rejected you reject, without the least inquiry or reasoning on your own part. That's just like you women. Your mind is enslaved to his." "Ah, because he knew everything!" said she, with a triumphant simplicity of faith in Angel Clare that the most perfect man could hardly have deserved, much less her husband. "Yes, but you should not take negative opinions wholesale from another person like that. A pretty fellow he must be to teach you such scepticism!" "He never forced my judgement! He would never argue on the subject with me! But I looked at it in this way; what he believed, after inquiring deep into doctrines, was much more likely to be right than what I might believe, who hadn't looked into doctrines at all." "What used he to say? He must have said something?" She reflected; and with her acute memory for the letter of Angel Clare's remarks, even when she did not comprehend their spirit, she recalled a merciless polemical syllogism that she had heard him use when, as it occasionally happened, he indulged in a species of thinking aloud with her at his side. In delivering it she gave also Clare's accent and manner with reverential faithfulness. "Say that again," asked d'Urberville, who had listened with the greatest attention. She repeated the argument, and d'Urberville thoughtfully murmured the words after her. "Anything else?" he presently asked. "He said at another time something like this"; and she gave another, which might possibly have been paralleled in many a work of the pedigree ranging from the _Dictionnaire Philosophique_ to Huxley's _Essays_. "Ah--ha! How do you remember them?" "I wanted to believe what he believed, though he didn't wish me to; and I managed to coax him to tell me a few of his thoughts. I can't say I quite understand that one; but I know it is right." "H'm. Fancy your being able to teach me what you don't know yourself!" He fell into thought. "And so I threw in my spiritual lot with his," she resumed. "I didn't wish it to be different. What's good enough for him is good enough for me." "Does he know that you are as big an infidel as he?" "No--I never told him--if I am an infidel." "Well--you are better off to-day that I am, Tess, after all! You don't believe that you ought to preach my doctrine, and, therefore, do no despite to your conscience in abstaining. I do believe I ought to preach it, but, like the devils, I believe and tremble, for I suddenly leave off preaching it, and give way to my passion for you." "How?" "Why," he said aridly; "I have come all the way here to see you to-day! But I started from home to go to Casterbridge Fair, where I have undertaken to preach the Word from a waggon at half-past two this afternoon, and where all the brethren are expecting me this minute. Here's the announcement." He drew from his breast-pocket a poster whereon was printed the day, hour, and place of meeting, at which he, d'Urberville, would preach the Gospel as aforesaid. "But how can you get there?" said Tess, looking at the clock. "I cannot get there! I have come here." "What, you have really arranged to preach, and--" "I have arranged to preach, and I shall not be there--by reason of my burning desire to see a woman whom I once despised!--No, by my word and truth, I never despised you; if I had I should not love you now! Why I did not despise you was on account of your being unsmirched in spite of all; you withdrew yourself from me so quickly and resolutely when you saw the situation; you did not remain at my pleasure; so there was one petticoat in the world for whom I had no contempt, and you are she. But you may well despise me now! I thought I worshipped on the mountains, but I find I still serve in the groves! Ha! ha!" "O Alec d'Urberville! what does this mean? What have I done!" "Done?" he said, with a soulless sneer in the word. "Nothing intentionally. But you have been the means--the innocent means--of my backsliding, as they call it. I ask myself, am I, indeed, one of those 'servants of corruption' who, 'after they have escaped the pollutions of the world, are again entangled therein and overcome'-- whose latter end is worse than their beginning?" He laid his hand on her shoulder. "Tess, my girl, I was on the way to, at least, social salvation till I saw you again!" he said freakishly shaking her, as if she were a child. "And why then have you tempted me? I was firm as a man could be till I saw those eyes and that mouth again--surely there never was such a maddening mouth since Eve's!" His voice sank, and a hot archness shot from his own black eyes. "You temptress, Tess; you dear damned witch of Babylon--I could not resist you as soon as I met you again!" "I couldn't help your seeing me again!" said Tess, recoiling. "I know it--I repeat that I do not blame you. But the fact remains. When I saw you ill-used on the farm that day I was nearly mad to think that I had no legal right to protect you--that I could not have it; whilst he who has it seems to neglect you utterly!" "Don't speak against him--he is absent!" she cried in much excitement. "Treat him honourably--he has never wronged you! O leave his wife before any scandal spreads that may do harm to his honest name!" "I will--I will," he said, like a man awakening from a luring dream. "I have broken my engagement to preach to those poor drunken boobies at the fair--it is the first time I have played such a practical joke. A month ago I should have been horrified at such a possibility. I'll go away--to swear--and--ah, can I! to keep away." Then, suddenly: "One clasp, Tessy--one! Only for old friendship--" "I am without defence. Alec! A good man's honour is in my keeping-- think--be ashamed!" "Pooh! Well, yes--yes!" He clenched his lips, mortified with himself for his weakness. His eyes were equally barren of worldly and religious faith. The corpses of those old fitful passions which had lain inanimate amid the lines of his face ever since his reformation seemed to wake and come together as in a resurrection. He went out indeterminately. Though d'Urberville had declared that this breach of his engagement to-day was the simple backsliding of a believer, Tess's words, as echoed from Angel Clare, had made a deep impression upon him, and continued to do so after he had left her. He moved on in silence, as if his energies were benumbed by the hitherto undreamt-of possibility that his position was untenable. Reason had had nothing to do with his whimsical conversion, which was perhaps the mere freak of a careless man in search of a new sensation, and temporarily impressed by his mother's death. The drops of logic Tess had let fall into the sea of his enthusiasm served to chill its effervescence to stagnation. He said to himself, as he pondered again and again over the crystallized phrases that she had handed on to him, "That clever fellow little thought that, by telling her those things, he might be paving my way back to her!"

Phase VI: "The Convert," Chapter Forty-Six

https://web.archive.org/web/20210424232301/http://www.shmoop.com/study-guides/literature/tess-of-the-durbervilles/summary/chapter-46

Several days later, Tess is working in the field at her turnip chopping when Alec shows up. She's irritated that he's there at all--she told him before that she never wanted to see him again. He says that he's there to ask how she's doing, money-wise. She was dressed nicely when he met her on the road, so he didn't think to ask her. But now that he sees that she's working in the field, he's afraid she's strapped for cash, and that it might be his fault. Tess doesn't want to get drawn into this conversation emotionally, so she keeps working. Then Alec tells her what he really came for: he offers to marry her, because he thinks that would make things right. She refuses--she says she loves somebody else. He doesn't think that's a good enough reason, until Tess admits that she married that other man, and that he's far away--because he found out about Alec. Alec feels bad, and tries to take Tess's hand. She pulls back, and tells him to go away. Just then the farmer approaches, and gives her a hard time for slacking off. Alec tries to defend her, but Tess would rather get scolded by the farmer than defended by Alec. So the farmer continues to yell at her as Alec walks off. The farmer has it in for Tess because he's still embarrassed about the time Angel punched him in the face, but at least his dislike for her has nothing to do with sex. She wonders what she would have done if she were free to marry Alec, and then mentally slaps herself for even asking the question. She's always hated him, after all. That night she writes another letter to Angel, assuring him of her affection, but not telling him about her troubles. Anyone with half a brain would be able to read between the lines, though. She mails the letter that night. Candlemas rolls around, and most of the laborers go to a fair in the town. Tess remains behind, and Alec shows up again. He asks about her religion--he's curious about why she doesn't believe in instantaneous conversions. She says that she believes what her husband believed, even though he had tried to help her form her own opinions. Whatever he said of his own thoughts, she adopted into her own religion. Angel might be far from perfect, but she is so devoted to him that she practically memorized everything he ever said about his opinions on religion and the supernatural. Alec asks her to repeat some of what Angel had said, and she happily repeats it, word-for-word, even though she doesn't fully understand all of it herself. Alec listens with rapt attention. When she's finished her recital, he tells her that he was supposed to give a sermon in town that afternoon, but that he came to see her, instead. Seeing her again revived his old love for her, even though he thought he'd stamped all that passion stuff out when he converted. Tess becomes alarmed--after all, she didn't seek him out. Alec gets agitated and talks about how her husband deserted her, but Tess cuts him off, defends Angel, and asks Alec to leave. Alec wants a goodbye smooch, but Tess tells him off, and he's humiliated by his weakness. Alec has relapsed back to his old wicked ways. Being around Tess is just too much for him. As he walks away, he thinks about how ironic it is that Angel's teachings, repeated by Tess, should have had a part in bringing Alec back to her.

shmoop

all_chapterized_books/174-chapters/05.txt

finished_summaries/shmoop/The Picture of Dorian Gray/section_4_part_0.txt

The Picture of Dorian Gray.chapter 5

chapter 5

{"name": "Chapter 5", "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20210304030722/https://www.shmoop.com/study-guides/literature/picture-dorian-gray/summary/chapter-5", "summary": "Sibyl and her mother are at home in their dingy house, a world away from Lord Henry's luxurious abode. Sibyl is totally infatuated with Dorian, and love is the only thing on her young, naive mind. Sibyl's world-weary mother, however, has other things on her mind--she's cynical, and is more concerned with things like money than Sybil's innocent adoration. Sibyl asks her mother if she was ever this in love with her absent father; obviously, this hits close to home. We have to wonder what Sibyl's mother was like in her youth--was she as naive and optimistic as her daughter? The narrator informs us rather cruelly of how \"second-rate\" and ridiculously theatrical Mrs. Vane is, playing up the fact that she's always conscious of how her actions look, even when her audience is just her children. When Sibyl's brother, James, enters the room, their mother pauses dramatically with her arms around Sibyl for theatrical effect. James and Sibyl are obviously quite close. He's leaving for Australia to try and make some money, and he wants to take Sibyl out for one last walk. The siblings agree to go to the park. While Sibyl's upstairs changing, James grills his mother about his sister's mysterious suitor. We gather that Mrs. Vane thinks highly of Dorian, who she calls a \"perfect gentleman.\" James is unconvinced, and makes his mother promise to look after the girl. Sibyl and James go off on their walk, leaving their obnoxious mother behind. Compared to Sibyl, James is a horse of a different color. He's much more suspicious of people, and is a lot more street-smart than his dreamy sister. Sibyl goes on and on about her vision of James' idyllic future in Australia, but all the while, he's worrying about Dorian's intentions towards his sister. After all, Sibyl and Mrs. Vane don't even know Dorian's name yet. Who knows if he's trustworthy? James comes out and warns Sibyl to be careful, but she laughs him off, saying that Dorian is Prince Charming, and can do no wrong. The siblings sit on a park bench, watching the wealthy people go by. Suddenly, Dorian drives past in a carriage. Sibyl and James strain to see him, but, before James catches a glimpse, the carriage is gone. James is torn between his love for his sister and his resentment of this mysterious Prince Charming. He promises not to hurt Dorian as long as Sibyl still loves him. At home, James and Sibyl say their goodbyes. Even though James is resentful and jealous of the strange suitor, he's still terribly sad to leave home--after all, he's just sixteen. After leaving Sibyl in her room, James goes to see his mother. He demands to know whether or not she was married to their father--it turns out, she wasn't. We find out that he was also a gentleman, like Dorian, and he couldn't make an honest woman of her--he died without leaving them anything. James again insists that his mother take good care of Sibyl, and says that if her suitor does anything to hurt her, he'll come back and kill him. Mrs. Vane is secretly thrilled by the melodramatic ring of this threat--it actually cheers her up, despite the fact that her son is leaving home for a strange country. She feels like things are looking up.", "analysis": ""}

"Mother, Mother, I am so happy!" whispered the girl, burying her face in the lap of the faded, tired-looking woman who, with back turned to the shrill intrusive light, was sitting in the one arm-chair that their dingy sitting-room contained. "I am so happy!" she repeated, "and you must be happy, too!" Mrs. Vane winced and put her thin, bismuth-whitened hands on her daughter's head. "Happy!" she echoed, "I am only happy, Sibyl, when I see you act. You must not think of anything but your acting. Mr. Isaacs has been very good to us, and we owe him money." The girl looked up and pouted. "Money, Mother?" she cried, "what does money matter? Love is more than money." "Mr. Isaacs has advanced us fifty pounds to pay off our debts and to get a proper outfit for James. You must not forget that, Sibyl. Fifty pounds is a very large sum. Mr. Isaacs has been most considerate." "He is not a gentleman, Mother, and I hate the way he talks to me," said the girl, rising to her feet and going over to the window. "I don't know how we could manage without him," answered the elder woman querulously. Sibyl Vane tossed her head and laughed. "We don't want him any more, Mother. Prince Charming rules life for us now." Then she paused. A rose shook in her blood and shadowed her cheeks. Quick breath parted the petals of her lips. They trembled. Some southern wind of passion swept over her and stirred the dainty folds of her dress. "I love him," she said simply. "Foolish child! foolish child!" was the parrot-phrase flung in answer. The waving of crooked, false-jewelled fingers gave grotesqueness to the words. The girl laughed again. The joy of a caged bird was in her voice. Her eyes caught the melody and echoed it in radiance, then closed for a moment, as though to hide their secret. When they opened, the mist of a dream had passed across them. Thin-lipped wisdom spoke at her from the worn chair, hinted at prudence, quoted from that book of cowardice whose author apes the name of common sense. She did not listen. She was free in her prison of passion. Her prince, Prince Charming, was with her. She had called on memory to remake him. She had sent her soul to search for him, and it had brought him back. His kiss burned again upon her mouth. Her eyelids were warm with his breath. Then wisdom altered its method and spoke of espial and discovery. This young man might be rich. If so, marriage should be thought of. Against the shell of her ear broke the waves of worldly cunning. The arrows of craft shot by her. She saw the thin lips moving, and smiled. Suddenly she felt the need to speak. The wordy silence troubled her. "Mother, Mother," she cried, "why does he love me so much? I know why I love him. I love him because he is like what love himself should be. But what does he see in me? I am not worthy of him. And yet--why, I cannot tell--though I feel so much beneath him, I don't feel humble. I feel proud, terribly proud. Mother, did you love my father as I love Prince Charming?" The elder woman grew pale beneath the coarse powder that daubed her cheeks, and her dry lips twitched with a spasm of pain. Sybil rushed to her, flung her arms round her neck, and kissed her. "Forgive me, Mother. I know it pains you to talk about our father. But it only pains you because you loved him so much. Don't look so sad. I am as happy to-day as you were twenty years ago. Ah! let me be happy for ever!" "My child, you are far too young to think of falling in love. Besides, what do you know of this young man? You don't even know his name. The whole thing is most inconvenient, and really, when James is going away to Australia, and I have so much to think of, I must say that you should have shown more consideration. However, as I said before, if he is rich ..." "Ah! Mother, Mother, let me be happy!" Mrs. Vane glanced at her, and with one of those false theatrical gestures that so often become a mode of second nature to a stage-player, clasped her in her arms. At this moment, the door opened and a young lad with rough brown hair came into the room. He was thick-set of figure, and his hands and feet were large and somewhat clumsy in movement. He was not so finely bred as his sister. One would hardly have guessed the close relationship that existed between them. Mrs. Vane fixed her eyes on him and intensified her smile. She mentally elevated her son to the dignity of an audience. She felt sure that the _tableau_ was interesting. "You might keep some of your kisses for me, Sibyl, I think," said the lad with a good-natured grumble. "Ah! but you don't like being kissed, Jim," she cried. "You are a dreadful old bear." And she ran across the room and hugged him. James Vane looked into his sister's face with tenderness. "I want you to come out with me for a walk, Sibyl. I don't suppose I shall ever see this horrid London again. I am sure I don't want to." "My son, don't say such dreadful things," murmured Mrs. Vane, taking up a tawdry theatrical dress, with a sigh, and beginning to patch it. She felt a little disappointed that he had not joined the group. It would have increased the theatrical picturesqueness of the situation. "Why not, Mother? I mean it." "You pain me, my son. I trust you will return from Australia in a position of affluence. I believe there is no society of any kind in the Colonies--nothing that I would call society--so when you have made your fortune, you must come back and assert yourself in London." "Society!" muttered the lad. "I don't want to know anything about that. I should like to make some money to take you and Sibyl off the stage. I hate it." "Oh, Jim!" said Sibyl, laughing, "how unkind of you! But are you really going for a walk with me? That will be nice! I was afraid you were going to say good-bye to some of your friends--to Tom Hardy, who gave you that hideous pipe, or Ned Langton, who makes fun of you for smoking it. It is very sweet of you to let me have your last afternoon. Where shall we go? Let us go to the park." "I am too shabby," he answered, frowning. "Only swell people go to the park." "Nonsense, Jim," she whispered, stroking the sleeve of his coat. He hesitated for a moment. "Very well," he said at last, "but don't be too long dressing." She danced out of the door. One could hear her singing as she ran upstairs. Her little feet pattered overhead. He walked up and down the room two or three times. Then he turned to the still figure in the chair. "Mother, are my things ready?" he asked. "Quite ready, James," she answered, keeping her eyes on her work. For some months past she had felt ill at ease when she was alone with this rough stern son of hers. Her shallow secret nature was troubled when their eyes met. She used to wonder if he suspected anything. The silence, for he made no other observation, became intolerable to her. She began to complain. Women defend themselves by attacking, just as they attack by sudden and strange surrenders. "I hope you will be contented, James, with your sea-faring life," she said. "You must remember that it is your own choice. You might have entered a solicitor's office. Solicitors are a very respectable class, and in the country often dine with the best families." "I hate offices, and I hate clerks," he replied. "But you are quite right. I have chosen my own life. All I say is, watch over Sibyl. Don't let her come to any harm. Mother, you must watch over her." "James, you really talk very strangely. Of course I watch over Sibyl." "I hear a gentleman comes every night to the theatre and goes behind to talk to her. Is that right? What about that?" "You are speaking about things you don't understand, James. In the profession we are accustomed to receive a great deal of most gratifying attention. I myself used to receive many bouquets at one time. That was when acting was really understood. As for Sibyl, I do not know at present whether her attachment is serious or not. But there is no doubt that the young man in question is a perfect gentleman. He is always most polite to me. Besides, he has the appearance of being rich, and the flowers he sends are lovely." "You don't know his name, though," said the lad harshly. "No," answered his mother with a placid expression in her face. "He has not yet revealed his real name. I think it is quite romantic of him. He is probably a member of the aristocracy." James Vane bit his lip. "Watch over Sibyl, Mother," he cried, "watch over her." "My son, you distress me very much. Sibyl is always under my special care. Of course, if this gentleman is wealthy, there is no reason why she should not contract an alliance with him. I trust he is one of the aristocracy. He has all the appearance of it, I must say. It might be a most brilliant marriage for Sibyl. They would make a charming couple. His good looks are really quite remarkable; everybody notices them." The lad muttered something to himself and drummed on the window-pane with his coarse fingers. He had just turned round to say something when the door opened and Sibyl ran in. "How serious you both are!" she cried. "What is the matter?" "Nothing," he answered. "I suppose one must be serious sometimes. Good-bye, Mother; I will have my dinner at five o'clock. Everything is packed, except my shirts, so you need not trouble." "Good-bye, my son," she answered with a bow of strained stateliness. She was extremely annoyed at the tone he had adopted with her, and there was something in his look that had made her feel afraid. "Kiss me, Mother," said the girl. Her flowerlike lips touched the withered cheek and warmed its frost. "My child! my child!" cried Mrs. Vane, looking up to the ceiling in search of an imaginary gallery. "Come, Sibyl," said her brother impatiently. He hated his mother's affectations. They went out into the flickering, wind-blown sunlight and strolled down the dreary Euston Road. The passersby glanced in wonder at the sullen heavy youth who, in coarse, ill-fitting clothes, was in the company of such a graceful, refined-looking girl. He was like a common gardener walking with a rose. Jim frowned from time to time when he caught the inquisitive glance of some stranger. He had that dislike of being stared at, which comes on geniuses late in life and never leaves the commonplace. Sibyl, however, was quite unconscious of the effect she was producing. Her love was trembling in laughter on her lips. She was thinking of Prince Charming, and, that she might think of him all the more, she did not talk of him, but prattled on about the ship in which Jim was going to sail, about the gold he was certain to find, about the wonderful heiress whose life he was to save from the wicked, red-shirted bushrangers. For he was not to remain a sailor, or a supercargo, or whatever he was going to be. Oh, no! A sailor's existence was dreadful. Fancy being cooped up in a horrid ship, with the hoarse, hump-backed waves trying to get in, and a black wind blowing the masts down and tearing the sails into long screaming ribands! He was to leave the vessel at Melbourne, bid a polite good-bye to the captain, and go off at once to the gold-fields. Before a week was over he was to come across a large nugget of pure gold, the largest nugget that had ever been discovered, and bring it down to the coast in a waggon guarded by six mounted policemen. The bushrangers were to attack them three times, and be defeated with immense slaughter. Or, no. He was not to go to the gold-fields at all. They were horrid places, where men got intoxicated, and shot each other in bar-rooms, and used bad language. He was to be a nice sheep-farmer, and one evening, as he was riding home, he was to see the beautiful heiress being carried off by a robber on a black horse, and give chase, and rescue her. Of course, she would fall in love with him, and he with her, and they would get married, and come home, and live in an immense house in London. Yes, there were delightful things in store for him. But he must be very good, and not lose his temper, or spend his money foolishly. She was only a year older than he was, but she knew so much more of life. He must be sure, also, to write to her by every mail, and to say his prayers each night before he went to sleep. God was very good, and would watch over him. She would pray for him, too, and in a few years he would come back quite rich and happy. The lad listened sulkily to her and made no answer. He was heart-sick at leaving home. Yet it was not this alone that made him gloomy and morose. Inexperienced though he was, he had still a strong sense of the danger of Sibyl's position. This young dandy who was making love to her could mean her no good. He was a gentleman, and he hated him for that, hated him through some curious race-instinct for which he could not account, and which for that reason was all the more dominant within him. He was conscious also of the shallowness and vanity of his mother's nature, and in that saw infinite peril for Sibyl and Sibyl's happiness. Children begin by loving their parents; as they grow older they judge them; sometimes they forgive them. His mother! He had something on his mind to ask of her, something that he had brooded on for many months of silence. A chance phrase that he had heard at the theatre, a whispered sneer that had reached his ears one night as he waited at the stage-door, had set loose a train of horrible thoughts. He remembered it as if it had been the lash of a hunting-crop across his face. His brows knit together into a wedge-like furrow, and with a twitch of pain he bit his underlip. "You are not listening to a word I am saying, Jim," cried Sibyl, "and I am making the most delightful plans for your future. Do say something." "What do you want me to say?" "Oh! that you will be a good boy and not forget us," she answered, smiling at him. He shrugged his shoulders. "You are more likely to forget me than I am to forget you, Sibyl." She flushed. "What do you mean, Jim?" she asked. "You have a new friend, I hear. Who is he? Why have you not told me about him? He means you no good." "Stop, Jim!" she exclaimed. "You must not say anything against him. I love him." "Why, you don't even know his name," answered the lad. "Who is he? I have a right to know." "He is called Prince Charming. Don't you like the name. Oh! you silly boy! you should never forget it. If you only saw him, you would think him the most wonderful person in the world. Some day you will meet him--when you come back from Australia. You will like him so much. Everybody likes him, and I ... love him. I wish you could come to the theatre to-night. He is going to be there, and I am to play Juliet. Oh! how I shall play it! Fancy, Jim, to be in love and play Juliet! To have him sitting there! To play for his delight! I am afraid I may frighten the company, frighten or enthrall them. To be in love is to surpass one's self. Poor dreadful Mr. Isaacs will be shouting 'genius' to his loafers at the bar. He has preached me as a dogma; to-night he will announce me as a revelation. I feel it. And it is all his, his only, Prince Charming, my wonderful lover, my god of graces. But I am poor beside him. Poor? What does that matter? When poverty creeps in at the door, love flies in through the window. Our proverbs want rewriting. They were made in winter, and it is summer now; spring-time for me, I think, a very dance of blossoms in blue skies." "He is a gentleman," said the lad sullenly. "A prince!" she cried musically. "What more do you want?" "He wants to enslave you." "I shudder at the thought of being free." "I want you to beware of him." "To see him is to worship him; to know him is to trust him." "Sibyl, you are mad about him." She laughed and took his arm. "You dear old Jim, you talk as if you were a hundred. Some day you will be in love yourself. Then you will know what it is. Don't look so sulky. Surely you should be glad to think that, though you are going away, you leave me happier than I have ever been before. Life has been hard for us both, terribly hard and difficult. But it will be different now. You are going to a new world, and I have found one. Here are two chairs; let us sit down and see the smart people go by." They took their seats amidst a crowd of watchers. The tulip-beds across the road flamed like throbbing rings of fire. A white dust--tremulous cloud of orris-root it seemed--hung in the panting air. The brightly coloured parasols danced and dipped like monstrous butterflies. She made her brother talk of himself, his hopes, his prospects. He spoke slowly and with effort. They passed words to each other as players at a game pass counters. Sibyl felt oppressed. She could not communicate her joy. A faint smile curving that sullen mouth was all the echo she could win. After some time she became silent. Suddenly she caught a glimpse of golden hair and laughing lips, and in an open carriage with two ladies Dorian Gray drove past. She started to her feet. "There he is!" she cried. "Who?" said Jim Vane. "Prince Charming," she answered, looking after the victoria. He jumped up and seized her roughly by the arm. "Show him to me. Which is he? Point him out. I must see him!" he exclaimed; but at that moment the Duke of Berwick's four-in-hand came between, and when it had left the space clear, the carriage had swept out of the park. "He is gone," murmured Sibyl sadly. "I wish you had seen him." "I wish I had, for as sure as there is a God in heaven, if he ever does you any wrong, I shall kill him." She looked at him in horror. He repeated his words. They cut the air like a dagger. The people round began to gape. A lady standing close to her tittered. "Come away, Jim; come away," she whispered. He followed her doggedly as she passed through the crowd. He felt glad at what he had said. When they reached the Achilles Statue, she turned round. There was pity in her eyes that became laughter on her lips. She shook her head at him. "You are foolish, Jim, utterly foolish; a bad-tempered boy, that is all. How can you say such horrible things? You don't know what you are talking about. You are simply jealous and unkind. Ah! I wish you would fall in love. Love makes people good, and what you said was wicked." "I am sixteen," he answered, "and I know what I am about. Mother is no help to you. She doesn't understand how to look after you. I wish now that I was not going to Australia at all. I have a great mind to chuck the whole thing up. I would, if my articles hadn't been signed." "Oh, don't be so serious, Jim. You are like one of the heroes of those silly melodramas Mother used to be so fond of acting in. I am not going to quarrel with you. I have seen him, and oh! to see him is perfect happiness. We won't quarrel. I know you would never harm any one I love, would you?" "Not as long as you love him, I suppose," was the sullen answer. "I shall love him for ever!" she cried. "And he?" "For ever, too!" "He had better." She shrank from him. Then she laughed and put her hand on his arm. He was merely a boy. At the Marble Arch they hailed an omnibus, which left them close to their shabby home in the Euston Road. It was after five o'clock, and Sibyl had to lie down for a couple of hours before acting. Jim insisted that she should do so. He said that he would sooner part with her when their mother was not present. She would be sure to make a scene, and he detested scenes of every kind. In Sybil's own room they parted. There was jealousy in the lad's heart, and a fierce murderous hatred of the stranger who, as it seemed to him, had come between them. Yet, when her arms were flung round his neck, and her fingers strayed through his hair, he softened and kissed her with real affection. There were tears in his eyes as he went downstairs. His mother was waiting for him below. She grumbled at his unpunctuality, as he entered. He made no answer, but sat down to his meagre meal. The flies buzzed round the table and crawled over the stained cloth. Through the rumble of omnibuses, and the clatter of street-cabs, he could hear the droning voice devouring each minute that was left to him. After some time, he thrust away his plate and put his head in his hands. He felt that he had a right to know. It should have been told to him before, if it was as he suspected. Leaden with fear, his mother watched him. Words dropped mechanically from her lips. A tattered lace handkerchief twitched in her fingers. When the clock struck six, he got up and went to the door. Then he turned back and looked at her. Their eyes met. In hers he saw a wild appeal for mercy. It enraged him. "Mother, I have something to ask you," he said. Her eyes wandered vaguely about the room. She made no answer. "Tell me the truth. I have a right to know. Were you married to my father?" She heaved a deep sigh. It was a sigh of relief. The terrible moment, the moment that night and day, for weeks and months, she had dreaded, had come at last, and yet she felt no terror. Indeed, in some measure it was a disappointment to her. The vulgar directness of the question called for a direct answer. The situation had not been gradually led up to. It was crude. It reminded her of a bad rehearsal. "No," she answered, wondering at the harsh simplicity of life. "My father was a scoundrel then!" cried the lad, clenching his fists. She shook her head. "I knew he was not free. We loved each other very much. If he had lived, he would have made provision for us. Don't speak against him, my son. He was your father, and a gentleman. Indeed, he was highly connected." An oath broke from his lips. "I don't care for myself," he exclaimed, "but don't let Sibyl.... It is a gentleman, isn't it, who is in love with her, or says he is? Highly connected, too, I suppose." For a moment a hideous sense of humiliation came over the woman. Her head drooped. She wiped her eyes with shaking hands. "Sibyl has a mother," she murmured; "I had none." The lad was touched. He went towards her, and stooping down, he kissed her. "I am sorry if I have pained you by asking about my father," he said, "but I could not help it. I must go now. Good-bye. Don't forget that you will have only one child now to look after, and believe me that if this man wrongs my sister, I will find out who he is, track him down, and kill him like a dog. I swear it." The exaggerated folly of the threat, the passionate gesture that accompanied it, the mad melodramatic words, made life seem more vivid to her. She was familiar with the atmosphere. She breathed more freely, and for the first time for many months she really admired her son. She would have liked to have continued the scene on the same emotional scale, but he cut her short. Trunks had to be carried down and mufflers looked for. The lodging-house drudge bustled in and out. There was the bargaining with the cabman. The moment was lost in vulgar details. It was with a renewed feeling of disappointment that she waved the tattered lace handkerchief from the window, as her son drove away. She was conscious that a great opportunity had been wasted. She consoled herself by telling Sibyl how desolate she felt her life would be, now that she had only one child to look after. She remembered the phrase. It had pleased her. Of the threat she said nothing. It was vividly and dramatically expressed. She felt that they would all laugh at it some day.

Chapter 5

https://web.archive.org/web/20210304030722/https://www.shmoop.com/study-guides/literature/picture-dorian-gray/summary/chapter-5

Sibyl and her mother are at home in their dingy house, a world away from Lord Henry's luxurious abode. Sibyl is totally infatuated with Dorian, and love is the only thing on her young, naive mind. Sibyl's world-weary mother, however, has other things on her mind--she's cynical, and is more concerned with things like money than Sybil's innocent adoration. Sibyl asks her mother if she was ever this in love with her absent father; obviously, this hits close to home. We have to wonder what Sibyl's mother was like in her youth--was she as naive and optimistic as her daughter? The narrator informs us rather cruelly of how "second-rate" and ridiculously theatrical Mrs. Vane is, playing up the fact that she's always conscious of how her actions look, even when her audience is just her children. When Sibyl's brother, James, enters the room, their mother pauses dramatically with her arms around Sibyl for theatrical effect. James and Sibyl are obviously quite close. He's leaving for Australia to try and make some money, and he wants to take Sibyl out for one last walk. The siblings agree to go to the park. While Sibyl's upstairs changing, James grills his mother about his sister's mysterious suitor. We gather that Mrs. Vane thinks highly of Dorian, who she calls a "perfect gentleman." James is unconvinced, and makes his mother promise to look after the girl. Sibyl and James go off on their walk, leaving their obnoxious mother behind. Compared to Sibyl, James is a horse of a different color. He's much more suspicious of people, and is a lot more street-smart than his dreamy sister. Sibyl goes on and on about her vision of James' idyllic future in Australia, but all the while, he's worrying about Dorian's intentions towards his sister. After all, Sibyl and Mrs. Vane don't even know Dorian's name yet. Who knows if he's trustworthy? James comes out and warns Sibyl to be careful, but she laughs him off, saying that Dorian is Prince Charming, and can do no wrong. The siblings sit on a park bench, watching the wealthy people go by. Suddenly, Dorian drives past in a carriage. Sibyl and James strain to see him, but, before James catches a glimpse, the carriage is gone. James is torn between his love for his sister and his resentment of this mysterious Prince Charming. He promises not to hurt Dorian as long as Sibyl still loves him. At home, James and Sibyl say their goodbyes. Even though James is resentful and jealous of the strange suitor, he's still terribly sad to leave home--after all, he's just sixteen. After leaving Sibyl in her room, James goes to see his mother. He demands to know whether or not she was married to their father--it turns out, she wasn't. We find out that he was also a gentleman, like Dorian, and he couldn't make an honest woman of her--he died without leaving them anything. James again insists that his mother take good care of Sibyl, and says that if her suitor does anything to hurt her, he'll come back and kill him. Mrs. Vane is secretly thrilled by the melodramatic ring of this threat--it actually cheers her up, despite the fact that her son is leaving home for a strange country. She feels like things are looking up.

cliffnotes

all_chapterized_books/5658-chapters/chapters_18_to_19.txt

finished_summaries/cliffnotes/Lord Jim/section_13_part_0.txt

Lord Jim.chapters 18-19

chapters 18-19

{"name": "Chapters 18-19", "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20201219145744/https://www.cliffsnotes.com/literature/l/lord-jim/summary-and-analysis/chapters-1819", "summary": "Six months later, while Marlow was in Hong Kong, he received a letter from a Mr. Denver, the owner of a rice mill, the friend to whom he recommended Jim. Denver, an eccentric, middle-aged bachelor, wrote quietly but glowingly about Jim; he was especially fond of Jim's quality of \"freshness\" -- his quiet, naive, generous nature. Marlow smiled to himself. He was right to send Jim to his friend. Perhaps, he speculated, Jim might inherit a good sum of money from the old bachelor. Marlow then made a trip northward, and when he returned to Hong Kong, another letter from Denver was awaiting him. Denver was furious: Jim had vanished. Also in the pile of letters, there was a note from Jim. He was working in a seaport town seven hundred miles south, and he wrote that he had no choice; he had to leave Denver's rice mill. The second engineer from the Patna unexpectedly turned up at Denver's mill and was given temporary employment. Shortly thereafter, this man began making insinuations about Jim's past, threatening blackmail unless he were put on full-time at the mill. Jim said that he could \"no longer stand the familiarity of the little beast,\" so he left. He asked Marlow for another letter of recommendation. He had found temporary work as a \"runner,\" or a water-clerk, for a ship-chandler, and he wanted permanence as soon as possible. Some months later, Marlow was in port and met Jim. He seemed to be happy and busy and popular. Marlow had a good feeling about the future of the young man. Then, six months afterward, Marlow was again in port and inquired about Jim at Egstrom & Blake, the ship-chandlers who employed him. Egstrom told Marlow that suddenly one day, Jim left -- without an explanation. Jim was his best runner, he says; there was no better water-clerk in port than Jim. He told Marlow that he offered Jim more money, emphasizing that business was exceptionally good: \"This business ain't going to sink,\" Egstrom told Jim. Marlow asked pointedly if anyone mentioned anything about the Patna just prior to Jim's disappearance. Egstrom remembered that one of the old sea captains had expounded on the whole disgraceful business of the Patna. Marlow told the ship-chandler that that explained it: Jim was the first mate of the Patna on the night of \"the incident.\" The ship-chandler was puzzled. \"Who the devil cares about that?\" he asked. Then he added that if Jim were that sensitive about his past, then even the earth itself \"wouldn't be big enough\" for him to hide in. Jim continued running, and it was not long before he became known as \"a rolling stone,\" Marlow says. In fact, Jim even became \"notorious\" within the sphere of about three thousand miles that he traversed. All around that area, people recognized his name and knew all about the secret that he considered so shameful. Jim, of course, never dreamed that so many people knew so many details about the secret that he kept so tightly hidden within his breast. One night, however, during a brawl in a hotel billiards room, Jim got an inkling that a lot of people knew a great deal more about him than he cared for them to know. He was playing billiards with a Navy officer, a cross-eyed Dane who was employed by the Royal Siamese Navy. The fellow had drunk too much, and he made a slurring reference to Jim's part in the Patna fiasco. Jim reacted like a madman. He broke a billiard cue in half and then threw the naval officer off the verandah and into the Menam River. Marlow realized that after that incident, Jim was no doubt beginning to think that all jobs would eventually be dead ends for him. There would be money paid to him for a job well done, but the situation itself would never be satisfying. What Jim needed was a challenge for his soul, not a job for his hands. Marlow, therefore, went to see \"the most trustworthy man\" he knew -- a Mr. Stein. Stein was very wealthy and very respected, and he had trading posts all over the world. Moreover, he was a learned man -- in particular, an internationally known expert on beetles and butterflies. Marlow felt that it was time to discuss Jim's problems with another person, someone who could see the enormous guilt that Jim insisted on living with. Marlow was looking for someone who could offer Jim a job that would be entirely different from the sort of menial laboring that might lend itself to ridicule and third-class status.", "analysis": "In these two chapters, Marlow relates three episodes involving Jim, and the episodes occurred at immense geographical distances from each other. In each case where some connection or comment was made about the Patna episode, Jim would literally flee. For example, in his first job where he had earned the respect of his employer, Mr. Denver stood to reap great financial rewards; the happenstance appearance of the second mate was bad enough, but when this second mate tried to become intimate with Jim, Jim could not \"stand the familiarity of the little beast.\" After all, Jim was a gentleman, and furthermore, after the sinking of the Patna, the second mate and his fellow officers had considered killing Jim. Likewise, at Jim's next job -- one in which he was extremely successful and well liked -- he fled immediately when someone began discussing the Patna episode, and his final adventure was with the Dane in the Siamese Navy. All three of these episodes represent what must have been dozens more , and thus Jim's almost obsessive, almost pathological sense of guilt has made him known over thousands of miles all through the South Pacific. It is ironic that Jim feels his guilt more than other people. His innate sensitivity makes him feel that everyone condemns him, and then we hear that Egstrom did not care at all. Egstrom says, \"And who the devil cares about that?\" Furthermore, the physical attack on the Dane represents the one time that Jim did not behave as though he was \"one of us.\" After one episode when Marlow brings Jim aboard his ship, Jim constantly remains below deck and is quiet and reticent. Note that when Marlow asks him if he would like to go to California, Jim responds, \"What difference would it make?\" In other words, Jim cannot escape from himself even if it be across continents and oceans; instead, he is looking for an opportunity to prove himself to himself."}

'Six months afterwards my friend (he was a cynical, more than middle-aged bachelor, with a reputation for eccentricity, and owned a rice-mill) wrote to me, and judging, from the warmth of my recommendation, that I would like to hear, enlarged a little upon Jim's perfections. These were apparently of a quiet and effective sort. "Not having been able so far to find more in my heart than a resigned toleration for any individual of my kind, I have lived till now alone in a house that even in this steaming climate could be considered as too big for one man. I have had him to live with me for some time past. It seems I haven't made a mistake." It seemed to me on reading this letter that my friend had found in his heart more than tolerance for Jim--that there were the beginnings of active liking. Of course he stated his grounds in a characteristic way. For one thing, Jim kept his freshness in the climate. Had he been a girl--my friend wrote--one could have said he was blooming--blooming modestly--like a violet, not like some of these blatant tropical flowers. He had been in the house for six weeks, and had not as yet attempted to slap him on the back, or address him as "old boy," or try to make him feel a superannuated fossil. He had nothing of the exasperating young man's chatter. He was good-tempered, had not much to say for himself, was not clever by any means, thank goodness--wrote my friend. It appeared, however, that Jim was clever enough to be quietly appreciative of his wit, while, on the other hand, he amused him by his naiveness. "The dew is yet on him, and since I had the bright idea of giving him a room in the house and having him at meals I feel less withered myself. The other day he took it into his head to cross the room with no other purpose but to open a door for me; and I felt more in touch with mankind than I had been for years. Ridiculous, isn't it? Of course I guess there is something--some awful little scrape--which you know all about--but if I am sure that it is terribly heinous, I fancy one could manage to forgive it. For my part, I declare I am unable to imagine him guilty of anything much worse than robbing an orchard. Is it much worse? Perhaps you ought to have told me; but it is such a long time since we both turned saints that you may have forgotten we, too, had sinned in our time? It may be that some day I shall have to ask you, and then I shall expect to be told. I don't care to question him myself till I have some idea what it is. Moreover, it's too soon as yet. Let him open the door a few times more for me. . . ." Thus my friend. I was trebly pleased--at Jim's shaping so well, at the tone of the letter, at my own cleverness. Evidently I had known what I was doing. I had read characters aright, and so on. And what if something unexpected and wonderful were to come of it? That evening, reposing in a deck-chair under the shade of my own poop awning (it was in Hong-Kong harbour), I laid on Jim's behalf the first stone of a castle in Spain. 'I made a trip to the northward, and when I returned I found another letter from my friend waiting for me. It was the first envelope I tore open. "There are no spoons missing, as far as I know," ran the first line; "I haven't been interested enough to inquire. He is gone, leaving on the breakfast-table a formal little note of apology, which is either silly or heartless. Probably both--and it's all one to me. Allow me to say, lest you should have some more mysterious young men in reserve, that I have shut up shop, definitely and for ever. This is the last eccentricity I shall be guilty of. Do not imagine for a moment that I care a hang; but he is very much regretted at tennis-parties, and for my own sake I've told a plausible lie at the club. . . ." I flung the letter aside and started looking through the batch on my table, till I came upon Jim's handwriting. Would you believe it? One chance in a hundred! But it is always that hundredth chance! That little second engineer of the Patna had turned up in a more or less destitute state, and got a temporary job of looking after the machinery of the mill. "I couldn't stand the familiarity of the little beast," Jim wrote from a seaport seven hundred miles south of the place where he should have been in clover. "I am now for the time with Egstrom & Blake, ship-chandlers, as their--well--runner, to call the thing by its right name. For reference I gave them your name, which they know of course, and if you could write a word in my favour it would be a permanent employment." I was utterly crushed under the ruins of my castle, but of course I wrote as desired. Before the end of the year my new charter took me that way, and I had an opportunity of seeing him. 'He was still with Egstrom & Blake, and we met in what they called "our parlour" opening out of the store. He had that moment come in from boarding a ship, and confronted me head down, ready for a tussle. "What have you got to say for yourself?" I began as soon as we had shaken hands. "What I wrote you--nothing more," he said stubbornly. "Did the fellow blab--or what?" I asked. He looked up at me with a troubled smile. "Oh, no! He didn't. He made it a kind of confidential business between us. He was most damnably mysterious whenever I came over to the mill; he would wink at me in a respectful manner--as much as to say 'We know what we know.' Infernally fawning and familiar--and that sort of thing . . ." He threw himself into a chair and stared down his legs. "One day we happened to be alone and the fellow had the cheek to say, 'Well, Mr. James'--I was called Mr. James there as if I had been the son--'here we are together once more. This is better than the old ship--ain't it?' . . . Wasn't it appalling, eh? I looked at him, and he put on a knowing air. 'Don't you be uneasy, sir,' he says. 'I know a gentleman when I see one, and I know how a gentleman feels. I hope, though, you will be keeping me on this job. I had a hard time of it too, along of that rotten old Patna racket.' Jove! It was awful. I don't know what I should have said or done if I had not just then heard Mr. Denver calling me in the passage. It was tiffin-time, and we walked together across the yard and through the garden to the bungalow. He began to chaff me in his kindly way . . . I believe he liked me . . ." 'Jim was silent for a while. '"I know he liked me. That's what made it so hard. Such a splendid man! . . . That morning he slipped his hand under my arm. . . . He, too, was familiar with me." He burst into a short laugh, and dropped his chin on his breast. "Pah! When I remembered how that mean little beast had been talking to me," he began suddenly in a vibrating voice, "I couldn't bear to think of myself . . . I suppose you know . . ." I nodded. . . . "More like a father," he cried; his voice sank. "I would have had to tell him. I couldn't let it go on--could I?" "Well?" I murmured, after waiting a while. "I preferred to go," he said slowly; "this thing must be buried." 'We could hear in the shop Blake upbraiding Egstrom in an abusive, strained voice. They had been associated for many years, and every day from the moment the doors were opened to the last minute before closing, Blake, a little man with sleek, jetty hair and unhappy, beady eyes, could be heard rowing his partner incessantly with a sort of scathing and plaintive fury. The sound of that everlasting scolding was part of the place like the other fixtures; even strangers would very soon come to disregard it completely unless it be perhaps to mutter "Nuisance," or to get up suddenly and shut the door of the "parlour." Egstrom himself, a raw-boned, heavy Scandinavian, with a busy manner and immense blonde whiskers, went on directing his people, checking parcels, making out bills or writing letters at a stand-up desk in the shop, and comported himself in that clatter exactly as though he had been stone-deaf. Now and again he would emit a bothered perfunctory "Sssh," which neither produced nor was expected to produce the slightest effect. "They are very decent to me here," said Jim. "Blake's a little cad, but Egstrom's all right." He stood up quickly, and walking with measured steps to a tripod telescope standing in the window and pointed at the roadstead, he applied his eye to it. "There's that ship which has been becalmed outside all the morning has got a breeze now and is coming in," he remarked patiently; "I must go and board." We shook hands in silence, and he turned to go. "Jim!" I cried. He looked round with his hand on the lock. "You--you have thrown away something like a fortune." He came back to me all the way from the door. "Such a splendid old chap," he said. "How could I? How could I?" His lips twitched. "Here it does not matter." "Oh! you--you--" I began, and had to cast about for a suitable word, but before I became aware that there was no name that would just do, he was gone. I heard outside Egstrom's deep gentle voice saying cheerily, "That's the Sarah W. Granger, Jimmy. You must manage to be first aboard"; and directly Blake struck in, screaming after the manner of an outraged cockatoo, "Tell the captain we've got some of his mail here. That'll fetch him. D'ye hear, Mister What's-your-name?" And there was Jim answering Egstrom with something boyish in his tone. "All right. I'll make a race of it." He seemed to take refuge in the boat-sailing part of that sorry business. 'I did not see him again that trip, but on my next (I had a six months' charter) I went up to the store. Ten yards away from the door Blake's scolding met my ears, and when I came in he gave me a glance of utter wretchedness; Egstrom, all smiles, advanced, extending a large bony hand. "Glad to see you, captain. . . . Sssh. . . . Been thinking you were about due back here. What did you say, sir? . . . Sssh. . . . Oh! him! He has left us. Come into the parlour." . . . After the slam of the door Blake's strained voice became faint, as the voice of one scolding desperately in a wilderness. . . . "Put us to a great inconvenience, too. Used us badly--I must say . . ." "Where's he gone to? Do you know?" I asked. "No. It's no use asking either," said Egstrom, standing bewhiskered and obliging before me with his arms hanging down his sides clumsily, and a thin silver watch-chain looped very low on a rucked-up blue serge waistcoat. "A man like that don't go anywhere in particular." I was too concerned at the news to ask for the explanation of that pronouncement, and he went on. "He left--let's see--the very day a steamer with returning pilgrims from the Red Sea put in here with two blades of her propeller gone. Three weeks ago now." "Wasn't there something said about the Patna case?" I asked, fearing the worst. He gave a start, and looked at me as if I had been a sorcerer. "Why, yes! How do you know? Some of them were talking about it here. There was a captain or two, the manager of Vanlo's engineering shop at the harbour, two or three others, and myself. Jim was in here too, having a sandwich and a glass of beer; when we are busy--you see, captain--there's no time for a proper tiffin. He was standing by this table eating sandwiches, and the rest of us were round the telescope watching that steamer come in; and by-and-by Vanlo's manager began to talk about the chief of the Patna; he had done some repairs for him once, and from that he went on to tell us what an old ruin she was, and the money that had been made out of her. He came to mention her last voyage, and then we all struck in. Some said one thing and some another--not much--what you or any other man might say; and there was some laughing. Captain O'Brien of the Sarah W. Granger, a large, noisy old man with a stick--he was sitting listening to us in this arm-chair here--he let drive suddenly with his stick at the floor, and roars out, 'Skunks!' . . . Made us all jump. Vanlo's manager winks at us and asks, 'What's the matter, Captain O'Brien?' 'Matter! matter!' the old man began to shout; 'what are you Injuns laughing at? It's no laughing matter. It's a disgrace to human natur'--that's what it is. I would despise being seen in the same room with one of those men. Yes, sir!' He seemed to catch my eye like, and I had to speak out of civility. 'Skunks!' says I, 'of course, Captain O'Brien, and I wouldn't care to have them here myself, so you're quite safe in this room, Captain O'Brien. Have a little something cool to drink.' 'Dam' your drink, Egstrom,' says he, with a twinkle in his eye; 'when I want a drink I will shout for it. I am going to quit. It stinks here now.' At this all the others burst out laughing, and out they go after the old man. And then, sir, that blasted Jim he puts down the sandwich he had in his hand and walks round the table to me; there was his glass of beer poured out quite full. 'I am off,' he says--just like this. 'It isn't half-past one yet,' says I; 'you might snatch a smoke first.' I thought he meant it was time for him to go down to his work. When I understood what he was up to, my arms fell--so! Can't get a man like that every day, you know, sir; a regular devil for sailing a boat; ready to go out miles to sea to meet ships in any sort of weather. More than once a captain would come in here full of it, and the first thing he would say would be, 'That's a reckless sort of a lunatic you've got for water-clerk, Egstrom. I was feeling my way in at daylight under short canvas when there comes flying out of the mist right under my forefoot a boat half under water, sprays going over the mast-head, two frightened niggers on the bottom boards, a yelling fiend at the tiller. Hey! hey! Ship ahoy! ahoy! Captain! Hey! hey! Egstrom & Blake's man first to speak to you! Hey! hey! Egstrom & Blake! Hallo! hey! whoop! Kick the niggers--out reefs--a squall on at the time--shoots ahead whooping and yelling to me to make sail and he would give me a lead in--more like a demon than a man. Never saw a boat handled like that in all my life. Couldn't have been drunk--was he? Such a quiet, soft-spoken chap too--blush like a girl when he came on board. . . .' I tell you, Captain Marlow, nobody had a chance against us with a strange ship when Jim was out. The other ship-chandlers just kept their old customers, and . . ." 'Egstrom appeared overcome with emotion. '"Why, sir--it seemed as though he wouldn't mind going a hundred miles out to sea in an old shoe to nab a ship for the firm. If the business had been his own and all to make yet, he couldn't have done more in that way. And now . . . all at once . . . like this! Thinks I to myself: 'Oho! a rise in the screw--that's the trouble--is it?' 'All right,' says I, 'no need of all that fuss with me, Jimmy. Just mention your figure. Anything in reason.' He looks at me as if he wanted to swallow something that stuck in his throat. 'I can't stop with you.' 'What's that blooming joke?' I asks. He shakes his head, and I could see in his eye he was as good as gone already, sir. So I turned to him and slanged him till all was blue. 'What is it you're running away from?' I asks. 'Who has been getting at you? What scared you? You haven't as much sense as a rat; they don't clear out from a good ship. Where do you expect to get a better berth?--you this and you that.' I made him look sick, I can tell you. 'This business ain't going to sink,' says I. He gave a big jump. 'Good-bye,' he says, nodding at me like a lord; 'you ain't half a bad chap, Egstrom. I give you my word that if you knew my reasons you wouldn't care to keep me.' 'That's the biggest lie you ever told in your life,' says I; 'I know my own mind.' He made me so mad that I had to laugh. 'Can't you really stop long enough to drink this glass of beer here, you funny beggar, you?' I don't know what came over him; he didn't seem able to find the door; something comical, I can tell you, captain. I drank the beer myself. 'Well, if you're in such a hurry, here's luck to you in your own drink,' says I; 'only, you mark my words, if you keep up this game you'll very soon find that the earth ain't big enough to hold you--that's all.' He gave me one black look, and out he rushed with a face fit to scare little children." 'Egstrom snorted bitterly, and combed one auburn whisker with knotty fingers. "Haven't been able to get a man that was any good since. It's nothing but worry, worry, worry in business. And where might you have come across him, captain, if it's fair to ask?" '"He was the mate of the Patna that voyage," I said, feeling that I owed some explanation. For a time Egstrom remained very still, with his fingers plunged in the hair at the side of his face, and then exploded. "And who the devil cares about that?" "I daresay no one," I began . . . "And what the devil is he--anyhow--for to go on like this?" He stuffed suddenly his left whisker into his mouth and stood amazed. "Jee!" he exclaimed, "I told him the earth wouldn't be big enough to hold his caper."' 'I have told you these two episodes at length to show his manner of dealing with himself under the new conditions of his life. There were many others of the sort, more than I could count on the fingers of my two hands. They were all equally tinged by a high-minded absurdity of intention which made their futility profound and touching. To fling away your daily bread so as to get your hands free for a grapple with a ghost may be an act of prosaic heroism. Men had done it before (though we who have lived know full well that it is not the haunted soul but the hungry body that makes an outcast), and men who had eaten and meant to eat every day had applauded the creditable folly. He was indeed unfortunate, for all his recklessness could not carry him out from under the shadow. There was always a doubt of his courage. The truth seems to be that it is impossible to lay the ghost of a fact. You can face it or shirk it--and I have come across a man or two who could wink at their familiar shades. Obviously Jim was not of the winking sort; but what I could never make up my mind about was whether his line of conduct amounted to shirking his ghost or to facing him out. 'I strained my mental eyesight only to discover that, as with the complexion of all our actions, the shade of difference was so delicate that it was impossible to say. It might have been flight and it might have been a mode of combat. To the common mind he became known as a rolling stone, because this was the funniest part: he did after a time become perfectly known, and even notorious, within the circle of his wanderings (which had a diameter of, say, three thousand miles), in the same way as an eccentric character is known to a whole countryside. For instance, in Bankok, where he found employment with Yucker Brothers, charterers and teak merchants, it was almost pathetic to see him go about in sunshine hugging his secret, which was known to the very up-country logs on the river. Schomberg, the keeper of the hotel where he boarded, a hirsute Alsatian of manly bearing and an irrepressible retailer of all the scandalous gossip of the place, would, with both elbows on the table, impart an adorned version of the story to any guest who cared to imbibe knowledge along with the more costly liquors. "And, mind you, the nicest fellow you could meet," would be his generous conclusion; "quite superior." It says a lot for the casual crowd that frequented Schomberg's establishment that Jim managed to hang out in Bankok for a whole six months. I remarked that people, perfect strangers, took to him as one takes to a nice child. His manner was reserved, but it was as though his personal appearance, his hair, his eyes, his smile, made friends for him wherever he went. And, of course, he was no fool. I heard Siegmund Yucker (native of Switzerland), a gentle creature ravaged by a cruel dyspepsia, and so frightfully lame that his head swung through a quarter of a circle at every step he took, declare appreciatively that for one so young he was "of great gabasidy," as though it had been a mere question of cubic contents. "Why not send him up country?" I suggested anxiously. (Yucker Brothers had concessions and teak forests in the interior.) "If he has capacity, as you say, he will soon get hold of the work. And physically he is very fit. His health is always excellent." "Ach! It's a great ting in dis goundry to be vree vrom tispep-shia," sighed poor Yucker enviously, casting a stealthy glance at the pit of his ruined stomach. I left him drumming pensively on his desk and muttering, "Es ist ein' Idee. Es ist ein' Idee." Unfortunately, that very evening an unpleasant affair took place in the hotel. 'I don't know that I blame Jim very much, but it was a truly regrettable incident. It belonged to the lamentable species of bar-room scuffles, and the other party to it was a cross-eyed Dane of sorts whose visiting-card recited, under his misbegotten name: first lieutenant in the Royal Siamese Navy. The fellow, of course, was utterly hopeless at billiards, but did not like to be beaten, I suppose. He had had enough to drink to turn nasty after the sixth game, and make some scornful remark at Jim's expense. Most of the people there didn't hear what was said, and those who had heard seemed to have had all precise recollection scared out of them by the appalling nature of the consequences that immediately ensued. It was very lucky for the Dane that he could swim, because the room opened on a verandah and the Menam flowed below very wide and black. A boat-load of Chinamen, bound, as likely as not, on some thieving expedition, fished out the officer of the King of Siam, and Jim turned up at about midnight on board my ship without a hat. "Everybody in the room seemed to know," he said, gasping yet from the contest, as it were. He was rather sorry, on general principles, for what had happened, though in this case there had been, he said, "no option." But what dismayed him was to find the nature of his burden as well known to everybody as though he had gone about all that time carrying it on his shoulders. Naturally after this he couldn't remain in the place. He was universally condemned for the brutal violence, so unbecoming a man in his delicate position; some maintained he had been disgracefully drunk at the time; others criticised his want of tact. Even Schomberg was very much annoyed. "He is a very nice young man," he said argumentatively to me, "but the lieutenant is a first-rate fellow too. He dines every night at my table d'hote, you know. And there's a billiard-cue broken. I can't allow that. First thing this morning I went over with my apologies to the lieutenant, and I think I've made it all right for myself; but only think, captain, if everybody started such games! Why, the man might have been drowned! And here I can't run out into the next street and buy a new cue. I've got to write to Europe for them. No, no! A temper like that won't do!" . . . He was extremely sore on the subject. 'This was the worst incident of all in his--his retreat. Nobody could deplore it more than myself; for if, as somebody said hearing him mentioned, "Oh yes! I know. He has knocked about a good deal out here," yet he had somehow avoided being battered and chipped in the process. This last affair, however, made me seriously uneasy, because if his exquisite sensibilities were to go the length of involving him in pot-house shindies, he would lose his name of an inoffensive, if aggravating, fool, and acquire that of a common loafer. For all my confidence in him I could not help reflecting that in such cases from the name to the thing itself is but a step. I suppose you will understand that by that time I could not think of washing my hands of him. I took him away from Bankok in my ship, and we had a longish passage. It was pitiful to see how he shrank within himself. A seaman, even if a mere passenger, takes an interest in a ship, and looks at the sea-life around him with the critical enjoyment of a painter, for instance, looking at another man's work. In every sense of the expression he is "on deck"; but my Jim, for the most part, skulked down below as though he had been a stowaway. He infected me so that I avoided speaking on professional matters, such as would suggest themselves naturally to two sailors during a passage. For whole days we did not exchange a word; I felt extremely unwilling to give orders to my officers in his presence. Often, when alone with him on deck or in the cabin, we didn't know what to do with our eyes. 'I placed him with De Jongh, as you know, glad enough to dispose of him in any way, yet persuaded that his position was now growing intolerable. He had lost some of that elasticity which had enabled him to rebound back into his uncompromising position after every overthrow. One day, coming ashore, I saw him standing on the quay; the water of the roadstead and the sea in the offing made one smooth ascending plane, and the outermost ships at anchor seemed to ride motionless in the sky. He was waiting for his boat, which was being loaded at our feet with packages of small stores for some vessel ready to leave. After exchanging greetings, we remained silent--side by side. "Jove!" he said suddenly, "this is killing work." 'He smiled at me; I must say he generally could manage a smile. I made no reply. I knew very well he was not alluding to his duties; he had an easy time of it with De Jongh. Nevertheless, as soon as he had spoken I became completely convinced that the work was killing. I did not even look at him. "Would you like," said I, "to leave this part of the world altogether; try California or the West Coast? I'll see what I can do . . ." He interrupted me a little scornfully. "What difference would it make?" . . . I felt at once convinced that he was right. It would make no difference; it was not relief he wanted; I seemed to perceive dimly that what he wanted, what he was, as it were, waiting for, was something not easy to define--something in the nature of an opportunity. I had given him many opportunities, but they had been merely opportunities to earn his bread. Yet what more could any man do? The position struck me as hopeless, and poor Brierly's saying recurred to me, "Let him creep twenty feet underground and stay there." Better that, I thought, than this waiting above ground for the impossible. Yet one could not be sure even of that. There and then, before his boat was three oars' lengths away from the quay, I had made up my mind to go and consult Stein in the evening. 'This Stein was a wealthy and respected merchant. His "house" (because it was a house, Stein & Co., and there was some sort of partner who, as Stein said, "looked after the Moluccas") had a large inter-island business, with a lot of trading posts established in the most out-of-the-way places for collecting the produce. His wealth and his respectability were not exactly the reasons why I was anxious to seek his advice. I desired to confide my difficulty to him because he was one of the most trustworthy men I had ever known. The gentle light of a simple, unwearied, as it were, and intelligent good-nature illumined his long hairless face. It had deep downward folds, and was pale as of a man who had always led a sedentary life--which was indeed very far from being the case. His hair was thin, and brushed back from a massive and lofty forehead. One fancied that at twenty he must have looked very much like what he was now at threescore. It was a student's face; only the eyebrows nearly all white, thick and bushy, together with the resolute searching glance that came from under them, were not in accord with his, I may say, learned appearance. He was tall and loose-jointed; his slight stoop, together with an innocent smile, made him appear benevolently ready to lend you his ear; his long arms with pale big hands had rare deliberate gestures of a pointing out, demonstrating kind. I speak of him at length, because under this exterior, and in conjunction with an upright and indulgent nature, this man possessed an intrepidity of spirit and a physical courage that could have been called reckless had it not been like a natural function of the body--say good digestion, for instance--completely unconscious of itself. It is sometimes said of a man that he carries his life in his hand. Such a saying would have been inadequate if applied to him; during the early part of his existence in the East he had been playing ball with it. All this was in the past, but I knew the story of his life and the origin of his fortune. He was also a naturalist of some distinction, or perhaps I should say a learned collector. Entomology was his special study. His collection of Buprestidae and Longicorns--beetles all--horrible miniature monsters, looking malevolent in death and immobility, and his cabinet of butterflies, beautiful and hovering under the glass of cases on lifeless wings, had spread his fame far over the earth. The name of this merchant, adventurer, sometime adviser of a Malay sultan (to whom he never alluded otherwise than as "my poor Mohammed Bonso"), had, on account of a few bushels of dead insects, become known to learned persons in Europe, who could have had no conception, and certainly would not have cared to know anything, of his life or character. I, who knew, considered him an eminently suitable person to receive my confidences about Jim's difficulties as well as my own.'

Chapters 18-19

https://web.archive.org/web/20201219145744/https://www.cliffsnotes.com/literature/l/lord-jim/summary-and-analysis/chapters-1819

Six months later, while Marlow was in Hong Kong, he received a letter from a Mr. Denver, the owner of a rice mill, the friend to whom he recommended Jim. Denver, an eccentric, middle-aged bachelor, wrote quietly but glowingly about Jim; he was especially fond of Jim's quality of "freshness" -- his quiet, naive, generous nature. Marlow smiled to himself. He was right to send Jim to his friend. Perhaps, he speculated, Jim might inherit a good sum of money from the old bachelor. Marlow then made a trip northward, and when he returned to Hong Kong, another letter from Denver was awaiting him. Denver was furious: Jim had vanished. Also in the pile of letters, there was a note from Jim. He was working in a seaport town seven hundred miles south, and he wrote that he had no choice; he had to leave Denver's rice mill. The second engineer from the Patna unexpectedly turned up at Denver's mill and was given temporary employment. Shortly thereafter, this man began making insinuations about Jim's past, threatening blackmail unless he were put on full-time at the mill. Jim said that he could "no longer stand the familiarity of the little beast," so he left. He asked Marlow for another letter of recommendation. He had found temporary work as a "runner," or a water-clerk, for a ship-chandler, and he wanted permanence as soon as possible. Some months later, Marlow was in port and met Jim. He seemed to be happy and busy and popular. Marlow had a good feeling about the future of the young man. Then, six months afterward, Marlow was again in port and inquired about Jim at Egstrom & Blake, the ship-chandlers who employed him. Egstrom told Marlow that suddenly one day, Jim left -- without an explanation. Jim was his best runner, he says; there was no better water-clerk in port than Jim. He told Marlow that he offered Jim more money, emphasizing that business was exceptionally good: "This business ain't going to sink," Egstrom told Jim. Marlow asked pointedly if anyone mentioned anything about the Patna just prior to Jim's disappearance. Egstrom remembered that one of the old sea captains had expounded on the whole disgraceful business of the Patna. Marlow told the ship-chandler that that explained it: Jim was the first mate of the Patna on the night of "the incident." The ship-chandler was puzzled. "Who the devil cares about that?" he asked. Then he added that if Jim were that sensitive about his past, then even the earth itself "wouldn't be big enough" for him to hide in. Jim continued running, and it was not long before he became known as "a rolling stone," Marlow says. In fact, Jim even became "notorious" within the sphere of about three thousand miles that he traversed. All around that area, people recognized his name and knew all about the secret that he considered so shameful. Jim, of course, never dreamed that so many people knew so many details about the secret that he kept so tightly hidden within his breast. One night, however, during a brawl in a hotel billiards room, Jim got an inkling that a lot of people knew a great deal more about him than he cared for them to know. He was playing billiards with a Navy officer, a cross-eyed Dane who was employed by the Royal Siamese Navy. The fellow had drunk too much, and he made a slurring reference to Jim's part in the Patna fiasco. Jim reacted like a madman. He broke a billiard cue in half and then threw the naval officer off the verandah and into the Menam River. Marlow realized that after that incident, Jim was no doubt beginning to think that all jobs would eventually be dead ends for him. There would be money paid to him for a job well done, but the situation itself would never be satisfying. What Jim needed was a challenge for his soul, not a job for his hands. Marlow, therefore, went to see "the most trustworthy man" he knew -- a Mr. Stein. Stein was very wealthy and very respected, and he had trading posts all over the world. Moreover, he was a learned man -- in particular, an internationally known expert on beetles and butterflies. Marlow felt that it was time to discuss Jim's problems with another person, someone who could see the enormous guilt that Jim insisted on living with. Marlow was looking for someone who could offer Jim a job that would be entirely different from the sort of menial laboring that might lend itself to ridicule and third-class status.

In these two chapters, Marlow relates three episodes involving Jim, and the episodes occurred at immense geographical distances from each other. In each case where some connection or comment was made about the Patna episode, Jim would literally flee. For example, in his first job where he had earned the respect of his employer, Mr. Denver stood to reap great financial rewards; the happenstance appearance of the second mate was bad enough, but when this second mate tried to become intimate with Jim, Jim could not "stand the familiarity of the little beast." After all, Jim was a gentleman, and furthermore, after the sinking of the Patna, the second mate and his fellow officers had considered killing Jim. Likewise, at Jim's next job -- one in which he was extremely successful and well liked -- he fled immediately when someone began discussing the Patna episode, and his final adventure was with the Dane in the Siamese Navy. All three of these episodes represent what must have been dozens more , and thus Jim's almost obsessive, almost pathological sense of guilt has made him known over thousands of miles all through the South Pacific. It is ironic that Jim feels his guilt more than other people. His innate sensitivity makes him feel that everyone condemns him, and then we hear that Egstrom did not care at all. Egstrom says, "And who the devil cares about that?" Furthermore, the physical attack on the Dane represents the one time that Jim did not behave as though he was "one of us." After one episode when Marlow brings Jim aboard his ship, Jim constantly remains below deck and is quiet and reticent. Note that when Marlow asks him if he would like to go to California, Jim responds, "What difference would it make?" In other words, Jim cannot escape from himself even if it be across continents and oceans; instead, he is looking for an opportunity to prove himself to himself.

shmoop

all_chapterized_books/5658-chapters/28.txt

finished_summaries/shmoop/Lord Jim/section_27_part_0.txt

Lord Jim.chapter 28

chapter 28

{"name": "Chapter 28", "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20210118112654/https://www.shmoop.com/study-guides/literature/lord-jim/summary/chapter-28", "summary": "Just in case you were wondering what happened to Ali, rest assured that he flees the country after his defeat. Back to the chat betwen Jim and the visiting Marlow. The two are talking about Doramin and his wife. After the battle with Ali, Doramin is concerned about Jim's rise to power. He's worried that other white men may try to interfere on Patusan, because he wants his own son to be in charge. Doramin's wife, for one, is concerned about Jim's mysterious past. Uh oh. Could be trouble. Marlow then tells us about Jewel, the stepdaughter of Cornelius . Jewel's father was white and her mother was the Dutch Malay woman that Stein was fond of . Apparently Jewel and Jim got pretty cozy; Marlow describes them as being domestic together. Then he relates a funny incident where he encounters a white man who heard a \"rumor\" about an Englishman living in Patusan who had an enormous \"jewel\" in his possession. Could he be talking about Jewel and Jim? It looks like Jewel the person has turned into jewel the treasure, thanks to the rumor mill.", "analysis": ""}

'The defeated Sherif Ali fled the country without making another stand, and when the miserable hunted villagers began to crawl out of the jungle back to their rotting houses, it was Jim who, in consultation with Dain Waris, appointed the headmen. Thus he became the virtual ruler of the land. As to old Tunku Allang, his fears at first had known no bounds. It is said that at the intelligence of the successful storming of the hill he flung himself, face down, on the bamboo floor of his audience-hall, and lay motionless for a whole night and a whole day, uttering stifled sounds of such an appalling nature that no man dared approach his prostrate form nearer than a spear's length. Already he could see himself driven ignominiously out of Patusan, wandering abandoned, stripped, without opium, without his women, without followers, a fair game for the first comer to kill. After Sherif Ali his turn would come, and who could resist an attack led by such a devil? And indeed he owed his life and such authority as he still possessed at the time of my visit to Jim's idea of what was fair alone. The Bugis had been extremely anxious to pay off old scores, and the impassive old Doramin cherished the hope of yet seeing his son ruler of Patusan. During one of our interviews he deliberately allowed me to get a glimpse of this secret ambition. Nothing could be finer in its way than the dignified wariness of his approaches. He himself--he began by declaring--had used his strength in his young days, but now he had grown old and tired. . . . With his imposing bulk and haughty little eyes darting sagacious, inquisitive glances, he reminded one irresistibly of a cunning old elephant; the slow rise and fall of his vast breast went on powerful and regular, like the heave of a calm sea. He too, as he protested, had an unbounded confidence in Tuan Jim's wisdom. If he could only obtain a promise! One word would be enough! . . . His breathing silences, the low rumblings of his voice, recalled the last efforts of a spent thunderstorm. 'I tried to put the subject aside. It was difficult, for there could be no question that Jim had the power; in his new sphere there did not seem to be anything that was not his to hold or to give. But that, I repeat, was nothing in comparison with the notion, which occurred to me, while I listened with a show of attention, that he seemed to have come very near at last to mastering his fate. Doramin was anxious about the future of the country, and I was struck by the turn he gave to the argument. The land remains where God had put it; but white men--he said--they come to us and in a little while they go. They go away. Those they leave behind do not know when to look for their return. They go to their own land, to their people, and so this white man too would. . . . I don't know what induced me to commit myself at this point by a vigorous "No, no." The whole extent of this indiscretion became apparent when Doramin, turning full upon me his face, whose expression, fixed in rugged deep folds, remained unalterable, like a huge brown mask, said that this was good news indeed, reflectively; and then wanted to know why. 'His little, motherly witch of a wife sat on my other hand, with her head covered and her feet tucked up, gazing through the great shutter-hole. I could only see a straying lock of grey hair, a high cheek-bone, the slight masticating motion of the sharp chin. Without removing her eyes from the vast prospect of forests stretching as far as the hills, she asked me in a pitying voice why was it that he so young had wandered from his home, coming so far, through so many dangers? Had he no household there, no kinsmen in his own country? Had he no old mother, who would always remember his face? . . . 'I was completely unprepared for this. I could only mutter and shake my head vaguely. Afterwards I am perfectly aware I cut a very poor figure trying to extricate myself out of this difficulty. From that moment, however, the old nakhoda became taciturn. He was not very pleased, I fear, and evidently I had given him food for thought. Strangely enough, on the evening of that very day (which was my last in Patusan) I was once more confronted with the same question, with the unanswerable why of Jim's fate. And this brings me to the story of his love. 'I suppose you think it is a story that you can imagine for yourselves. We have heard so many such stories, and the majority of us don't believe them to be stories of love at all. For the most part we look upon them as stories of opportunities: episodes of passion at best, or perhaps only of youth and temptation, doomed to forgetfulness in the end, even if they pass through the reality of tenderness and regret. This view mostly is right, and perhaps in this case too. . . . Yet I don't know. To tell this story is by no means so easy as it should be--were the ordinary standpoint adequate. Apparently it is a story very much like the others: for me, however, there is visible in its background the melancholy figure of a woman, the shadow of a cruel wisdom buried in a lonely grave, looking on wistfully, helplessly, with sealed lips. The grave itself, as I came upon it during an early morning stroll, was a rather shapeless brown mound, with an inlaid neat border of white lumps of coral at the base, and enclosed within a circular fence made of split saplings, with the bark left on. A garland of leaves and flowers was woven about the heads of the slender posts--and the flowers were fresh. 'Thus, whether the shadow is of my imagination or not, I can at all events point out the significant fact of an unforgotten grave. When I tell you besides that Jim with his own hands had worked at the rustic fence, you will perceive directly the difference, the individual side of the story. There is in his espousal of memory and affection belonging to another human being something characteristic of his seriousness. He had a conscience, and it was a romantic conscience. Through her whole life the wife of the unspeakable Cornelius had no other companion, confidant, and friend but her daughter. How the poor woman had come to marry the awful little Malacca Portuguese--after the separation from the father of her girl--and how that separation had been brought about, whether by death, which can be sometimes merciful, or by the merciless pressure of conventions, is a mystery to me. From the little which Stein (who knew so many stories) had let drop in my hearing, I am convinced that she was no ordinary woman. Her own father had been a white; a high official; one of the brilliantly endowed men who are not dull enough to nurse a success, and whose careers so often end under a cloud. I suppose she too must have lacked the saving dullness--and her career ended in Patusan. Our common fate . . . for where is the man--I mean a real sentient man--who does not remember vaguely having been deserted in the fullness of possession by some one or something more precious than life? . . . our common fate fastens upon the women with a peculiar cruelty. It does not punish like a master, but inflicts lingering torment, as if to gratify a secret, unappeasable spite. One would think that, appointed to rule on earth, it seeks to revenge itself upon the beings that come nearest to rising above the trammels of earthly caution; for it is only women who manage to put at times into their love an element just palpable enough to give one a fright--an extra-terrestrial touch. I ask myself with wonder--how the world can look to them--whether it has the shape and substance _we_ know, the air _we_ breathe! Sometimes I fancy it must be a region of unreasonable sublimities seething with the excitement of their adventurous souls, lighted by the glory of all possible risks and renunciations. However, I suspect there are very few women in the world, though of course I am aware of the multitudes of mankind and of the equality of sexes--in point of numbers, that is. But I am sure that the mother was as much of a woman as the daughter seemed to be. I cannot help picturing to myself these two, at first the young woman and the child, then the old woman and the young girl, the awful sameness and the swift passage of time, the barrier of forest, the solitude and the turmoil round these two lonely lives, and every word spoken between them penetrated with sad meaning. There must have been confidences, not so much of fact, I suppose, as of innermost feelings--regrets--fears--warnings, no doubt: warnings that the younger did not fully understand till the elder was dead--and Jim came along. Then I am sure she understood much--not everything--the fear mostly, it seems. Jim called her by a word that means precious, in the sense of a precious gem--jewel. Pretty, isn't it? But he was capable of anything. He was equal to his fortune, as he--after all--must have been equal to his misfortune. Jewel he called her; and he would say this as he might have said "Jane," don't you know--with a marital, homelike, peaceful effect. I heard the name for the first time ten minutes after I had landed in his courtyard, when, after nearly shaking my arm off, he darted up the steps and began to make a joyous, boyish disturbance at the door under the heavy eaves. "Jewel! O Jewel! Quick! Here's a friend come," . . . and suddenly peering at me in the dim verandah, he mumbled earnestly, "You know--this--no confounded nonsense about it--can't tell you how much I owe to her--and so--you understand--I--exactly as if . . ." His hurried, anxious whispers were cut short by the flitting of a white form within the house, a faint exclamation, and a child-like but energetic little face with delicate features and a profound, attentive glance peeped out of the inner gloom, like a bird out of the recess of a nest. I was struck by the name, of course; but it was not till later on that I connected it with an astonishing rumour that had met me on my journey, at a little place on the coast about 230 miles south of Patusan River. Stein's schooner, in which I had my passage, put in there, to collect some produce, and, going ashore, I found to my great surprise that the wretched locality could boast of a third-class deputy-assistant resident, a big, fat, greasy, blinking fellow of mixed descent, with turned-out, shiny lips. I found him lying extended on his back in a cane chair, odiously unbuttoned, with a large green leaf of some sort on the top of his steaming head, and another in his hand which he used lazily as a fan . . . Going to Patusan? Oh yes. Stein's Trading Company. He knew. Had a permission? No business of his. It was not so bad there now, he remarked negligently, and, he went on drawling, "There's some sort of white vagabond has got in there, I hear. . . . Eh? What you say? Friend of yours? So! . . . Then it was true there was one of these verdammte--What was he up to? Found his way in, the rascal. Eh? I had not been sure. Patusan--they cut throats there--no business of ours." He interrupted himself to groan. "Phoo! Almighty! The heat! The heat! Well, then, there might be something in the story too, after all, and . . ." He shut one of his beastly glassy eyes (the eyelid went on quivering) while he leered at me atrociously with the other. "Look here," says he mysteriously, "if--do you understand?--if he has really got hold of something fairly good--none of your bits of green glass--understand?--I am a Government official--you tell the rascal . . . Eh? What? Friend of yours?" . . . He continued wallowing calmly in the chair . . . "You said so; that's just it; and I am pleased to give you the hint. I suppose you too would like to get something out of it? Don't interrupt. You just tell him I've heard the tale, but to my Government I have made no report. Not yet. See? Why make a report? Eh? Tell him to come to me if they let him get alive out of the country. He had better look out for himself. Eh? I promise to ask no questions. On the quiet--you understand? You too--you shall get something from me. Small commission for the trouble. Don't interrupt. I am a Government official, and make no report. That's business. Understand? I know some good people that will buy anything worth having, and can give him more money than the scoundrel ever saw in his life. I know his sort." He fixed me steadfastly with both his eyes open, while I stood over him utterly amazed, and asking myself whether he was mad or drunk. He perspired, puffed, moaning feebly, and scratching himself with such horrible composure that I could not bear the sight long enough to find out. Next day, talking casually with the people of the little native court of the place, I discovered that a story was travelling slowly down the coast about a mysterious white man in Patusan who had got hold of an extraordinary gem--namely, an emerald of an enormous size, and altogether priceless. The emerald seems to appeal more to the Eastern imagination than any other precious stone. The white man had obtained it, I was told, partly by the exercise of his wonderful strength and partly by cunning, from the ruler of a distant country, whence he had fled instantly, arriving in Patusan in utmost distress, but frightening the people by his extreme ferocity, which nothing seemed able to subdue. Most of my informants were of the opinion that the stone was probably unlucky,--like the famous stone of the Sultan of Succadana, which in the old times had brought wars and untold calamities upon that country. Perhaps it was the same stone--one couldn't say. Indeed the story of a fabulously large emerald is as old as the arrival of the first white men in the Archipelago; and the belief in it is so persistent that less than forty years ago there had been an official Dutch inquiry into the truth of it. Such a jewel--it was explained to me by the old fellow from whom I heard most of this amazing Jim-myth--a sort of scribe to the wretched little Rajah of the place;--such a jewel, he said, cocking his poor purblind eyes up at me (he was sitting on the cabin floor out of respect), is best preserved by being concealed about the person of a woman. Yet it is not every woman that would do. She must be young--he sighed deeply--and insensible to the seductions of love. He shook his head sceptically. But such a woman seemed to be actually in existence. He had been told of a tall girl, whom the white man treated with great respect and care, and who never went forth from the house unattended. People said the white man could be seen with her almost any day; they walked side by side, openly, he holding her arm under his--pressed to his side--thus--in a most extraordinary way. This might be a lie, he conceded, for it was indeed a strange thing for any one to do: on the other hand, there could be no doubt she wore the white man's jewel concealed upon her bosom.'

Chapter 28

https://web.archive.org/web/20210118112654/https://www.shmoop.com/study-guides/literature/lord-jim/summary/chapter-28

Just in case you were wondering what happened to Ali, rest assured that he flees the country after his defeat. Back to the chat betwen Jim and the visiting Marlow. The two are talking about Doramin and his wife. After the battle with Ali, Doramin is concerned about Jim's rise to power. He's worried that other white men may try to interfere on Patusan, because he wants his own son to be in charge. Doramin's wife, for one, is concerned about Jim's mysterious past. Uh oh. Could be trouble. Marlow then tells us about Jewel, the stepdaughter of Cornelius . Jewel's father was white and her mother was the Dutch Malay woman that Stein was fond of . Apparently Jewel and Jim got pretty cozy; Marlow describes them as being domestic together. Then he relates a funny incident where he encounters a white man who heard a "rumor" about an Englishman living in Patusan who had an enormous "jewel" in his possession. Could he be talking about Jewel and Jim? It looks like Jewel the person has turned into jewel the treasure, thanks to the rumor mill.

pinkmonkey

all_chapterized_books/110-chapters/19.txt

finished_summaries/pinkmonkey/Tess of the D'Urbervilles/section_7_part_2.txt

Tess of the D'Urbervilles.chapter 19

chapter 19

{"name": "CHAPTER 19", "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20180820050202/http://www.pinkmonkey.com/booknotes/monkeynotes/pmTessD28.asp", "summary": "Angel tries to befriend Tess. He even lines up her cows for her, which is against the rules. She says something to Angel about it, but then regrets having spoken. The same night, as she is walking in the garden, she hears Angel strumming on a harp. When he spies her, he takes the opportunity to ask her the reason for her somber behavior. She hides the truth and talks about life in general. Angel is surprised at both her intelligence and her pessimism and again thinks of her as more than a milkmaid. Tess wonders why a \"decidedly bookish, musical, thinking young man should have chosen deliberately to be a farmer, and not a clergyman, like his father and brother. Tess points out the difference in learning between them, and Angel offers to help her in reading. She turns him down, stating that what she wants to learn cannot be found in books. Nonetheless, Tess is anxious to have Angel think kindly about her. She discusses him with Mr. Crick and is amazed to learn from him that Angel does not have a good opinion about old families. As a result, Tess again feels she has no chance with Angel.", "analysis": "Notes Each day introduces a new facet of Tess's personality to Angel. She appears ever intriguing and fresh to him. While Tess is unaware of Angel's strong attraction to her, she does enjoy his presence on the farm and her conversations with him. The early spring has changed to warm summer with a spread of \"juicy grass\" and dazzling flowers. Tess has settled into her routine as a milkmaid, but is fearful that fate will intervene to destroy her peaceful days at Talbothay's. She is happier than she has ever been, but believes her joy cannot continue. Her pessimism confuses Angel, but her intelligence and independent thought surprise him. With fascination, he listens to her talk about her own individuality. He offers to teach her anything of her interest and is baffled that she refuses him. She grows philosophical and wants to know why the sun shines \"on the just and the unjust alike. Not knowing her background, Angel finds her question quite puzzling and challenging. It is important to notice the image that Hardy creates around Angel. His name is significant; in addition, he is seen lounging in the garden and playing a harp. He is also pictured as extremely intelligent and kind. It is no wonder that Tess thinks of him almost as a god and believes his music to be heavenly. Hardy, however, hints that this way of thinking is dangerous; a love affair between the couple cannot be smooth. The author foreshadows this fact by making the garden filled with ugly images, including offensive smells and slug slime. Just as Tess's innocence and purity have been spoiled by the world, even this idyllic scene has its darkness"}

In general the cows were milked as they presented themselves, without fancy or choice. But certain cows will show a fondness for a particular pair of hands, sometimes carrying this predilection so far as to refuse to stand at all except to their favourite, the pail of a stranger being unceremoniously kicked over. It was Dairyman Crick's rule to insist on breaking down these partialities and aversions by constant interchange, since otherwise, in the event of a milkman or maid going away from the dairy, he was placed in a difficulty. The maids' private aims, however, were the reverse of the dairyman's rule, the daily selection by each damsel of the eight or ten cows to which she had grown accustomed rendering the operation on their willing udders surprisingly easy and effortless. Tess, like her compeers, soon discovered which of the cows had a preference for her style of manipulation, and her fingers having become delicate from the long domiciliary imprisonments to which she had subjected herself at intervals during the last two or three years, she would have been glad to meet the milchers' views in this respect. Out of the whole ninety-five there were eight in particular--Dumpling, Fancy, Lofty, Mist, Old Pretty, Young Pretty, Tidy, and Loud--who, though the teats of one or two were as hard as carrots, gave down to her with a readiness that made her work on them a mere touch of the fingers. Knowing, however, the dairyman's wish, she endeavoured conscientiously to take the animals just as they came, excepting the very hard yielders which she could not yet manage. But she soon found a curious correspondence between the ostensibly chance position of the cows and her wishes in this matter, till she felt that their order could not be the result of accident. The dairyman's pupil had lent a hand in getting the cows together of late, and at the fifth or sixth time she turned her eyes, as she rested against the cow, full of sly inquiry upon him. "Mr Clare, you have ranged the cows!" she said, blushing; and in making the accusation, symptoms of a smile gently lifted her upper lip in spite of her, so as to show the tips of her teeth, the lower lip remaining severely still. "Well, it makes no difference," said he. "You will always be here to milk them." "Do you think so? I HOPE I shall! But I don't KNOW." She was angry with herself afterwards, thinking that he, unaware of her grave reasons for liking this seclusion, might have mistaken her meaning. She had spoken so earnestly to him, as if his presence were somehow a factor in her wish. Her misgiving was such that at dusk, when the milking was over, she walked in the garden alone, to continue her regrets that she had disclosed to him her discovery of his considerateness. It was a typical summer evening in June, the atmosphere being in such delicate equilibrium and so transmissive that inanimate objects seemed endowed with two or three senses, if not five. There was no distinction between the near and the far, and an auditor felt close to everything within the horizon. The soundlessness impressed her as a positive entity rather than as the mere negation of noise. It was broken by the strumming of strings. Tess had heard those notes in the attic above her head. Dim, flattened, constrained by their confinement, they had never appealed to her as now, when they wandered in the still air with a stark quality like that of nudity. To speak absolutely, both instrument and execution were poor; but the relative is all, and as she listened Tess, like a fascinated bird, could not leave the spot. Far from leaving she drew up towards the performer, keeping behind the hedge that he might not guess her presence. The outskirt of the garden in which Tess found herself had been left uncultivated for some years, and was now damp and rank with juicy grass which sent up mists of pollen at a touch; and with tall blooming weeds emitting offensive smells--weeds whose red and yellow and purple hues formed a polychrome as dazzling as that of cultivated flowers. She went stealthily as a cat through this profusion of growth, gathering cuckoo-spittle on her skirts, cracking snails that were underfoot, staining her hands with thistle-milk and slug-slime, and rubbing off upon her naked arms sticky blights which, though snow-white on the apple-tree trunks, made madder stains on her skin; thus she drew quite near to Clare, still unobserved of him. Tess was conscious of neither time nor space. The exaltation which she had described as being producible at will by gazing at a star came now without any determination of hers; she undulated upon the thin notes of the second-hand harp, and their harmonies passed like breezes through her, bringing tears into her eyes. The floating pollen seemed to be his notes made visible, and the dampness of the garden the weeping of the garden's sensibility. Though near nightfall, the rank-smelling weed-flowers glowed as if they would not close for intentness, and the waves of colour mixed with the waves of sound. The light which still shone was derived mainly from a large hole in the western bank of cloud; it was like a piece of day left behind by accident, dusk having closed in elsewhere. He concluded his plaintive melody, a very simple performance, demanding no great skill; and she waited, thinking another might be begun. But, tired of playing, he had desultorily come round the fence, and was rambling up behind her. Tess, her cheeks on fire, moved away furtively, as if hardly moving at all. Angel, however, saw her light summer gown, and he spoke; his low tones reaching her, though he was some distance off. "What makes you draw off in that way, Tess?" said he. "Are you afraid?" "Oh no, sir--not of outdoor things; especially just now when the apple-blooth is falling, and everything is so green." "But you have your indoor fears--eh?" "Well--yes, sir." "What of?" "I couldn't quite say." "The milk turning sour?" "No." "Life in general?" "Yes, sir." "Ah--so have I, very often. This hobble of being alive is rather serious, don't you think so?" "It is--now you put it that way." "All the same, I shouldn't have expected a young girl like you to see it so just yet. How is it you do?" She maintained a hesitating silence. "Come, Tess, tell me in confidence." She thought that he meant what were the aspects of things to her, and replied shyly-- "The trees have inquisitive eyes, haven't they?--that is, seem as if they had. And the river says,--'Why do ye trouble me with your looks?' And you seem to see numbers of to-morrows just all in a line, the first of them the biggest and clearest, the others getting smaller and smaller as they stand farther away; but they all seem very fierce and cruel and as if they said, 'I'm coming! Beware of me! Beware of me!' ... But YOU, sir, can raise up dreams with your music, and drive all such horrid fancies away!" He was surprised to find this young woman--who though but a milkmaid had just that touch of rarity about her which might make her the envied of her housemates--shaping such sad imaginings. She was expressing in her own native phrases--assisted a little by her Sixth Standard training--feelings which might almost have been called those of the age--the ache of modernism. The perception arrested him less when he reflected that what are called advanced ideas are really in great part but the latest fashion in definition--a more accurate expression, by words in _logy_ and _ism_, of sensations which men and women have vaguely grasped for centuries. Still, it was strange that they should have come to her while yet so young; more than strange; it was impressive, interesting, pathetic. Not guessing the cause, there was nothing to remind him that experience is as to intensity, and not as to duration. Tess's passing corporeal blight had been her mental harvest. Tess, on her part, could not understand why a man of clerical family and good education, and above physical want, should look upon it as a mishap to be alive. For the unhappy pilgrim herself there was very good reason. But how could this admirable and poetic man ever have descended into the Valley of Humiliation, have felt with the man of Uz--as she herself had felt two or three years ago--"My soul chooseth strangling and death rather than my life. I loathe it; I would not live alway." It was true that he was at present out of his class. But she knew that was only because, like Peter the Great in a shipwright's yard, he was studying what he wanted to know. He did not milk cows because he was obliged to milk cows, but because he was learning to be a rich and prosperous dairyman, landowner, agriculturist, and breeder of cattle. He would become an American or Australian Abraham, commanding like a monarch his flocks and his herds, his spotted and his ring-straked, his men-servants and his maids. At times, nevertheless, it did seem unaccountable to her that a decidedly bookish, musical, thinking young man should have chosen deliberately to be a farmer, and not a clergyman, like his father and brothers. Thus, neither having the clue to the other's secret, they were respectively puzzled at what each revealed, and awaited new knowledge of each other's character and mood without attempting to pry into each other's history. Every day, every hour, brought to him one more little stroke of her nature, and to her one more of his. Tess was trying to lead a repressed life, but she little divined the strength of her own vitality. At first Tess seemed to regard Angel Clare as an intelligence rather than as a man. As such she compared him with herself; and at every discovery of the abundance of his illuminations, of the distance between her own modest mental standpoint and the unmeasurable, Andean altitude of his, she became quite dejected, disheartened from all further effort on her own part whatever. He observed her dejection one day, when he had casually mentioned something to her about pastoral life in ancient Greece. She was gathering the buds called "lords and ladies" from the bank while he spoke. "Why do you look so woebegone all of a sudden?" he asked. "Oh, 'tis only--about my own self," she said, with a frail laugh of sadness, fitfully beginning to peel "a lady" meanwhile. "Just a sense of what might have been with me! My life looks as if it had been wasted for want of chances! When I see what you know, what you have read, and seen, and thought, I feel what a nothing I am! I'm like the poor Queen of Sheba who lived in the Bible. There is no more spirit in me." "Bless my soul, don't go troubling about that! Why," he said with some enthusiasm, "I should be only too glad, my dear Tess, to help you to anything in the way of history, or any line of reading you would like to take up--" "It is a lady again," interrupted she, holding out the bud she had peeled. "What?" "I meant that there are always more ladies than lords when you come to peel them." "Never mind about the lords and ladies. Would you like to take up any course of study--history, for example?" "Sometimes I feel I don't want to know anything more about it than I know already." "Why not?" "Because what's the use of learning that I am one of a long row only--finding out that there is set down in some old book somebody just like me, and to know that I shall only act her part; making me sad, that's all. The best is not to remember that your nature and your past doings have been just like thousands' and thousands', and that your coming life and doings 'll be like thousands's and thousands'." "What, really, then, you don't want to learn anything?" "I shouldn't mind learning why--why the sun do shine on the just and the unjust alike," she answered, with a slight quaver in her voice. "But that's what books will not tell me." "Tess, fie for such bitterness!" Of course he spoke with a conventional sense of duty only, for that sort of wondering had not been unknown to himself in bygone days. And as he looked at the unpracticed mouth and lips, he thought that such a daughter of the soil could only have caught up the sentiment by rote. She went on peeling the lords and ladies till Clare, regarding for a moment the wave-like curl of her lashes as they dropped with her bent gaze on her soft cheek, lingeringly went away. When he was gone she stood awhile, thoughtfully peeling the last bud; and then, awakening from her reverie, flung it and all the crowd of floral nobility impatiently on the ground, in an ebullition of displeasure with herself for her _niaiserie_, and with a quickening warmth in her heart of hearts. How stupid he must think her! In an access of hunger for his good opinion she bethought herself of what she had latterly endeavoured to forget, so unpleasant had been its issues--the identity of her family with that of the knightly d'Urbervilles. Barren attribute as it was, disastrous as its discovery had been in many ways to her, perhaps Mr Clare, as a gentleman and a student of history, would respect her sufficiently to forget her childish conduct with the lords and ladies if he knew that those Purbeck-marble and alabaster people in Kingsbere Church really represented her own lineal forefathers; that she was no spurious d'Urberville, compounded of money and ambition like those at Trantridge, but true d'Urberville to the bone. But, before venturing to make the revelation, dubious Tess indirectly sounded the dairyman as to its possible effect upon Mr Clare, by asking the former if Mr Clare had any great respect for old county families when they had lost all their money and land. "Mr Clare," said the dairyman emphatically, "is one of the most rebellest rozums you ever knowed--not a bit like the rest of his family; and if there's one thing that he do hate more than another 'tis the notion of what's called a' old family. He says that it stands to reason that old families have done their spurt of work in past days, and can't have anything left in 'em now. There's the Billets and the Drenkhards and the Greys and the St Quintins and the Hardys and the Goulds, who used to own the lands for miles down this valley; you could buy 'em all up now for an old song a'most. Why, our little Retty Priddle here, you know, is one of the Paridelles--the old family that used to own lots o' the lands out by King's Hintock, now owned by the Earl o' Wessex, afore even he or his was heard of. Well, Mr Clare found this out, and spoke quite scornful to the poor girl for days. 'Ah!' he says to her, 'you'll never make a good dairymaid! All your skill was used up ages ago in Palestine, and you must lie fallow for a thousand years to git strength for more deeds!' A boy came here t'other day asking for a job, and said his name was Matt, and when we asked him his surname he said he'd never heard that 'a had any surname, and when we asked why, he said he supposed his folks hadn't been 'stablished long enough. 'Ah! you're the very boy I want!' says Mr Clare, jumping up and shaking hands wi'en; 'I've great hopes of you;' and gave him half-a-crown. O no! he can't stomach old families!" After hearing this caricature of Clare's opinion poor Tess was glad that she had not said a word in a weak moment about her family--even though it was so unusually old almost to have gone round the circle and become a new one. Besides, another diary-girl was as good as she, it seemed, in that respect. She held her tongue about the d'Urberville vault and the Knight of the Conqueror whose name she bore. The insight afforded into Clare's character suggested to her that it was largely owing to her supposed untraditional newness that she had won interest in his eyes.

CHAPTER 19

https://web.archive.org/web/20180820050202/http://www.pinkmonkey.com/booknotes/monkeynotes/pmTessD28.asp

Angel tries to befriend Tess. He even lines up her cows for her, which is against the rules. She says something to Angel about it, but then regrets having spoken. The same night, as she is walking in the garden, she hears Angel strumming on a harp. When he spies her, he takes the opportunity to ask her the reason for her somber behavior. She hides the truth and talks about life in general. Angel is surprised at both her intelligence and her pessimism and again thinks of her as more than a milkmaid. Tess wonders why a "decidedly bookish, musical, thinking young man should have chosen deliberately to be a farmer, and not a clergyman, like his father and brother. Tess points out the difference in learning between them, and Angel offers to help her in reading. She turns him down, stating that what she wants to learn cannot be found in books. Nonetheless, Tess is anxious to have Angel think kindly about her. She discusses him with Mr. Crick and is amazed to learn from him that Angel does not have a good opinion about old families. As a result, Tess again feels she has no chance with Angel.

Notes Each day introduces a new facet of Tess's personality to Angel. She appears ever intriguing and fresh to him. While Tess is unaware of Angel's strong attraction to her, she does enjoy his presence on the farm and her conversations with him. The early spring has changed to warm summer with a spread of "juicy grass" and dazzling flowers. Tess has settled into her routine as a milkmaid, but is fearful that fate will intervene to destroy her peaceful days at Talbothay's. She is happier than she has ever been, but believes her joy cannot continue. Her pessimism confuses Angel, but her intelligence and independent thought surprise him. With fascination, he listens to her talk about her own individuality. He offers to teach her anything of her interest and is baffled that she refuses him. She grows philosophical and wants to know why the sun shines "on the just and the unjust alike. Not knowing her background, Angel finds her question quite puzzling and challenging. It is important to notice the image that Hardy creates around Angel. His name is significant; in addition, he is seen lounging in the garden and playing a harp. He is also pictured as extremely intelligent and kind. It is no wonder that Tess thinks of him almost as a god and believes his music to be heavenly. Hardy, however, hints that this way of thinking is dangerous; a love affair between the couple cannot be smooth. The author foreshadows this fact by making the garden filled with ugly images, including offensive smells and slug slime. Just as Tess's innocence and purity have been spoiled by the world, even this idyllic scene has its darkness

shmoop

all_chapterized_books/28054-chapters/32.txt

finished_summaries/shmoop/The Brothers Karamazov/section_31_part_0.txt

The Brothers Karamazov.book 5.chapter 1

book 5, chapter 1

{"name": "Book 5, Chapter 1", "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20201023112808/https://www.shmoop.com/study-guides/literature/brothers-karamazov/summary/book-5-chapter-1", "summary": "When Alyosha arrives at the Khokhlakovs', Madame Khokhlakov is on her way out the door to tend to Katerina, who is now running a fever. Alyosha and Lise are alone, so Alyosha tells Lise about his encounter with Snegiryov. He reveals that he's actually glad that Snegiryov rejected the money because it gave Snegiryov the chance to prove he was an honorable man. Alyosha decides that Snegiryov will be more receptive to the money the next day. Lise then tells Alyosha that her note to him actually wasn't a joke at all. Alyosha tells her he knows, and Lise is annoyed because he seems so cold. But then he kisses her, which surprises them both. He confesses that he had her letter in his pocket all along. Lise asks Alyosha why he seems so terribly sad, and he mentions how troubled he is by his family's conflicts and Zosima's ill health. After kissing Lise good-bye, Alyosha heads downstairs only to be headed off by Madame Khokhlakov, who is distressed by what she's overheard between him and Lise. Alyosha refuses to show her Lise's letter and continues out the door.", "analysis": ""}

Book V. Pro And Contra Chapter I. The Engagement Madame Hohlakov was again the first to meet Alyosha. She was flustered; something important had happened. Katerina Ivanovna's hysterics had ended in a fainting fit, and then "a terrible, awful weakness had followed, she lay with her eyes turned up and was delirious. Now she was in a fever. They had sent for Herzenstube; they had sent for the aunts. The aunts were already here, but Herzenstube had not yet come. They were all sitting in her room, waiting. She was unconscious now, and what if it turned to brain fever!" Madame Hohlakov looked gravely alarmed. "This is serious, serious," she added at every word, as though nothing that had happened to her before had been serious. Alyosha listened with distress, and was beginning to describe his adventures, but she interrupted him at the first words. She had not time to listen. She begged him to sit with Lise and wait for her there. "Lise," she whispered almost in his ear, "Lise has greatly surprised me just now, dear Alexey Fyodorovitch. She touched me, too, and so my heart forgives her everything. Only fancy, as soon as you had gone, she began to be truly remorseful for having laughed at you to-day and yesterday, though she was not laughing at you, but only joking. But she was seriously sorry for it, almost ready to cry, so that I was quite surprised. She has never been really sorry for laughing at me, but has only made a joke of it. And you know she is laughing at me every minute. But this time she was in earnest. She thinks a great deal of your opinion, Alexey Fyodorovitch, and don't take offense or be wounded by her if you can help it. I am never hard upon her, for she's such a clever little thing. Would you believe it? She said just now that you were a friend of her childhood, 'the greatest friend of her childhood'--just think of that--'greatest friend'--and what about me? She has very strong feelings and memories, and, what's more, she uses these phrases, most unexpected words, which come out all of a sudden when you least expect them. She spoke lately about a pine-tree, for instance: there used to be a pine-tree standing in our garden in her early childhood. Very likely it's standing there still; so there's no need to speak in the past tense. Pine-trees are not like people, Alexey Fyodorovitch, they don't change quickly. 'Mamma,' she said, 'I remember this pine-tree as in a dream,' only she said something so original about it that I can't repeat it. Besides, I've forgotten it. Well, good-by! I am so worried I feel I shall go out of my mind. Ah! Alexey Fyodorovitch, I've been out of my mind twice in my life. Go to Lise, cheer her up, as you always can so charmingly. Lise," she cried, going to her door, "here I've brought you Alexey Fyodorovitch, whom you insulted so. He is not at all angry, I assure you; on the contrary, he is surprised that you could suppose so." "_Merci, maman._ Come in, Alexey Fyodorovitch." Alyosha went in. Lise looked rather embarrassed, and at once flushed crimson. She was evidently ashamed of something, and, as people always do in such cases, she began immediately talking of other things, as though they were of absorbing interest to her at the moment. "Mamma has just told me all about the two hundred roubles, Alexey Fyodorovitch, and your taking them to that poor officer ... and she told me all the awful story of how he had been insulted ... and you know, although mamma muddles things ... she always rushes from one thing to another ... I cried when I heard. Well, did you give him the money and how is that poor man getting on?" "The fact is I didn't give it to him, and it's a long story," answered Alyosha, as though he, too, could think of nothing but his regret at having failed, yet Lise saw perfectly well that he, too, looked away, and that he, too, was trying to talk of other things. Alyosha sat down to the table and began to tell his story, but at the first words he lost his embarrassment and gained the whole of Lise's attention as well. He spoke with deep feeling, under the influence of the strong impression he had just received, and he succeeded in telling his story well and circumstantially. In old days in Moscow he had been fond of coming to Lise and describing to her what had just happened to him, what he had read, or what he remembered of his childhood. Sometimes they had made day-dreams and woven whole romances together--generally cheerful and amusing ones. Now they both felt suddenly transported to the old days in Moscow, two years before. Lise was extremely touched by his story. Alyosha described Ilusha with warm feeling. When he finished describing how the luckless man trampled on the money, Lise could not help clasping her hands and crying out: "So you didn't give him the money! So you let him run away! Oh, dear, you ought to have run after him!" "No, Lise; it's better I didn't run after him," said Alyosha, getting up from his chair and walking thoughtfully across the room. "How so? How is it better? Now they are without food and their case is hopeless?" "Not hopeless, for the two hundred roubles will still come to them. He'll take the money to-morrow. To-morrow he will be sure to take it," said Alyosha, pacing up and down, pondering. "You see, Lise," he went on, stopping suddenly before her, "I made one blunder, but that, even that, is all for the best." "What blunder, and why is it for the best?" "I'll tell you. He is a man of weak and timorous character; he has suffered so much and is very good-natured. I keep wondering why he took offense so suddenly, for I assure you, up to the last minute, he did not know that he was going to trample on the notes. And I think now that there was a great deal to offend him ... and it could not have been otherwise in his position.... To begin with, he was sore at having been so glad of the money in my presence and not having concealed it from me. If he had been pleased, but not so much; if he had not shown it; if he had begun affecting scruples and difficulties, as other people do when they take money, he might still endure to take it. But he was too genuinely delighted, and that was mortifying. Ah, Lise, he is a good and truthful man--that's the worst of the whole business. All the while he talked, his voice was so weak, so broken, he talked so fast, so fast, he kept laughing such a laugh, or perhaps he was crying--yes, I am sure he was crying, he was so delighted--and he talked about his daughters--and about the situation he could get in another town.... And when he had poured out his heart, he felt ashamed at having shown me his inmost soul like that. So he began to hate me at once. He is one of those awfully sensitive poor people. What had made him feel most ashamed was that he had given in too soon and accepted me as a friend, you see. At first he almost flew at me and tried to intimidate me, but as soon as he saw the money he had begun embracing me; he kept touching me with his hands. This must have been how he came to feel it all so humiliating, and then I made that blunder, a very important one. I suddenly said to him that if he had not money enough to move to another town, we would give it to him, and, indeed, I myself would give him as much as he wanted out of my own money. That struck him all at once. Why, he thought, did I put myself forward to help him? You know, Lise, it's awfully hard for a man who has been injured, when other people look at him as though they were his benefactors.... I've heard that; Father Zossima told me so. I don't know how to put it, but I have often seen it myself. And I feel like that myself, too. And the worst of it was that though he did not know, up to the very last minute, that he would trample on the notes, he had a kind of presentiment of it, I am sure of that. That's just what made him so ecstatic, that he had that presentiment.... And though it's so dreadful, it's all for the best. In fact, I believe nothing better could have happened." "Why, why could nothing better have happened?" cried Lise, looking with great surprise at Alyosha. "Because if he had taken the money, in an hour after getting home, he would be crying with mortification, that's just what would have happened. And most likely he would have come to me early to-morrow, and perhaps have flung the notes at me and trampled upon them as he did just now. But now he has gone home awfully proud and triumphant, though he knows he has 'ruined himself.' So now nothing could be easier than to make him accept the two hundred roubles by to-morrow, for he has already vindicated his honor, tossed away the money, and trampled it under foot.... He couldn't know when he did it that I should bring it to him again to-morrow, and yet he is in terrible need of that money. Though he is proud of himself now, yet even to-day he'll be thinking what a help he has lost. He will think of it more than ever at night, will dream of it, and by to-morrow morning he may be ready to run to me to ask forgiveness. It's just then that I'll appear. 'Here, you are a proud man,' I shall say: 'you have shown it; but now take the money and forgive us!' And then he will take it!" Alyosha was carried away with joy as he uttered his last words, "And then he will take it!" Lise clapped her hands. "Ah, that's true! I understand that perfectly now. Ah, Alyosha, how do you know all this? So young and yet he knows what's in the heart.... I should never have worked it out." "The great thing now is to persuade him that he is on an equal footing with us, in spite of his taking money from us," Alyosha went on in his excitement, "and not only on an equal, but even on a higher footing." " 'On a higher footing' is charming, Alexey Fyodorovitch; but go on, go on!" "You mean there isn't such an expression as 'on a higher footing'; but that doesn't matter because--" "Oh, no, of course it doesn't matter. Forgive me, Alyosha, dear.... You know, I scarcely respected you till now--that is I respected you but on an equal footing; but now I shall begin to respect you on a higher footing. Don't be angry, dear, at my joking," she put in at once, with strong feeling. "I am absurd and small, but you, you! Listen, Alexey Fyodorovitch. Isn't there in all our analysis--I mean your analysis ... no, better call it ours--aren't we showing contempt for him, for that poor man--in analyzing his soul like this, as it were, from above, eh? In deciding so certainly that he will take the money?" "No, Lise, it's not contempt," Alyosha answered, as though he had prepared himself for the question. "I was thinking of that on the way here. How can it be contempt when we are all like him, when we are all just the same as he is? For you know we are just the same, no better. If we are better, we should have been just the same in his place.... I don't know about you, Lise, but I consider that I have a sordid soul in many ways, and his soul is not sordid; on the contrary, full of fine feeling.... No, Lise, I have no contempt for him. Do you know, Lise, my elder told me once to care for most people exactly as one would for children, and for some of them as one would for the sick in hospitals." "Ah, Alexey Fyodorovitch, dear, let us care for people as we would for the sick!" "Let us, Lise; I am ready. Though I am not altogether ready in myself. I am sometimes very impatient and at other times I don't see things. It's different with you." "Ah, I don't believe it! Alexey Fyodorovitch, how happy I am!" "I am so glad you say so, Lise." "Alexey Fyodorovitch, you are wonderfully good, but you are sometimes sort of formal.... And yet you are not a bit formal really. Go to the door, open it gently, and see whether mamma is listening," said Lise, in a nervous, hurried whisper. Alyosha went, opened the door, and reported that no one was listening. "Come here, Alexey Fyodorovitch," Lise went on, flushing redder and redder. "Give me your hand--that's right. I have to make a great confession, I didn't write to you yesterday in joke, but in earnest," and she hid her eyes with her hand. It was evident that she was greatly ashamed of the confession. Suddenly she snatched his hand and impulsively kissed it three times. "Ah, Lise, what a good thing!" cried Alyosha joyfully. "You know, I was perfectly sure you were in earnest." "Sure? Upon my word!" She put aside his hand, but did not leave go of it, blushing hotly, and laughing a little happy laugh. "I kiss his hand and he says, 'What a good thing!' " But her reproach was undeserved. Alyosha, too, was greatly overcome. "I should like to please you always, Lise, but I don't know how to do it," he muttered, blushing too. "Alyosha, dear, you are cold and rude. Do you see? He has chosen me as his wife and is quite settled about it. He is sure I was in earnest. What a thing to say! Why, that's impertinence--that's what it is." "Why, was it wrong of me to feel sure?" Alyosha asked, laughing suddenly. "Ah, Alyosha, on the contrary, it was delightfully right," cried Lise, looking tenderly and happily at him. Alyosha stood still, holding her hand in his. Suddenly he stooped down and kissed her on her lips. "Oh, what are you doing?" cried Lise. Alyosha was terribly abashed. "Oh, forgive me if I shouldn't.... Perhaps I'm awfully stupid.... You said I was cold, so I kissed you.... But I see it was stupid." Lise laughed, and hid her face in her hands. "And in that dress!" she ejaculated in the midst of her mirth. But she suddenly ceased laughing and became serious, almost stern. "Alyosha, we must put off kissing. We are not ready for that yet, and we shall have a long time to wait," she ended suddenly. "Tell me rather why you who are so clever, so intellectual, so observant, choose a little idiot, an invalid like me? Ah, Alyosha, I am awfully happy, for I don't deserve you a bit." "You do, Lise. I shall be leaving the monastery altogether in a few days. If I go into the world, I must marry. I know that. _He_ told me to marry, too. Whom could I marry better than you--and who would have me except you? I have been thinking it over. In the first place, you've known me from a child and you've a great many qualities I haven't. You are more light- hearted than I am; above all, you are more innocent than I am. I have been brought into contact with many, many things already.... Ah, you don't know, but I, too, am a Karamazov. What does it matter if you do laugh and make jokes, and at me, too? Go on laughing. I am so glad you do. You laugh like a little child, but you think like a martyr." "Like a martyr? How?" "Yes, Lise, your question just now: whether we weren't showing contempt for that poor man by dissecting his soul--that was the question of a sufferer.... You see, I don't know how to express it, but any one who thinks of such questions is capable of suffering. Sitting in your invalid chair you must have thought over many things already." "Alyosha, give me your hand. Why are you taking it away?" murmured Lise in a failing voice, weak with happiness. "Listen, Alyosha. What will you wear when you come out of the monastery? What sort of suit? Don't laugh, don't be angry, it's very, very important to me." "I haven't thought about the suit, Lise; but I'll wear whatever you like." "I should like you to have a dark blue velvet coat, a white pique waistcoat, and a soft gray felt hat.... Tell me, did you believe that I didn't care for you when I said I didn't mean what I wrote?" "No, I didn't believe it." "Oh, you insupportable person, you are incorrigible." "You see, I knew that you--seemed to care for me, but I pretended to believe that you didn't care for me to make it--easier for you." "That makes it worse! Worse and better than all! Alyosha, I am awfully fond of you. Just before you came this morning, I tried my fortune. I decided I would ask you for my letter, and if you brought it out calmly and gave it to me (as might have been expected from you) it would mean that you did not love me at all, that you felt nothing, and were simply a stupid boy, good for nothing, and that I am ruined. But you left the letter at home and that cheered me. You left it behind on purpose, so as not to give it back, because you knew I would ask for it? That was it, wasn't it?" "Ah, Lise, it was not so a bit. The letter is with me now, and it was this morning, in this pocket. Here it is." Alyosha pulled the letter out laughing, and showed it her at a distance. "But I am not going to give it to you. Look at it from here." "Why, then you told a lie? You, a monk, told a lie!" "I told a lie if you like," Alyosha laughed, too. "I told a lie so as not to give you back the letter. It's very precious to me," he added suddenly, with strong feeling, and again he flushed. "It always will be, and I won't give it up to any one!" Lise looked at him joyfully. "Alyosha," she murmured again, "look at the door. Isn't mamma listening?" "Very well, Lise, I'll look; but wouldn't it be better not to look? Why suspect your mother of such meanness?" "What meanness? As for her spying on her daughter, it's her right, it's not meanness!" cried Lise, firing up. "You may be sure, Alexey Fyodorovitch, that when I am a mother, if I have a daughter like myself I shall certainly spy on her!" "Really, Lise? That's not right." "Oh, my goodness! What has meanness to do with it? If she were listening to some ordinary worldly conversation, it would be meanness, but when her own daughter is shut up with a young man.... Listen, Alyosha, do you know I shall spy upon you as soon as we are married, and let me tell you I shall open all your letters and read them, so you may as well be prepared." "Yes, of course, if so--" muttered Alyosha, "only it's not right." "Ah, how contemptuous! Alyosha, dear, we won't quarrel the very first day. I'd better tell you the whole truth. Of course, it's very wrong to spy on people, and, of course, I am not right and you are, only I shall spy on you all the same." "Do, then; you won't find out anything," laughed Alyosha. "And, Alyosha, will you give in to me? We must decide that too." "I shall be delighted to, Lise, and certain to, only not in the most important things. Even if you don't agree with me, I shall do my duty in the most important things." "That's right; but let me tell you I am ready to give in to you not only in the most important matters, but in everything. And I am ready to vow to do so now--in everything, and for all my life!" cried Lise fervently, "and I'll do it gladly, gladly! What's more, I'll swear never to spy on you, never once, never to read one of your letters. For you are right and I am not. And though I shall be awfully tempted to spy, I know that I won't do it since you consider it dishonorable. You are my conscience now.... Listen, Alexey Fyodorovitch, why have you been so sad lately--both yesterday and to-day? I know you have a lot of anxiety and trouble, but I see you have some special grief besides, some secret one, perhaps?" "Yes, Lise, I have a secret one, too," answered Alyosha mournfully. "I see you love me, since you guessed that." "What grief? What about? Can you tell me?" asked Lise with timid entreaty. "I'll tell you later, Lise--afterwards," said Alyosha, confused. "Now you wouldn't understand it perhaps--and perhaps I couldn't explain it." "I know your brothers and your father are worrying you, too." "Yes, my brothers too," murmured Alyosha, pondering. "I don't like your brother Ivan, Alyosha," said Lise suddenly. He noticed this remark with some surprise, but did not answer it. "My brothers are destroying themselves," he went on, "my father, too. And they are destroying others with them. It's 'the primitive force of the Karamazovs,' as Father Paissy said the other day, a crude, unbridled, earthly force. Does the spirit of God move above that force? Even that I don't know. I only know that I, too, am a Karamazov.... Me a monk, a monk! Am I a monk, Lise? You said just now that I was." "Yes, I did." "And perhaps I don't even believe in God." "You don't believe? What is the matter?" said Lise quietly and gently. But Alyosha did not answer. There was something too mysterious, too subjective in these last words of his, perhaps obscure to himself, but yet torturing him. "And now on the top of it all, my friend, the best man in the world, is going, is leaving the earth! If you knew, Lise, how bound up in soul I am with him! And then I shall be left alone.... I shall come to you, Lise.... For the future we will be together." "Yes, together, together! Henceforward we shall be always together, all our lives! Listen, kiss me, I allow you." Alyosha kissed her. "Come, now go. Christ be with you!" and she made the sign of the cross over him. "Make haste back to _him_ while he is alive. I see I've kept you cruelly. I'll pray to-day for him and you. Alyosha, we shall be happy! Shall we be happy, shall we?" "I believe we shall, Lise." Alyosha thought it better not to go in to Madame Hohlakov and was going out of the house without saying good-by to her. But no sooner had he opened the door than he found Madame Hohlakov standing before him. From the first word Alyosha guessed that she had been waiting on purpose to meet him. "Alexey Fyodorovitch, this is awful. This is all childish nonsense and ridiculous. I trust you won't dream--It's foolishness, nothing but foolishness!" she said, attacking him at once. "Only don't tell her that," said Alyosha, "or she will be upset, and that's bad for her now." "Sensible advice from a sensible young man. Am I to understand that you only agreed with her from compassion for her invalid state, because you didn't want to irritate her by contradiction?" "Oh, no, not at all. I was quite serious in what I said," Alyosha declared stoutly. "To be serious about it is impossible, unthinkable, and in the first place I shall never be at home to you again, and I shall take her away, you may be sure of that." "But why?" asked Alyosha. "It's all so far off. We may have to wait another year and a half." "Ah, Alexey Fyodorovitch, that's true, of course, and you'll have time to quarrel and separate a thousand times in a year and a half. But I am so unhappy! Though it's such nonsense, it's a great blow to me. I feel like Famusov in the last scene of _Sorrow from Wit_. You are Tchatsky and she is Sofya, and, only fancy, I've run down to meet you on the stairs, and in the play the fatal scene takes place on the staircase. I heard it all; I almost dropped. So this is the explanation of her dreadful night and her hysterics of late! It means love to the daughter but death to the mother. I might as well be in my grave at once. And a more serious matter still, what is this letter she has written? Show it me at once, at once!" "No, there's no need. Tell me, how is Katerina Ivanovna now? I must know." "She still lies in delirium; she has not regained consciousness. Her aunts are here; but they do nothing but sigh and give themselves airs. Herzenstube came, and he was so alarmed that I didn't know what to do for him. I nearly sent for a doctor to look after him. He was driven home in my carriage. And on the top of it all, you and this letter! It's true nothing can happen for a year and a half. In the name of all that's holy, in the name of your dying elder, show me that letter, Alexey Fyodorovitch. I'm her mother. Hold it in your hand, if you like, and I will read it so." "No, I won't show it to you. Even if she sanctioned it, I wouldn't. I am coming to-morrow, and if you like, we can talk over many things, but now good-by!" And Alyosha ran downstairs and into the street.

Book 5, Chapter 1

https://web.archive.org/web/20201023112808/https://www.shmoop.com/study-guides/literature/brothers-karamazov/summary/book-5-chapter-1

When Alyosha arrives at the Khokhlakovs', Madame Khokhlakov is on her way out the door to tend to Katerina, who is now running a fever. Alyosha and Lise are alone, so Alyosha tells Lise about his encounter with Snegiryov. He reveals that he's actually glad that Snegiryov rejected the money because it gave Snegiryov the chance to prove he was an honorable man. Alyosha decides that Snegiryov will be more receptive to the money the next day. Lise then tells Alyosha that her note to him actually wasn't a joke at all. Alyosha tells her he knows, and Lise is annoyed because he seems so cold. But then he kisses her, which surprises them both. He confesses that he had her letter in his pocket all along. Lise asks Alyosha why he seems so terribly sad, and he mentions how troubled he is by his family's conflicts and Zosima's ill health. After kissing Lise good-bye, Alyosha heads downstairs only to be headed off by Madame Khokhlakov, who is distressed by what she's overheard between him and Lise. Alyosha refuses to show her Lise's letter and continues out the door.

cliffnotes

all_chapterized_books/110-chapters/chapters_9_to_11.txt

finished_summaries/cliffnotes/Tess of the d'Urbervilles/section_2_part_0.txt

Tess of the d'Urbervilles.chapters 9-11

chapters 9-11

{"name": "Chapters 9-11", "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20201219151046/https://www.cliffsnotes.com/literature/t/tess-of-the-durbervilles/summary-and-analysis/phase-the-first-the-maiden-chapters-911", "summary": "Tess makes her new home in an old house that had once been the primary house at The Slopes. It is now a chicken coop. The new house is the centerpiece of the estate. Tess must, along with the other staff, bring the chickens one by one to Mrs. d'Urberville for inspection. When Mrs. d'Urberville, a blind 60-year-old woman, asks Tess whether she can whistle , Tess says she can. When she tries later, though, she realizes whistling is a talent she no longer possesses, and so she begins to practice so that she may regain the skill. Alec sees Tess practicing, finds her attempts humorous, and offers to coach her. Tess declines his offer, but he persists until, just to be rid of him, she agrees to let him assist her. Alec, taken by Tess and unaccustomed to being denied, begins to spy on Tess, watching her as she works in the house, even hiding behind the bed curtains on his mother's bed to catch her whistling to the birds. Tess makes friends with other housekeeping staff members, and they introduce Tess to the dances that they attend on the weekends. The staff goes to nearby Chaseborough to drink at the pub or dance in the dancehall. Because Tess does not have a partner to dance with, she watches the other staff dance. This particular September evening, the cottage staff opt instead for a private dance in the barn of a supplier to the d'Urberville estate. Alec surprises Tess by appearing at the barn dance. He offers her a ride home, which she turns down. Later, when the cottage staff return home, Tess and Car, another girl who works at The Slopes, get into a fight over Car's jealousy at Alec's attention towards Tess. Alec rides up and rescues Tess from a small mob of resentful women. He takes her away from a beating she surely would have suffered at the hands of the cottage staff women. Instead of returning directly to The Slopes, Alec meanders along, hoping to take advantage of Tess in a vulnerable state. He finally actually loses his way in the dense fog. He leaves Tess in the woods as he goes to find a cottage for directions back to Trantridge. When Alec returns to Tess, he finds her asleep and rapes her, knowing he has worn down Tess' defenses over the last few months.", "analysis": "Alec uses all types of methods to achieve his goal, from light sexual teasing to forcible rape. One has to believe that it was Alec's intent all along to take any freedoms he chose with Tess. This is foreshadowed by Hardy throughout Phase I in his references to Alec's debauchery and Tess' innocence. From the beginning, Alec has implied that he and she share an intimate link through their common ancestor. Alec has also been able, in nearly every encounter with Tess, to coerce her to do as he wishes, despite her obvious despair. His predatory behavior escalates from simply refusing to accept her refusal of his advances , to putting her in a precarious position and then offering her salvation -- if she will acquiesce to one small liberty -- a kiss in this case, to finally, raping her. It might be argued that Alec had a history of doing as he pleased, even with the hired help at The Slopes: \"It was evidently the gentleman's wish not to be disturbed in this pleasant tete-a-tete by the servantry.\" Even the cottage workers know what is about to happen, \"'Heu-heu-heu!' laughed Car's mother, stroking her moustache as she explains laconically: 'Out of the frying-pan into the fire!'\" Hardy also reintroduces the concept that fate plays a significant part in how people's lives turn out, when he concludes \"It was meant to be.\" Fate was not a new concept with Hardy. The ancient Greeks used fate as a guiding force in their plays. To the Greeks the Fates were, literally, three goddesses -- Clotho, Lachesis, Atropos -- who control human destiny and life. Late in the novel, Hardy evokes Aeschylus and the Greek idea that we are all destined to be controlled by fate. Because Alec is of the gentry class in England, there will be no consequences for him to endure. Tess, the victim, is the one who must live with the consequences of the act. This scenario is one of the ways in which this novel was considered controversial by its original readers. Alec is allowed to do as he pleases, abusing power and position, which in Hardy's estimation, was one of the ills of Victorian society and one of the issues with English aristocracy: \"One may, indeed, admit the possibility of a retribution lurking in the present catastrophe. Doubtless some of Tess d'Urberville's mailed ancestors rollicking home from a fray had dealt the same measure even more ruthlessly towards peasant girls of their time.\" Whether it's fate, or \"retribution\" for past offenses, or predestination, Tess does not deserve what happens to her. Nevertheless, she is the one who must endure under the burden of the crime perpetrated against her. Hardy would not offend the sensibilities of his readers by tainting the novel with a lurid sex scene. At the end of Chapter 9, the rape scene is not played out before our eyes. In fact, it is hard to find the actual mention of rape in the entire novel. Hardy leaves out the gratuitous violent scenes. Instead, like a Greek tragedy, the violence takes place off-stage. Indeed, all violence in the Greek theatre was played off-stage as witnessed by Aeschylus' play Oedipus Rex. Even when his main character, Oedipus, blinds himself by gouging his eyes out, we do not see the actual act on stage, which would have offended the sensibilities of his audience. Instead, we see the result of the action, as we will here. What the characters do or how they react is more important than the act. Now that Alec has conquered Tess, he wants to keep her as his own. But Tess will not let Alec's advances keep her at The Slopes. Glossary copyholders persons who hold land by copyhold; here, possessors of the land at the will of the lord of the manor, who, by custom, normally allowed tenants to stay for longer than the life of the original tenant. \"Take, O take those lips away\" from Shakespeare's Measure for Measure . satyrs in classical mythology, minor woodland deities having the head and trunk of a man and the hind legs of a goat, and as being fond of riotous merriment and lechery. nymphs minor nature goddesses, represented as young and beautiful and living in rivers, mountains, or trees. Pan Greek god with legs, ears, and horns of a goat, noted for his lust. Syrinx Syrinx was pursued by Pan, but the gods turned her into a reed, from which Pan made his pipe. Lotis . . . Priapus Priapus, another lustful god, pursued Lotis, who was turned into a lotus flower. Sileni plural form of Silenus, a satyr and follower of Bacchus. Jints joints or hip/knee joints. treacle molasses. Praxitlean creation like the work of Praxiteles, Greek sculptor of the fourth century B.C. known for his sensual statues. Tishbite Elijah, who in 1 Kings 18 mocks the god worshipped by the priests of Baal. \"Sins of the fathers\" Exodus 20:5: \"I the Lord thy God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me.\""}

The community of fowls to which Tess had been appointed as supervisor, purveyor, nurse, surgeon, and friend made its headquarters in an old thatched cottage standing in an enclosure that had once been a garden, but was now a trampled and sanded square. The house was overrun with ivy, its chimney being enlarged by the boughs of the parasite to the aspect of a ruined tower. The lower rooms were entirely given over to the birds, who walked about them with a proprietary air, as though the place had been built by themselves, and not by certain dusty copyholders who now lay east and west in the churchyard. The descendants of these bygone owners felt it almost as a slight to their family when the house which had so much of their affection, had cost so much of their forefathers' money, and had been in their possession for several generations before the d'Urbervilles came and built here, was indifferently turned into a fowl-house by Mrs Stoke-d'Urberville as soon as the property fell into hand according to law. "'Twas good enough for Christians in grandfather's time," they said. The rooms wherein dozens of infants had wailed at their nursing now resounded with the tapping of nascent chicks. Distracted hens in coops occupied spots where formerly stood chairs supporting sedate agriculturists. The chimney-corner and once-blazing hearth was now filled with inverted beehives, in which the hens laid their eggs; while out of doors the plots that each succeeding householder had carefully shaped with his spade were torn by the cocks in wildest fashion. The garden in which the cottage stood was surrounded by a wall, and could only be entered through a door. When Tess had occupied herself about an hour the next morning in altering and improving the arrangements, according to her skilled ideas as the daughter of a professed poulterer, the door in the wall opened and a servant in white cap and apron entered. She had come from the manor-house. "Mrs d'Urberville wants the fowls as usual," she said; but perceiving that Tess did not quite understand, she explained, "Mis'ess is a old lady, and blind." "Blind!" said Tess. Almost before her misgiving at the news could find time to shape itself she took, under her companion's direction, two of the most beautiful of the Hamburghs in her arms, and followed the maid-servant, who had likewise taken two, to the adjacent mansion, which, though ornate and imposing, showed traces everywhere on this side that some occupant of its chambers could bend to the love of dumb creatures--feathers floating within view of the front, and hen-coops standing on the grass. In a sitting-room on the ground-floor, ensconced in an armchair with her back to the light, was the owner and mistress of the estate, a white-haired woman of not more than sixty, or even less, wearing a large cap. She had the mobile face frequent in those whose sight has decayed by stages, has been laboriously striven after, and reluctantly let go, rather than the stagnant mien apparent in persons long sightless or born blind. Tess walked up to this lady with her feathered charges--one sitting on each arm. "Ah, you are the young woman come to look after my birds?" said Mrs d'Urberville, recognizing a new footstep. "I hope you will be kind to them. My bailiff tells me you are quite the proper person. Well, where are they? Ah, this is Strut! But he is hardly so lively to-day, is he? He is alarmed at being handled by a stranger, I suppose. And Phena too--yes, they are a little frightened--aren't you, dears? But they will soon get used to you." While the old lady had been speaking Tess and the other maid, in obedience to her gestures, had placed the fowls severally in her lap, and she had felt them over from head to tail, examining their beaks, their combs, the manes of the cocks, their wings, and their claws. Her touch enabled her to recognize them in a moment, and to discover if a single feather were crippled or draggled. She handled their crops, and knew what they had eaten, and if too little or too much; her face enacting a vivid pantomime of the criticisms passing in her mind. The birds that the two girls had brought in were duly returned to the yard, and the process was repeated till all the pet cocks and hens had been submitted to the old woman--Hamburghs, Bantams, Cochins, Brahmas, Dorkings, and such other sorts as were in fashion just then--her perception of each visitor being seldom at fault as she received the bird upon her knees. It reminded Tess of a Confirmation, in which Mrs d'Urberville was the bishop, the fowls the young people presented, and herself and the maid-servant the parson and curate of the parish bringing them up. At the end of the ceremony Mrs d'Urberville abruptly asked Tess, wrinkling and twitching her face into undulations, "Can you whistle?" "Whistle, Ma'am?" "Yes, whistle tunes." Tess could whistle like most other country-girls, though the accomplishment was one which she did not care to profess in genteel company. However, she blandly admitted that such was the fact. "Then you will have to practise it every day. I had a lad who did it very well, but he has left. I want you to whistle to my bullfinches; as I cannot see them, I like to hear them, and we teach 'em airs that way. Tell her where the cages are, Elizabeth. You must begin to-morrow, or they will go back in their piping. They have been neglected these several days." "Mr d'Urberville whistled to 'em this morning, ma'am," said Elizabeth. "He! Pooh!" The old lady's face creased into furrows of repugnance, and she made no further reply. Thus the reception of Tess by her fancied kinswoman terminated, and the birds were taken back to their quarters. The girl's surprise at Mrs d'Urberville's manner was not great; for since seeing the size of the house she had expected no more. But she was far from being aware that the old lady had never heard a word of the so-called kinship. She gathered that no great affection flowed between the blind woman and her son. But in that, too, she was mistaken. Mrs d'Urberville was not the first mother compelled to love her offspring resentfully, and to be bitterly fond. In spite of the unpleasant initiation of the day before, Tess inclined to the freedom and novelty of her new position in the morning when the sun shone, now that she was once installed there; and she was curious to test her powers in the unexpected direction asked of her, so as to ascertain her chance of retaining her post. As soon as she was alone within the walled garden she sat herself down on a coop, and seriously screwed up her mouth for the long-neglected practice. She found her former ability to have degenerated to the production of a hollow rush of wind through the lips, and no clear note at all. She remained fruitlessly blowing and blowing, wondering how she could have so grown out of the art which had come by nature, till she became aware of a movement among the ivy-boughs which cloaked the garden-wall no less then the cottage. Looking that way she beheld a form springing from the coping to the plot. It was Alec d'Urberville, whom she had not set eyes on since he had conducted her the day before to the door of the gardener's cottage where she had lodgings. "Upon my honour!" cried he, "there was never before such a beautiful thing in Nature or Art as you look, 'Cousin' Tess ('Cousin' had a faint ring of mockery). I have been watching you from over the wall--sitting like IM-patience on a monument, and pouting up that pretty red mouth to whistling shape, and whooing and whooing, and privately swearing, and never being able to produce a note. Why, you are quite cross because you can't do it." "I may be cross, but I didn't swear." "Ah! I understand why you are trying--those bullies! My mother wants you to carry on their musical education. How selfish of her! As if attending to these curst cocks and hens here were not enough work for any girl. I would flatly refuse, if I were you." "But she wants me particularly to do it, and to be ready by to-morrow morning." "Does she? Well then--I'll give you a lesson or two." "Oh no, you won't!" said Tess, withdrawing towards the door. "Nonsense; I don't want to touch you. See--I'll stand on this side of the wire-netting, and you can keep on the other; so you may feel quite safe. Now, look here; you screw up your lips too harshly. There 'tis--so." He suited the action to the word, and whistled a line of "Take, O take those lips away." But the allusion was lost upon Tess. "Now try," said d'Urberville. She attempted to look reserved; her face put on a sculptural severity. But he persisted in his demand, and at last, to get rid of him, she did put up her lips as directed for producing a clear note; laughing distressfully, however, and then blushing with vexation that she had laughed. He encouraged her with "Try again!" Tess was quite serious, painfully serious by this time; and she tried--ultimately and unexpectedly emitting a real round sound. The momentary pleasure of success got the better of her; her eyes enlarged, and she involuntarily smiled in his face. "That's it! Now I have started you--you'll go on beautifully. There--I said I would not come near you; and, in spite of such temptation as never before fell to mortal man, I'll keep my word... Tess, do you think my mother a queer old soul?" "I don't know much of her yet, sir." "You'll find her so; she must be, to make you learn to whistle to her bullfinches. I am rather out of her books just now, but you will be quite in favour if you treat her live-stock well. Good morning. If you meet with any difficulties and want help here, don't go to the bailiff, come to me." It was in the economy of this _regime_ that Tess Durbeyfield had undertaken to fill a place. Her first day's experiences were fairly typical of those which followed through many succeeding days. A familiarity with Alec d'Urberville's presence--which that young man carefully cultivated in her by playful dialogue, and by jestingly calling her his cousin when they were alone--removed much of her original shyness of him, without, however, implanting any feeling which could engender shyness of a new and tenderer kind. But she was more pliable under his hands than a mere companionship would have made her, owing to her unavoidable dependence upon his mother, and, through that lady's comparative helplessness, upon him. She soon found that whistling to the bullfinches in Mrs d'Urberville's room was no such onerous business when she had regained the art, for she had caught from her musical mother numerous airs that suited those songsters admirably. A far more satisfactory time than when she practised in the garden was this whistling by the cages each morning. Unrestrained by the young man's presence she threw up her mouth, put her lips near the bars, and piped away in easeful grace to the attentive listeners. Mrs d'Urberville slept in a large four-post bedstead hung with heavy damask curtains, and the bullfinches occupied the same apartment, where they flitted about freely at certain hours, and made little white spots on the furniture and upholstery. Once while Tess was at the window where the cages were ranged, giving her lesson as usual, she thought she heard a rustling behind the bed. The old lady was not present, and turning round the girl had an impression that the toes of a pair of boots were visible below the fringe of the curtains. Thereupon her whistling became so disjointed that the listener, if such there were, must have discovered her suspicion of his presence. She searched the curtains every morning after that, but never found anybody within them. Alec d'Urberville had evidently thought better of his freak to terrify her by an ambush of that kind. Every village has its idiosyncrasy, its constitution, often its own code of morality. The levity of some of the younger women in and about Trantridge was marked, and was perhaps symptomatic of the choice spirit who ruled The Slopes in that vicinity. The place had also a more abiding defect; it drank hard. The staple conversation on the farms around was on the uselessness of saving money; and smock-frocked arithmeticians, leaning on their ploughs or hoes, would enter into calculations of great nicety to prove that parish relief was a fuller provision for a man in his old age than any which could result from savings out of their wages during a whole lifetime. The chief pleasure of these philosophers lay in going every Saturday night, when work was done, to Chaseborough, a decayed market-town two or three miles distant; and, returning in the small hours of the next morning, to spend Sunday in sleeping off the dyspeptic effects of the curious compounds sold to them as beer by the monopolizers of the once-independent inns. For a long time Tess did not join in the weekly pilgrimages. But under pressure from matrons not much older than herself--for a field-man's wages being as high at twenty-one as at forty, marriage was early here--Tess at length consented to go. Her first experience of the journey afforded her more enjoyment than she had expected, the hilariousness of the others being quite contagious after her monotonous attention to the poultry-farm all the week. She went again and again. Being graceful and interesting, standing moreover on the momentary threshold of womanhood, her appearance drew down upon her some sly regards from loungers in the streets of Chaseborough; hence, though sometimes her journey to the town was made independently, she always searched for her fellows at nightfall, to have the protection of their companionship homeward. This had gone on for a month or two when there came a Saturday in September, on which a fair and a market coincided; and the pilgrims from Trantridge sought double delights at the inns on that account. Tess's occupations made her late in setting out, so that her comrades reached the town long before her. It was a fine September evening, just before sunset, when yellow lights struggle with blue shades in hairlike lines, and the atmosphere itself forms a prospect without aid from more solid objects, except the innumerable winged insects that dance in it. Through this low-lit mistiness Tess walked leisurely along. She did not discover the coincidence of the market with the fair till she had reached the place, by which time it was close upon dusk. Her limited marketing was soon completed; and then as usual she began to look about for some of the Trantridge cottagers. At first she could not find them, and she was informed that most of them had gone to what they called a private little jig at the house of a hay-trusser and peat-dealer who had transactions with their farm. He lived in an out-of-the-way nook of the townlet, and in trying to find her course thither her eyes fell upon Mr d'Urberville standing at a street corner. "What--my Beauty? You here so late?" he said. She told him that she was simply waiting for company homeward. "I'll see you again," said he over her shoulder as she went on down the back lane. Approaching the hay-trussers, she could hear the fiddled notes of a reel proceeding from some building in the rear; but no sound of dancing was audible--an exceptional state of things for these parts, where as a rule the stamping drowned the music. The front door being open she could see straight through the house into the garden at the back as far as the shades of night would allow; and nobody appearing to her knock, she traversed the dwelling and went up the path to the outhouse whence the sound had attracted her. It was a windowless erection used for storage, and from the open door there floated into the obscurity a mist of yellow radiance, which at first Tess thought to be illuminated smoke. But on drawing nearer she perceived that it was a cloud of dust, lit by candles within the outhouse, whose beams upon the haze carried forward the outline of the doorway into the wide night of the garden. When she came close and looked in she beheld indistinct forms racing up and down to the figure of the dance, the silence of their footfalls arising from their being overshoe in "scroff"--that is to say, the powdery residuum from the storage of peat and other products, the stirring of which by their turbulent feet created the nebulosity that involved the scene. Through this floating, fusty _debris_ of peat and hay, mixed with the perspirations and warmth of the dancers, and forming together a sort of vegeto-human pollen, the muted fiddles feebly pushed their notes, in marked contrast to the spirit with which the measure was trodden out. They coughed as they danced, and laughed as they coughed. Of the rushing couples there could barely be discerned more than the high lights--the indistinctness shaping them to satyrs clasping nymphs--a multiplicity of Pans whirling a multiplicity of Syrinxes; Lotis attempting to elude Priapus, and always failing. At intervals a couple would approach the doorway for air, and the haze no longer veiling their features, the demigods resolved themselves into the homely personalities of her own next-door neighbours. Could Trantridge in two or three short hours have metamorphosed itself thus madly! Some Sileni of the throng sat on benches and hay-trusses by the wall; and one of them recognized her. "The maids don't think it respectable to dance at The Flower-de-Luce," he explained. "They don't like to let everybody see which be their fancy-men. Besides, the house sometimes shuts up just when their jints begin to get greased. So we come here and send out for liquor." "But when be any of you going home?" asked Tess with some anxiety. "Now--a'most directly. This is all but the last jig." She waited. The reel drew to a close, and some of the party were in the mind of starting. But others would not, and another dance was formed. This surely would end it, thought Tess. But it merged in yet another. She became restless and uneasy; yet, having waited so long, it was necessary to wait longer; on account of the fair the roads were dotted with roving characters of possibly ill intent; and, though not fearful of measurable dangers, she feared the unknown. Had she been near Marlott she would have had less dread. "Don't ye be nervous, my dear good soul," expostulated, between his coughs, a young man with a wet face and his straw hat so far back upon his head that the brim encircled it like the nimbus of a saint. "What's yer hurry? To-morrow is Sunday, thank God, and we can sleep it off in church-time. Now, have a turn with me?" She did not abhor dancing, but she was not going to dance here. The movement grew more passionate: the fiddlers behind the luminous pillar of cloud now and then varied the air by playing on the wrong side of the bridge or with the back of the bow. But it did not matter; the panting shapes spun onwards. They did not vary their partners if their inclination were to stick to previous ones. Changing partners simply meant that a satisfactory choice had not as yet been arrived at by one or other of the pair, and by this time every couple had been suitably matched. It was then that the ecstasy and the dream began, in which emotion was the matter of the universe, and matter but an adventitious intrusion likely to hinder you from spinning where you wanted to spin. Suddenly there was a dull thump on the ground: a couple had fallen, and lay in a mixed heap. The next couple, unable to check its progress, came toppling over the obstacle. An inner cloud of dust rose around the prostrate figures amid the general one of the room, in which a twitching entanglement of arms and legs was discernible. "You shall catch it for this, my gentleman, when you get home!" burst in female accents from the human heap--those of the unhappy partner of the man whose clumsiness had caused the mishap; she happened also to be his recently married wife, in which assortment there was nothing unusual at Trantridge as long as any affection remained between wedded couples; and, indeed, it was not uncustomary in their later lives, to avoid making odd lots of the single people between whom there might be a warm understanding. A loud laugh from behind Tess's back, in the shade of the garden, united with the titter within the room. She looked round, and saw the red coal of a cigar: Alec d'Urberville was standing there alone. He beckoned to her, and she reluctantly retreated towards him. "Well, my Beauty, what are you doing here?" She was so tired after her long day and her walk that she confided her trouble to him--that she had been waiting ever since he saw her to have their company home, because the road at night was strange to her. "But it seems they will never leave off, and I really think I will wait no longer." "Certainly do not. I have only a saddle-horse here to-day; but come to The Flower-de-Luce, and I'll hire a trap, and drive you home with me." Tess, though flattered, had never quite got over her original mistrust of him, and, despite their tardiness, she preferred to walk home with the work-folk. So she answered that she was much obliged to him, but would not trouble him. "I have said that I will wait for 'em, and they will expect me to now." "Very well, Miss Independence. Please yourself... Then I shall not hurry... My good Lord, what a kick-up they are having there!" He had not put himself forward into the light, but some of them had perceived him, and his presence led to a slight pause and a consideration of how the time was flying. As soon as he had re-lit a cigar and walked away the Trantridge people began to collect themselves from amid those who had come in from other farms, and prepared to leave in a body. Their bundles and baskets were gathered up, and half an hour later, when the clock-chime sounded a quarter past eleven, they were straggling along the lane which led up the hill towards their homes. It was a three-mile walk, along a dry white road, made whiter to-night by the light of the moon. Tess soon perceived as she walked in the flock, sometimes with this one, sometimes with that, that the fresh night air was producing staggerings and serpentine courses among the men who had partaken too freely; some of the more careless women also were wandering in their gait--to wit, a dark virago, Car Darch, dubbed Queen of Spades, till lately a favourite of d'Urberville's; Nancy, her sister, nicknamed the Queen of Diamonds; and the young married woman who had already tumbled down. Yet however terrestrial and lumpy their appearance just now to the mean unglamoured eye, to themselves the case was different. They followed the road with a sensation that they were soaring along in a supporting medium, possessed of original and profound thoughts, themselves and surrounding nature forming an organism of which all the parts harmoniously and joyously interpenetrated each other. They were as sublime as the moon and stars above them, and the moon and stars were as ardent as they. Tess, however, had undergone such painful experiences of this kind in her father's house that the discovery of their condition spoilt the pleasure she was beginning to feel in the moonlight journey. Yet she stuck to the party, for reasons above given. In the open highway they had progressed in scattered order; but now their route was through a field-gate, and the foremost finding a difficulty in opening it, they closed up together. This leading pedestrian was Car the Queen of Spades, who carried a wicker-basket containing her mother's groceries, her own draperies, and other purchases for the week. The basket being large and heavy, Car had placed it for convenience of porterage on the top of her head, where it rode on in jeopardized balance as she walked with arms akimbo. "Well--whatever is that a-creeping down thy back, Car Darch?" said one of the group suddenly. All looked at Car. Her gown was a light cotton print, and from the back of her head a kind of rope could be seen descending to some distance below her waist, like a Chinaman's queue. "'Tis her hair falling down," said another. No; it was not her hair: it was a black stream of something oozing from her basket, and it glistened like a slimy snake in the cold still rays of the moon. "'Tis treacle," said an observant matron. Treacle it was. Car's poor old grandmother had a weakness for the sweet stuff. Honey she had in plenty out of her own hives, but treacle was what her soul desired, and Car had been about to give her a treat of surprise. Hastily lowering the basket the dark girl found that the vessel containing the syrup had been smashed within. By this time there had arisen a shout of laughter at the extraordinary appearance of Car's back, which irritated the dark queen into getting rid of the disfigurement by the first sudden means available, and independently of the help of the scoffers. She rushed excitedly into the field they were about to cross, and flinging herself flat on her back upon the grass, began to wipe her gown as well as she could by spinning horizontally on the herbage and dragging herself over it upon her elbows. The laughter rang louder; they clung to the gate, to the posts, rested on their staves, in the weakness engendered by their convulsions at the spectacle of Car. Our heroine, who had hitherto held her peace, at this wild moment could not help joining in with the rest. It was a misfortune--in more ways than one. No sooner did the dark queen hear the soberer richer note of Tess among those of the other work-people than a long-smouldering sense of rivalry inflamed her to madness. She sprang to her feet and closely faced the object of her dislike. "How darest th' laugh at me, hussy!" she cried. "I couldn't really help it when t'others did," apologized Tess, still tittering. "Ah, th'st think th' beest everybody, dostn't, because th' beest first favourite with He just now! But stop a bit, my lady, stop a bit! I'm as good as two of such! Look here--here's at 'ee!" To Tess's horror the dark queen began stripping off the bodice of her gown--which for the added reason of its ridiculed condition she was only too glad to be free of--till she had bared her plump neck, shoulders, and arms to the moonshine, under which they looked as luminous and beautiful as some Praxitelean creation, in their possession of the faultless rotundities of a lusty country-girl. She closed her fists and squared up at Tess. "Indeed, then, I shall not fight!" said the latter majestically; "and if I had know you was of that sort, I wouldn't have so let myself down as to come with such a whorage as this is!" The rather too inclusive speech brought down a torrent of vituperation from other quarters upon fair Tess's unlucky head, particularly from the Queen of Diamonds, who having stood in the relations to d'Urberville that Car had also been suspected of, united with the latter against the common enemy. Several other women also chimed in, with an animus which none of them would have been so fatuous as to show but for the rollicking evening they had passed. Thereupon, finding Tess unfairly browbeaten, the husbands and lovers tried to make peace by defending her; but the result of that attempt was directly to increase the war. Tess was indignant and ashamed. She no longer minded the loneliness of the way and the lateness of the hour; her one object was to get away from the whole crew as soon as possible. She knew well enough that the better among them would repent of their passion next day. They were all now inside the field, and she was edging back to rush off alone when a horseman emerged almost silently from the corner of the hedge that screened the road, and Alec d'Urberville looked round upon them. "What the devil is all this row about, work-folk?" he asked. The explanation was not readily forthcoming; and, in truth, he did not require any. Having heard their voices while yet some way off he had ridden creepingly forward, and learnt enough to satisfy himself. Tess was standing apart from the rest, near the gate. He bent over towards her. "Jump up behind me," he whispered, "and we'll get shot of the screaming cats in a jiffy!" She felt almost ready to faint, so vivid was her sense of the crisis. At almost any other moment of her life she would have refused such proffered aid and company, as she had refused them several times before; and now the loneliness would not of itself have forced her to do otherwise. But coming as the invitation did at the particular juncture when fear and indignation at these adversaries could be transformed by a spring of the foot into a triumph over them, she abandoned herself to her impulse, climbed the gate, put her toe upon his instep, and scrambled into the saddle behind him. The pair were speeding away into the distant gray by the time that the contentious revellers became aware of what had happened. The Queen of Spades forgot the stain on her bodice, and stood beside the Queen of Diamonds and the new-married, staggering young woman--all with a gaze of fixity in the direction in which the horse's tramp was diminishing into silence on the road. "What be ye looking at?" asked a man who had not observed the incident. "Ho-ho-ho!" laughed dark Car. "Hee-hee-hee!" laughed the tippling bride, as she steadied herself on the arm of her fond husband. "Heu-heu-heu!" laughed dark Car's mother, stroking her moustache as she explained laconically: "Out of the frying-pan into the fire!" Then these children of the open air, whom even excess of alcohol could scarce injure permanently, betook themselves to the field-path; and as they went there moved onward with them, around the shadow of each one's head, a circle of opalized light, formed by the moon's rays upon the glistening sheet of dew. Each pedestrian could see no halo but his or her own, which never deserted the head-shadow, whatever its vulgar unsteadiness might be; but adhered to it, and persistently beautified it; till the erratic motions seemed an inherent part of the irradiation, and the fumes of their breathing a component of the night's mist; and the spirit of the scene, and of the moonlight, and of Nature, seemed harmoniously to mingle with the spirit of wine. The twain cantered along for some time without speech, Tess as she clung to him still panting in her triumph, yet in other respects dubious. She had perceived that the horse was not the spirited one he sometimes rose, and felt no alarm on that score, though her seat was precarious enough despite her tight hold of him. She begged him to slow the animal to a walk, which Alec accordingly did. "Neatly done, was it not, dear Tess?" he said by and by. "Yes!" said she. "I am sure I ought to be much obliged to you." "And are you?" She did not reply. "Tess, why do you always dislike my kissing you?" "I suppose--because I don't love you." "You are quite sure?" "I am angry with you sometimes!" "Ah, I half feared as much." Nevertheless, Alec did not object to that confession. He knew that anything was better then frigidity. "Why haven't you told me when I have made you angry?" "You know very well why. Because I cannot help myself here." "I haven't offended you often by love-making?" "You have sometimes." "How many times?" "You know as well as I--too many times." "Every time I have tried?" She was silent, and the horse ambled along for a considerable distance, till a faint luminous fog, which had hung in the hollows all the evening, became general and enveloped them. It seemed to hold the moonlight in suspension, rendering it more pervasive than in clear air. Whether on this account, or from absent-mindedness, or from sleepiness, she did not perceive that they had long ago passed the point at which the lane to Trantridge branched from the highway, and that her conductor had not taken the Trantridge track. She was inexpressibly weary. She had risen at five o'clock every morning of that week, had been on foot the whole of each day, and on this evening had in addition walked the three miles to Chaseborough, waited three hours for her neighbours without eating or drinking, her impatience to start them preventing either; she had then walked a mile of the way home, and had undergone the excitement of the quarrel, till, with the slow progress of their steed, it was now nearly one o'clock. Only once, however, was she overcome by actual drowsiness. In that moment of oblivion her head sank gently against him. D'Urberville stopped the horse, withdrew his feet from the stirrups, turned sideways on the saddle, and enclosed her waist with his arm to support her. This immediately put her on the defensive, and with one of those sudden impulses of reprisal to which she was liable she gave him a little push from her. In his ticklish position he nearly lost his balance and only just avoided rolling over into the road, the horse, though a powerful one, being fortunately the quietest he rode. "That is devilish unkind!" he said. "I mean no harm--only to keep you from falling." She pondered suspiciously, till, thinking that this might after all be true, she relented, and said quite humbly, "I beg your pardon, sir." "I won't pardon you unless you show some confidence in me. Good God!" he burst out, "what am I, to be repulsed so by a mere chit like you? For near three mortal months have you trifled with my feelings, eluded me, and snubbed me; and I won't stand it!" "I'll leave you to-morrow, sir." "No, you will not leave me to-morrow! Will you, I ask once more, show your belief in me by letting me clasp you with my arm? Come, between us two and nobody else, now. We know each other well; and you know that I love you, and think you the prettiest girl in the world, which you are. Mayn't I treat you as a lover?" She drew a quick pettish breath of objection, writhing uneasily on her seat, looked far ahead, and murmured, "I don't know--I wish--how can I say yes or no when--" He settled the matter by clasping his arm round her as he desired, and Tess expressed no further negative. Thus they sidled slowly onward till it struck her they had been advancing for an unconscionable time--far longer than was usually occupied by the short journey from Chaseborough, even at this walking pace, and that they were no longer on hard road, but in a mere trackway. "Why, where be we?" she exclaimed. "Passing by a wood." "A wood--what wood? Surely we are quite out of the road?" "A bit of The Chase--the oldest wood in England. It is a lovely night, and why should we not prolong our ride a little?" "How could you be so treacherous!" said Tess, between archness and real dismay, and getting rid of his arm by pulling open his fingers one by one, though at the risk of slipping off herself. "Just when I've been putting such trust in you, and obliging you to please you, because I thought I had wronged you by that push! Please set me down, and let me walk home." "You cannot walk home, darling, even if the air were clear. We are miles away from Trantridge, if I must tell you, and in this growing fog you might wander for hours among these trees." "Never mind that," she coaxed. "Put me down, I beg you. I don't mind where it is; only let me get down, sir, please!" "Very well, then, I will--on one condition. Having brought you here to this out-of-the-way place, I feel myself responsible for your safe-conduct home, whatever you may yourself feel about it. As to your getting to Trantridge without assistance, it is quite impossible; for, to tell the truth, dear, owing to this fog, which so disguises everything, I don't quite know where we are myself. Now, if you will promise to wait beside the horse while I walk through the bushes till I come to some road or house, and ascertain exactly our whereabouts, I'll deposit you here willingly. When I come back I'll give you full directions, and if you insist upon walking you may; or you may ride--at your pleasure." She accepted these terms, and slid off on the near side, though not till he had stolen a cursory kiss. He sprang down on the other side. "I suppose I must hold the horse?" said she. "Oh no; it's not necessary," replied Alec, patting the panting creature. "He's had enough of it for to-night." He turned the horse's head into the bushes, hitched him on to a bough, and made a sort of couch or nest for her in the deep mass of dead leaves. "Now, you sit there," he said. "The leaves have not got damp as yet. Just give an eye to the horse--it will be quite sufficient." He took a few steps away from her, but, returning, said, "By the bye, Tess, your father has a new cob to-day. Somebody gave it to him." "Somebody? You!" D'Urberville nodded. "O how very good of you that is!" she exclaimed, with a painful sense of the awkwardness of having to thank him just then. "And the children have some toys." "I didn't know--you ever sent them anything!" she murmured, much moved. "I almost wish you had not--yes, I almost wish it!" "Why, dear?" "It--hampers me so." "Tessy--don't you love me ever so little now?" "I'm grateful," she reluctantly admitted. "But I fear I do not--" The sudden vision of his passion for herself as a factor in this result so distressed her that, beginning with one slow tear, and then following with another, she wept outright. "Don't cry, dear, dear one! Now sit down here, and wait till I come." She passively sat down amid the leaves he had heaped, and shivered slightly. "Are you cold?" he asked. "Not very--a little." He touched her with his fingers, which sank into her as into down. "You have only that puffy muslin dress on--how's that?" "It's my best summer one. 'Twas very warm when I started, and I didn't know I was going to ride, and that it would be night." "Nights grow chilly in September. Let me see." He pulled off a light overcoat that he had worn, and put it round her tenderly. "That's it--now you'll feel warmer," he continued. "Now, my pretty, rest there; I shall soon be back again." Having buttoned the overcoat round her shoulders he plunged into the webs of vapour which by this time formed veils between the trees. She could hear the rustling of the branches as he ascended the adjoining slope, till his movements were no louder than the hopping of a bird, and finally died away. With the setting of the moon the pale light lessened, and Tess became invisible as she fell into reverie upon the leaves where he had left her. In the meantime Alec d'Urberville had pushed on up the slope to clear his genuine doubt as to the quarter of The Chase they were in. He had, in fact, ridden quite at random for over an hour, taking any turning that came to hand in order to prolong companionship with her, and giving far more attention to Tess's moonlit person than to any wayside object. A little rest for the jaded animal being desirable, he did not hasten his search for landmarks. A clamber over the hill into the adjoining vale brought him to the fence of a highway whose contours he recognized, which settled the question of their whereabouts. D'Urberville thereupon turned back; but by this time the moon had quite gone down, and partly on account of the fog The Chase was wrapped in thick darkness, although morning was not far off. He was obliged to advance with outstretched hands to avoid contact with the boughs, and discovered that to hit the exact spot from which he had started was at first entirely beyond him. Roaming up and down, round and round, he at length heard a slight movement of the horse close at hand; and the sleeve of his overcoat unexpectedly caught his foot. "Tess!" said d'Urberville. There was no answer. The obscurity was now so great that he could see absolutely nothing but a pale nebulousness at his feet, which represented the white muslin figure he had left upon the dead leaves. Everything else was blackness alike. D'Urberville stooped; and heard a gentle regular breathing. He knelt and bent lower, till her breath warmed his face, and in a moment his cheek was in contact with hers. She was sleeping soundly, and upon her eyelashes there lingered tears. Darkness and silence ruled everywhere around. Above them rose the primeval yews and oaks of The Chase, in which there poised gentle roosting birds in their last nap; and about them stole the hopping rabbits and hares. But, might some say, where was Tess's guardian angel? where was the providence of her simple faith? Perhaps, like that other god of whom the ironical Tishbite spoke, he was talking, or he was pursuing, or he was in a journey, or he was sleeping and not to be awaked. Why it was that upon this beautiful feminine tissue, sensitive as gossamer, and practically blank as snow as yet, there should have been traced such a coarse pattern as it was doomed to receive; why so often the coarse appropriates the finer thus, the wrong man the woman, the wrong woman the man, many thousand years of analytical philosophy have failed to explain to our sense of order. One may, indeed, admit the possibility of a retribution lurking in the present catastrophe. Doubtless some of Tess d'Urberville's mailed ancestors rollicking home from a fray had dealt the same measure even more ruthlessly towards peasant girls of their time. But though to visit the sins of the fathers upon the children may be a morality good enough for divinities, it is scorned by average human nature; and it therefore does not mend the matter. As Tess's own people down in those retreats are never tired of saying among each other in their fatalistic way: "It was to be." There lay the pity of it. An immeasurable social chasm was to divide our heroine's personality thereafter from that previous self of hers who stepped from her mother's door to try her fortune at Trantridge poultry-farm. END OF PHASE THE FIRST Phase the Second: Maiden No More

Chapters 9-11

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Tess makes her new home in an old house that had once been the primary house at The Slopes. It is now a chicken coop. The new house is the centerpiece of the estate. Tess must, along with the other staff, bring the chickens one by one to Mrs. d'Urberville for inspection. When Mrs. d'Urberville, a blind 60-year-old woman, asks Tess whether she can whistle , Tess says she can. When she tries later, though, she realizes whistling is a talent she no longer possesses, and so she begins to practice so that she may regain the skill. Alec sees Tess practicing, finds her attempts humorous, and offers to coach her. Tess declines his offer, but he persists until, just to be rid of him, she agrees to let him assist her. Alec, taken by Tess and unaccustomed to being denied, begins to spy on Tess, watching her as she works in the house, even hiding behind the bed curtains on his mother's bed to catch her whistling to the birds. Tess makes friends with other housekeeping staff members, and they introduce Tess to the dances that they attend on the weekends. The staff goes to nearby Chaseborough to drink at the pub or dance in the dancehall. Because Tess does not have a partner to dance with, she watches the other staff dance. This particular September evening, the cottage staff opt instead for a private dance in the barn of a supplier to the d'Urberville estate. Alec surprises Tess by appearing at the barn dance. He offers her a ride home, which she turns down. Later, when the cottage staff return home, Tess and Car, another girl who works at The Slopes, get into a fight over Car's jealousy at Alec's attention towards Tess. Alec rides up and rescues Tess from a small mob of resentful women. He takes her away from a beating she surely would have suffered at the hands of the cottage staff women. Instead of returning directly to The Slopes, Alec meanders along, hoping to take advantage of Tess in a vulnerable state. He finally actually loses his way in the dense fog. He leaves Tess in the woods as he goes to find a cottage for directions back to Trantridge. When Alec returns to Tess, he finds her asleep and rapes her, knowing he has worn down Tess' defenses over the last few months.

Alec uses all types of methods to achieve his goal, from light sexual teasing to forcible rape. One has to believe that it was Alec's intent all along to take any freedoms he chose with Tess. This is foreshadowed by Hardy throughout Phase I in his references to Alec's debauchery and Tess' innocence. From the beginning, Alec has implied that he and she share an intimate link through their common ancestor. Alec has also been able, in nearly every encounter with Tess, to coerce her to do as he wishes, despite her obvious despair. His predatory behavior escalates from simply refusing to accept her refusal of his advances , to putting her in a precarious position and then offering her salvation -- if she will acquiesce to one small liberty -- a kiss in this case, to finally, raping her. It might be argued that Alec had a history of doing as he pleased, even with the hired help at The Slopes: "It was evidently the gentleman's wish not to be disturbed in this pleasant tete-a-tete by the servantry." Even the cottage workers know what is about to happen, "'Heu-heu-heu!' laughed Car's mother, stroking her moustache as she explains laconically: 'Out of the frying-pan into the fire!'" Hardy also reintroduces the concept that fate plays a significant part in how people's lives turn out, when he concludes "It was meant to be." Fate was not a new concept with Hardy. The ancient Greeks used fate as a guiding force in their plays. To the Greeks the Fates were, literally, three goddesses -- Clotho, Lachesis, Atropos -- who control human destiny and life. Late in the novel, Hardy evokes Aeschylus and the Greek idea that we are all destined to be controlled by fate. Because Alec is of the gentry class in England, there will be no consequences for him to endure. Tess, the victim, is the one who must live with the consequences of the act. This scenario is one of the ways in which this novel was considered controversial by its original readers. Alec is allowed to do as he pleases, abusing power and position, which in Hardy's estimation, was one of the ills of Victorian society and one of the issues with English aristocracy: "One may, indeed, admit the possibility of a retribution lurking in the present catastrophe. Doubtless some of Tess d'Urberville's mailed ancestors rollicking home from a fray had dealt the same measure even more ruthlessly towards peasant girls of their time." Whether it's fate, or "retribution" for past offenses, or predestination, Tess does not deserve what happens to her. Nevertheless, she is the one who must endure under the burden of the crime perpetrated against her. Hardy would not offend the sensibilities of his readers by tainting the novel with a lurid sex scene. At the end of Chapter 9, the rape scene is not played out before our eyes. In fact, it is hard to find the actual mention of rape in the entire novel. Hardy leaves out the gratuitous violent scenes. Instead, like a Greek tragedy, the violence takes place off-stage. Indeed, all violence in the Greek theatre was played off-stage as witnessed by Aeschylus' play Oedipus Rex. Even when his main character, Oedipus, blinds himself by gouging his eyes out, we do not see the actual act on stage, which would have offended the sensibilities of his audience. Instead, we see the result of the action, as we will here. What the characters do or how they react is more important than the act. Now that Alec has conquered Tess, he wants to keep her as his own. But Tess will not let Alec's advances keep her at The Slopes. Glossary copyholders persons who hold land by copyhold; here, possessors of the land at the will of the lord of the manor, who, by custom, normally allowed tenants to stay for longer than the life of the original tenant. "Take, O take those lips away" from Shakespeare's Measure for Measure . satyrs in classical mythology, minor woodland deities having the head and trunk of a man and the hind legs of a goat, and as being fond of riotous merriment and lechery. nymphs minor nature goddesses, represented as young and beautiful and living in rivers, mountains, or trees. Pan Greek god with legs, ears, and horns of a goat, noted for his lust. Syrinx Syrinx was pursued by Pan, but the gods turned her into a reed, from which Pan made his pipe. Lotis . . . Priapus Priapus, another lustful god, pursued Lotis, who was turned into a lotus flower. Sileni plural form of Silenus, a satyr and follower of Bacchus. Jints joints or hip/knee joints. treacle molasses. Praxitlean creation like the work of Praxiteles, Greek sculptor of the fourth century B.C. known for his sensual statues. Tishbite Elijah, who in 1 Kings 18 mocks the god worshipped by the priests of Baal. "Sins of the fathers" Exodus 20:5: "I the Lord thy God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me."

cliffnotes

all_chapterized_books/1232-chapters/19.txt

finished_summaries/cliffnotes/The Prince/section_17_part_0.txt

The Prince.chapter 19

chapter 19

{"name": "Chapter 19", "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20201108110625/https://www.cliffsnotes.com/literature/p/the-prince/summary-and-analysis/chapter-19", "summary": "A prince must avoid becoming hated or despised. Taking the property or the women of his subjects will make him hated. Being frivolous, indecisive, and effeminate will make him despised. All a prince's actions should show seriousness, strength, and decisiveness. The best defense against internal threats such as conspiracy is to be neither hated nor despised. If a conspirator thinks that killing the prince will enrage the people, he will think twice. Wise princes are careful not to antagonize the nobles and to keep the people happy. In France, the parliament restrains the ambition of the nobles and favors the people, without directly involving the king, so that he cannot be accused of favoritism. Princes should let others do the unpleasant tasks, doing for themselves what will make them look good. Some people may object that the careers of the Roman emperors go against this argument, because many of them were greatly admired, yet were still assassinated. This is because they had to deal with their soldiers, and they could not satisfy both the soldiers, who wanted warlike leaders, and the people, who wanted peace. Marcus, Pertinax, and Alexander were all compassionate and just, but only Marcus escaped assassination, because he was a hereditary ruler and did not owe his power to the army. Commodus, Severus, Antoninus, and Maximinus were all cruel and greedy, and only Severus escaped assassination, because he was so cunning and ruthless, and because he kept up a splendid reputation. But in Machiavelli's time, princes do not have the same need to satisfy their armies, because armies are not used to being together for long periods and controlling whole provinces, the way Roman armies were. Instead, princes should satisfy the people, who are more powerful.", "analysis": "Conspiracy and assassination occupy Machiavelli's attention in this chapter. The best way to avoid these dangers is to avoid being hated or despised by one's subjects. In the state, there are two main groups the prince must court: the nobles and the people, a theme pulled from Chapter 9. Although a prince must not alienate the nobles, he must win over the people, because they are the majority, and their ill will can cost a prince his place and his life. Hated and despised princes are targets for assassination, because assassins conclude that the people will support killing the ruler. Plots such as these were a real concern for Renaissance rulers. Machiavelli offers as an example the 1445 assassination of Annibale Bentivoglio, ruler of Bologna, noting that popular support enabled the family to keep their power despite their desperate situation after the assassination. In Machiavelli's own lifetime, in Florence in 1478, the Pazzi conspiracy against the Medici had resulted in the injury of Lorenzo the Magnificent and the death of Lorenzo's brother. In both cases the assassins were from rival powerful families; they were not disgruntled subjects. As if acknowledging this, Machiavelli observes that there is no real defense against a determined assassin, because anyone who is not afraid to die can kill a ruler. Nonetheless, he maintains that popular support is the best prevention. About balancing the conflicting demands of the people and the nobles, Machiavelli offers the interesting example of France's parliamentary government, which allowed participation by both the aristocracy and the commoners. Rather than presenting it as a democratic innovation, he offers it as a way of increasing the absolute ruler's power, taking pressure off of the prince by putting competing interests into a neutral forum--in effect, giving unpleasant tasks to others so they do not damage the prince's popularity. In the midst of his argument, Machiavelli embarks on a long digression about the many Roman emperors, good and bad, who were assassinated. He concludes that most of them were undone by their powerful and bloodthirsty armies, a problem that the princes of Machiavelli's time need not worry about. His more interesting observation, which is somewhat lost in his analysis, is that nearly all of the rulers were killed regardless of their qualities and actions. Some did one thing and others did the opposite, but all came to basically the same end. The key to their success or failure is whether they adapted their actions to their times and political circumstances. This theme reappears in Chapter 25, where Machiavelli discusses the effect of fortune on human affairs. Glossary Marcus Marcus Aurelius , called \"the Philosopher;\" one of the most respected of the Roman emperors. Commodus , oldest son of Marcus Aurelius. Noted as an enthusiast for gladiator and wild animal games in the Coliseum. Assassinated by a group of conspirators. Pertinax . After Commodus was assassinated, Pertinax was proclaimed emperor by the praetorian guard, but was assassinated three months later by rebellious soldiers. Julianus After the assassination of Pertinax, Julianus bought the office of emperor from the praetorian guard, but was assassinated by order of the Senate two months later. Severus Septimius Severus . Proclaimed emperor by the Senate. Overcame claims to the throne by Pescennius Niger and Clodius Albinus. He died while on a military campaign in England. Antoninus Caracalla Marcus Aurelius Antoninus , called Caracalla. Oldest son of Septimius Severus. He was killed by the prefect of the praetorian guard, Macrinus. Macrinus Marcus Opellius Severus spent all of his brief reign on military campaigns in Asia. He was executed by his opponents. Heliogabalus also called Elagabalus , Heliogabalus was killed by the praetorian guard. Alexander Marcus Aurelius Severus Alexander . Succeeded his cousin Heliogabalus. Killed by rebellious soldiers in Gaul. Maximinus named emperor by the army after Alexander Severus was killed. Subsequently killed by his own troops."}

Now, concerning the characteristics of which mention is made above, I have spoken of the more important ones, the others I wish to discuss briefly under this generality, that the prince must consider, as has been in part said before, how to avoid those things which will make him hated or contemptible; and as often as he shall have succeeded he will have fulfilled his part, and he need not fear any danger in other reproaches. It makes him hated above all things, as I have said, to be rapacious, and to be a violator of the property and women of his subjects, from both of which he must abstain. And when neither their property nor their honor is touched, the majority of men live content, and he has only to contend with the ambition of a few, whom he can curb with ease in many ways. It makes him contemptible to be considered fickle, frivolous, effeminate, mean-spirited, irresolute, from all of which a prince should guard himself as from a rock; and he should endeavour to show in his actions greatness, courage, gravity, and fortitude; and in his private dealings with his subjects let him show that his judgments are irrevocable, and maintain himself in such reputation that no one can hope either to deceive him or to get round him. That prince is highly esteemed who conveys this impression of himself, and he who is highly esteemed is not easily conspired against; for, provided it is well known that he is an excellent man and revered by his people, he can only be attacked with difficulty. For this reason a prince ought to have two fears, one from within, on account of his subjects, the other from without, on account of external powers. From the latter he is defended by being well armed and having good allies, and if he is well armed he will have good friends, and affairs will always remain quiet within when they are quiet without, unless they should have been already disturbed by conspiracy; and even should affairs outside be disturbed, if he has carried out his preparations and has lived as I have said, as long as he does not despair, he will resist every attack, as I said Nabis the Spartan did. But concerning his subjects, when affairs outside are disturbed he has only to fear that they will conspire secretly, from which a prince can easily secure himself by avoiding being hated and despised, and by keeping the people satisfied with him, which it is most necessary for him to accomplish, as I said above at length. And one of the most efficacious remedies that a prince can have against conspiracies is not to be hated and despised by the people, for he who conspires against a prince always expects to please them by his removal; but when the conspirator can only look forward to offending them, he will not have the courage to take such a course, for the difficulties that confront a conspirator are infinite. And as experience shows, many have been the conspiracies, but few have been successful; because he who conspires cannot act alone, nor can he take a companion except from those whom he believes to be malcontents, and as soon as you have opened your mind to a malcontent you have given him the material with which to content himself, for by denouncing you he can look for every advantage; so that, seeing the gain from this course to be assured, and seeing the other to be doubtful and full of dangers, he must be a very rare friend, or a thoroughly obstinate enemy of the prince, to keep faith with you. And, to reduce the matter into a small compass, I say that, on the side of the conspirator, there is nothing but fear, jealousy, prospect of punishment to terrify him; but on the side of the prince there is the majesty of the principality, the laws, the protection of friends and the state to defend him; so that, adding to all these things the popular goodwill, it is impossible that any one should be so rash as to conspire. For whereas in general the conspirator has to fear before the execution of his plot, in this case he has also to fear the sequel to the crime; because on account of it he has the people for an enemy, and thus cannot hope for any escape. Endless examples could be given on this subject, but I will be content with one, brought to pass within the memory of our fathers. Messer Annibale Bentivogli, who was prince in Bologna (grandfather of the present Annibale), having been murdered by the Canneschi, who had conspired against him, not one of his family survived but Messer Giovanni,(*) who was in childhood: immediately after his assassination the people rose and murdered all the Canneschi. This sprung from the popular goodwill which the house of Bentivogli enjoyed in those days in Bologna; which was so great that, although none remained there after the death of Annibale who was able to rule the state, the Bolognese, having information that there was one of the Bentivogli family in Florence, who up to that time had been considered the son of a blacksmith, sent to Florence for him and gave him the government of their city, and it was ruled by him until Messer Giovanni came in due course to the government. (*) Giovanni Bentivogli, born in Bologna 1438, died at Milan 1508. He ruled Bologna from 1462 to 1506. Machiavelli's strong condemnation of conspiracies may get its edge from his own very recent experience (February 1513), when he had been arrested and tortured for his alleged complicity in the Boscoli conspiracy. For this reason I consider that a prince ought to reckon conspiracies of little account when his people hold him in esteem; but when it is hostile to him, and bears hatred towards him, he ought to fear everything and everybody. And well-ordered states and wise princes have taken every care not to drive the nobles to desperation, and to keep the people satisfied and contented, for this is one of the most important objects a prince can have. Among the best ordered and governed kingdoms of our times is France, and in it are found many good institutions on which depend the liberty and security of the king; of these the first is the parliament and its authority, because he who founded the kingdom, knowing the ambition of the nobility and their boldness, considered that a bit to their mouths would be necessary to hold them in; and, on the other side, knowing the hatred of the people, founded in fear, against the nobles, he wished to protect them, yet he was not anxious for this to be the particular care of the king; therefore, to take away the reproach which he would be liable to from the nobles for favouring the people, and from the people for favouring the nobles, he set up an arbiter, who should be one who could beat down the great and favour the lesser without reproach to the king. Neither could you have a better or a more prudent arrangement, or a greater source of security to the king and kingdom. From this one can draw another important conclusion, that princes ought to leave affairs of reproach to the management of others, and keep those of grace in their own hands. And further, I consider that a prince ought to cherish the nobles, but not so as to make himself hated by the people. It may appear, perhaps, to some who have examined the lives and deaths of the Roman emperors that many of them would be an example contrary to my opinion, seeing that some of them lived nobly and showed great qualities of soul, nevertheless they have lost their empire or have been killed by subjects who have conspired against them. Wishing, therefore, to answer these objections, I will recall the characters of some of the emperors, and will show that the causes of their ruin were not different to those alleged by me; at the same time I will only submit for consideration those things that are noteworthy to him who studies the affairs of those times. It seems to me sufficient to take all those emperors who succeeded to the empire from Marcus the philosopher down to Maximinus; they were Marcus and his son Commodus, Pertinax, Julian, Severus and his son Antoninus Caracalla, Macrinus, Heliogabalus, Alexander, and Maximinus. There is first to note that, whereas in other principalities the ambition of the nobles and the insolence of the people only have to be contended with, the Roman emperors had a third difficulty in having to put up with the cruelty and avarice of their soldiers, a matter so beset with difficulties that it was the ruin of many; for it was a hard thing to give satisfaction both to soldiers and people; because the people loved peace, and for this reason they loved the unaspiring prince, whilst the soldiers loved the warlike prince who was bold, cruel, and rapacious, which qualities they were quite willing he should exercise upon the people, so that they could get double pay and give vent to their own greed and cruelty. Hence it arose that those emperors were always overthrown who, either by birth or training, had no great authority, and most of them, especially those who came new to the principality, recognizing the difficulty of these two opposing humours, were inclined to give satisfaction to the soldiers, caring little about injuring the people. Which course was necessary, because, as princes cannot help being hated by someone, they ought, in the first place, to avoid being hated by every one, and when they cannot compass this, they ought to endeavour with the utmost diligence to avoid the hatred of the most powerful. Therefore, those emperors who through inexperience had need of special favour adhered more readily to the soldiers than to the people; a course which turned out advantageous to them or not, accordingly as the prince knew how to maintain authority over them. From these causes it arose that Marcus, Pertinax, and Alexander, being all men of modest life, lovers of justice, enemies to cruelty, humane, and benignant, came to a sad end except Marcus; he alone lived and died honoured, because he had succeeded to the throne by hereditary title, and owed nothing either to the soldiers or the people; and afterwards, being possessed of many virtues which made him respected, he always kept both orders in their places whilst he lived, and was neither hated nor despised. But Pertinax was created emperor against the wishes of the soldiers, who, being accustomed to live licentiously under Commodus, could not endure the honest life to which Pertinax wished to reduce them; thus, having given cause for hatred, to which hatred there was added contempt for his old age, he was overthrown at the very beginning of his administration. And here it should be noted that hatred is acquired as much by good works as by bad ones, therefore, as I said before, a prince wishing to keep his state is very often forced to do evil; for when that body is corrupt whom you think you have need of to maintain yourself--it may be either the people or the soldiers or the nobles--you have to submit to its humours and to gratify them, and then good works will do you harm. But let us come to Alexander, who was a man of such great goodness, that among the other praises which are accorded him is this, that in the fourteen years he held the empire no one was ever put to death by him unjudged; nevertheless, being considered effeminate and a man who allowed himself to be governed by his mother, he became despised, the army conspired against him, and murdered him. Turning now to the opposite characters of Commodus, Severus, Antoninus Caracalla, and Maximinus, you will find them all cruel and rapacious-men who, to satisfy their soldiers, did not hesitate to commit every kind of iniquity against the people; and all, except Severus, came to a bad end; but in Severus there was so much valour that, keeping the soldiers friendly, although the people were oppressed by him, he reigned successfully; for his valour made him so much admired in the sight of the soldiers and people that the latter were kept in a way astonished and awed and the former respectful and satisfied. And because the actions of this man, as a new prince, were great, I wish to show briefly that he knew well how to counterfeit the fox and the lion, which natures, as I said above, it is necessary for a prince to imitate. Knowing the sloth of the Emperor Julian, he persuaded the army in Sclavonia, of which he was captain, that it would be right to go to Rome and avenge the death of Pertinax, who had been killed by the praetorian soldiers; and under this pretext, without appearing to aspire to the throne, he moved the army on Rome, and reached Italy before it was known that he had started. On his arrival at Rome, the Senate, through fear, elected him emperor and killed Julian. After this there remained for Severus, who wished to make himself master of the whole empire, two difficulties; one in Asia, where Niger, head of the Asiatic army, had caused himself to be proclaimed emperor; the other in the west where Albinus was, who also aspired to the throne. And as he considered it dangerous to declare himself hostile to both, he decided to attack Niger and to deceive Albinus. To the latter he wrote that, being elected emperor by the Senate, he was willing to share that dignity with him and sent him the title of Caesar; and, moreover, that the Senate had made Albinus his colleague; which things were accepted by Albinus as true. But after Severus had conquered and killed Niger, and settled oriental affairs, he returned to Rome and complained to the Senate that Albinus, little recognizing the benefits that he had received from him, had by treachery sought to murder him, and for this ingratitude he was compelled to punish him. Afterwards he sought him out in France, and took from him his government and life. He who will, therefore, carefully examine the actions of this man will find him a most valiant lion and a most cunning fox; he will find him feared and respected by every one, and not hated by the army; and it need not be wondered at that he, a new man, was able to hold the empire so well, because his supreme renown always protected him from that hatred which the people might have conceived against him for his violence. But his son Antoninus was a most eminent man, and had very excellent qualities, which made him admirable in the sight of the people and acceptable to the soldiers, for he was a warlike man, most enduring of fatigue, a despiser of all delicate food and other luxuries, which caused him to be beloved by the armies. Nevertheless, his ferocity and cruelties were so great and so unheard of that, after endless single murders, he killed a large number of the people of Rome and all those of Alexandria. He became hated by the whole world, and also feared by those he had around him, to such an extent that he was murdered in the midst of his army by a centurion. And here it must be noted that such-like deaths, which are deliberately inflicted with a resolved and desperate courage, cannot be avoided by princes, because any one who does not fear to die can inflict them; but a prince may fear them the less because they are very rare; he has only to be careful not to do any grave injury to those whom he employs or has around him in the service of the state. Antoninus had not taken this care, but had contumeliously killed a brother of that centurion, whom also he daily threatened, yet retained in his bodyguard; which, as it turned out, was a rash thing to do, and proved the emperor's ruin. But let us come to Commodus, to whom it should have been very easy to hold the empire, for, being the son of Marcus, he had inherited it, and he had only to follow in the footsteps of his father to please his people and soldiers; but, being by nature cruel and brutal, he gave himself up to amusing the soldiers and corrupting them, so that he might indulge his rapacity upon the people; on the other hand, not maintaining his dignity, often descending to the theatre to compete with gladiators, and doing other vile things, little worthy of the imperial majesty, he fell into contempt with the soldiers, and being hated by one party and despised by the other, he was conspired against and was killed. It remains to discuss the character of Maximinus. He was a very warlike man, and the armies, being disgusted with the effeminacy of Alexander, of whom I have already spoken, killed him and elected Maximinus to the throne. This he did not possess for long, for two things made him hated and despised; the one, his having kept sheep in Thrace, which brought him into contempt (it being well known to all, and considered a great indignity by every one), and the other, his having at the accession to his dominions deferred going to Rome and taking possession of the imperial seat; he had also gained a reputation for the utmost ferocity by having, through his prefects in Rome and elsewhere in the empire, practised many cruelties, so that the whole world was moved to anger at the meanness of his birth and to fear at his barbarity. First Africa rebelled, then the Senate with all the people of Rome, and all Italy conspired against him, to which may be added his own army; this latter, besieging Aquileia and meeting with difficulties in taking it, were disgusted with his cruelties, and fearing him less when they found so many against him, murdered him. I do not wish to discuss Heliogabalus, Macrinus, or Julian, who, being thoroughly contemptible, were quickly wiped out; but I will bring this discourse to a conclusion by saying that princes in our times have this difficulty of giving inordinate satisfaction to their soldiers in a far less degree, because, notwithstanding one has to give them some indulgence, that is soon done; none of these princes have armies that are veterans in the governance and administration of provinces, as were the armies of the Roman Empire; and whereas it was then more necessary to give satisfaction to the soldiers than to the people, it is now more necessary to all princes, except the Turk and the Soldan, to satisfy the people rather the soldiers, because the people are the more powerful. From the above I have excepted the Turk, who always keeps round him twelve thousand infantry and fifteen thousand cavalry on which depend the security and strength of the kingdom, and it is necessary that, putting aside every consideration for the people, he should keep them his friends. The kingdom of the Soldan is similar; being entirely in the hands of soldiers, it follows again that, without regard to the people, he must keep them his friends. But you must note that the state of the Soldan is unlike all other principalities, for the reason that it is like the Christian pontificate, which cannot be called either an hereditary or a newly formed principality; because the sons of the old prince are not the heirs, but he who is elected to that position by those who have authority, and the sons remain only noblemen. And this being an ancient custom, it cannot be called a new principality, because there are none of those difficulties in it that are met with in new ones; for although the prince is new, the constitution of the state is old, and it is framed so as to receive him as if he were its hereditary lord. But returning to the subject of our discourse, I say that whoever will consider it will acknowledge that either hatred or contempt has been fatal to the above-named emperors, and it will be recognized also how it happened that, a number of them acting in one way and a number in another, only one in each way came to a happy end and the rest to unhappy ones. Because it would have been useless and dangerous for Pertinax and Alexander, being new princes, to imitate Marcus, who was heir to the principality; and likewise it would have been utterly destructive to Caracalla, Commodus, and Maximinus to have imitated Severus, they not having sufficient valour to enable them to tread in his footsteps. Therefore a prince, new to the principality, cannot imitate the actions of Marcus, nor, again, is it necessary to follow those of Severus, but he ought to take from Severus those parts which are necessary to found his state, and from Marcus those which are proper and glorious to keep a state that may already be stable and firm.

Chapter 19

https://web.archive.org/web/20201108110625/https://www.cliffsnotes.com/literature/p/the-prince/summary-and-analysis/chapter-19

A prince must avoid becoming hated or despised. Taking the property or the women of his subjects will make him hated. Being frivolous, indecisive, and effeminate will make him despised. All a prince's actions should show seriousness, strength, and decisiveness. The best defense against internal threats such as conspiracy is to be neither hated nor despised. If a conspirator thinks that killing the prince will enrage the people, he will think twice. Wise princes are careful not to antagonize the nobles and to keep the people happy. In France, the parliament restrains the ambition of the nobles and favors the people, without directly involving the king, so that he cannot be accused of favoritism. Princes should let others do the unpleasant tasks, doing for themselves what will make them look good. Some people may object that the careers of the Roman emperors go against this argument, because many of them were greatly admired, yet were still assassinated. This is because they had to deal with their soldiers, and they could not satisfy both the soldiers, who wanted warlike leaders, and the people, who wanted peace. Marcus, Pertinax, and Alexander were all compassionate and just, but only Marcus escaped assassination, because he was a hereditary ruler and did not owe his power to the army. Commodus, Severus, Antoninus, and Maximinus were all cruel and greedy, and only Severus escaped assassination, because he was so cunning and ruthless, and because he kept up a splendid reputation. But in Machiavelli's time, princes do not have the same need to satisfy their armies, because armies are not used to being together for long periods and controlling whole provinces, the way Roman armies were. Instead, princes should satisfy the people, who are more powerful.

Conspiracy and assassination occupy Machiavelli's attention in this chapter. The best way to avoid these dangers is to avoid being hated or despised by one's subjects. In the state, there are two main groups the prince must court: the nobles and the people, a theme pulled from Chapter 9. Although a prince must not alienate the nobles, he must win over the people, because they are the majority, and their ill will can cost a prince his place and his life. Hated and despised princes are targets for assassination, because assassins conclude that the people will support killing the ruler. Plots such as these were a real concern for Renaissance rulers. Machiavelli offers as an example the 1445 assassination of Annibale Bentivoglio, ruler of Bologna, noting that popular support enabled the family to keep their power despite their desperate situation after the assassination. In Machiavelli's own lifetime, in Florence in 1478, the Pazzi conspiracy against the Medici had resulted in the injury of Lorenzo the Magnificent and the death of Lorenzo's brother. In both cases the assassins were from rival powerful families; they were not disgruntled subjects. As if acknowledging this, Machiavelli observes that there is no real defense against a determined assassin, because anyone who is not afraid to die can kill a ruler. Nonetheless, he maintains that popular support is the best prevention. About balancing the conflicting demands of the people and the nobles, Machiavelli offers the interesting example of France's parliamentary government, which allowed participation by both the aristocracy and the commoners. Rather than presenting it as a democratic innovation, he offers it as a way of increasing the absolute ruler's power, taking pressure off of the prince by putting competing interests into a neutral forum--in effect, giving unpleasant tasks to others so they do not damage the prince's popularity. In the midst of his argument, Machiavelli embarks on a long digression about the many Roman emperors, good and bad, who were assassinated. He concludes that most of them were undone by their powerful and bloodthirsty armies, a problem that the princes of Machiavelli's time need not worry about. His more interesting observation, which is somewhat lost in his analysis, is that nearly all of the rulers were killed regardless of their qualities and actions. Some did one thing and others did the opposite, but all came to basically the same end. The key to their success or failure is whether they adapted their actions to their times and political circumstances. This theme reappears in Chapter 25, where Machiavelli discusses the effect of fortune on human affairs. Glossary Marcus Marcus Aurelius , called "the Philosopher;" one of the most respected of the Roman emperors. Commodus , oldest son of Marcus Aurelius. Noted as an enthusiast for gladiator and wild animal games in the Coliseum. Assassinated by a group of conspirators. Pertinax . After Commodus was assassinated, Pertinax was proclaimed emperor by the praetorian guard, but was assassinated three months later by rebellious soldiers. Julianus After the assassination of Pertinax, Julianus bought the office of emperor from the praetorian guard, but was assassinated by order of the Senate two months later. Severus Septimius Severus . Proclaimed emperor by the Senate. Overcame claims to the throne by Pescennius Niger and Clodius Albinus. He died while on a military campaign in England. Antoninus Caracalla Marcus Aurelius Antoninus , called Caracalla. Oldest son of Septimius Severus. He was killed by the prefect of the praetorian guard, Macrinus. Macrinus Marcus Opellius Severus spent all of his brief reign on military campaigns in Asia. He was executed by his opponents. Heliogabalus also called Elagabalus , Heliogabalus was killed by the praetorian guard. Alexander Marcus Aurelius Severus Alexander . Succeeded his cousin Heliogabalus. Killed by rebellious soldiers in Gaul. Maximinus named emperor by the army after Alexander Severus was killed. Subsequently killed by his own troops.

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The Red and the Black.part 1.chapters 16-23

chapters 16-23

{"name": "Chapters 16-23", "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20201128052739/https://www.cliffsnotes.com/literature/r/the-red-and-the-black/summary-and-analysis/part-1-chapters-1623", "summary": "Now their love idyll begins: Julien loves her madly, says Stendhal, but his love is still a form of ambition. Mme. de Renal's great joy is clouded only by the fear that she is too old for Julien. The second night finds Julien forgetting his role and enjoying his experience. Mme. de Renal takes great pleasure in educating Julien in social manners and in all the political intrigue that reigns in Verrieres, of which Julien has been completely ignorant. The town is honored by a visit of the king, and Mme. de Renal succeeds in having a place in the guard of honor awarded to Julien. From his role of dashing, handsome officer, Julien moves to that of attendant priest to Chelan in a religious ceremony honoring the local saint. Other important personages to whose presence his role gives him access are the young Bishop Agde, officiating prelate, and M. de La Mole, influential and powerful Parisian aristocrat, Peer of France, in the king's entourage. When one of her sons falls seriously ill, Mme. de Renal is convinced that God is punishing her adultery. Witnessing her anguish and torment, Julien finds new reasons to love her. When Stanislas is well, her anguish nevertheless remains since the experience has made her aware of guilt. Their love, however, becomes deeper, more desperate, and somber. M. de Renal receives an anonymous letter denouncing Julien as his wife's lover. Julien senses what the letter is and warns Mme. de Renal not to come to his room that night. She, however, constantly wary that Julien is looking for an excuse to abandon her, comes to his room anyway but is not received. She writes Julien a long letter, elaborating her doubts and reiterating her undying love for him. At the same time, however, she is capable of devising a plan in the event that there does exist an anonymous letter denouncing them. She will pretend also to have received such a letter and will deliver it to her husband to confound him and to allay his doubts. M. de Renal is suffering greatly from wounded pride, anger, and self-pity. He is unable to bring himself to take any decisive step. His wife arrives, hands her letter to him, and in the next breath requests that Julien be sent away for a time until the scandal dies down. This represents exactly the solution Renal would have wanted. It relieves him of the necessity of finding out the truth since it is an avowal of innocence on her part. She furnishes him with further evidence in the form of old love letters written to her by Valenod. She succeeds masterfully in putting him on the wrong track, thereby saving appearances and her affair with Julien. In order to prove to the town that all is well in the Renal household, Julien lives in their townhouse. There he is visited by the sub-prefect, M. de Maugiron, who, on the behalf of another, sounds out Julien on the possibility of leaving the Renal household for a new position. Julien congratulates himself on his ability to satisfy Maugiron with a long-winded answer that constitutes, in effect, no answer to his proposition. Invited to dinner at the home of Valenod, Julien inwardly condemns the vulgar ostentation and bad taste of his hosts. When Valenod silences one of the inmates of the workhouse, Julien finds further grounds to feel superior to Valenod and to scorn him. Julien is invited everywhere; he is held in such esteem as a learned and talented tutor. When the Renals come for the day to Verrieres, mother and children form a happy family group with Julien, and their happiness irks the mayor, who interrupts the scene. The mayor has been forced by the Congregation to rent out a property at a much lower sum than he could have asked. Valenod, his subordinate whose trickery and intriguing with the Congregation have brought about the downfall of the Jansenist Chelan, has played a role in this intrigue. Valenod is indebted to the Vicar Frilair of the Congregation, and at the same time he is ingratiating himself with the liberals in the event that he falls out of favor with the conservatives and that M. de Renal takes steps to disgrace him. Julien learns of these machinations from Mme. de Renal, and since he attends the mysterious auction, he is taken for the Renals' spy. The gloom that reigns in the Renal household is momentarily dispelled by the unexpected arrival of an Italian singer, recommended highly to Renal and seeking further recommendations to the French court. His gaiety, exuberance, and talent provide a welcome interlude for the family, and his mission further edifies Julien as to how influence assures promotion and personal advancement. Meanwhile, several factors precipitate Julien's departure to Besancon. The town is scandalized that M. de Renal has ignored the talk about the affair in his household. Through Valenod's machinations, Elisa has related to the Jesuit Maslon and to Chelan what is going on between Julien and Mme. de Renal. Chelan therefore requires of Julien that he either enter the seminary at Besancon, the director of which is Chelan's lifelong friend, or that Julien become the partner of Fouque. M. de Renal agrees that Julien must leave. Julien accepts the ultimatum but volunteers, to the great joy of Mme. de Renal, to return after three days for a last farewell. If Julien goes to Besancon, his education must be financed; if he stays, Valenod will engage him as tutor. Another anonymous letter received by Renal presents the occasion for the final intervention of Mme. de Renal to convince her husband of the necessity of offering money to Julien. At first, Julien accepts the money as a loan, but ultimately, to the joy of the mayor, he refuses it because of his great pride. Mme. de Renal, paradoxically, lives only for the last night's rendezvous with Julien, but when it arrives, she is cold and lifeless, anticipating the future emptiness of her life. Julien departs for Besancon.", "analysis": "In these chapters, Julien plays a relatively passive role since his education requires that his experience be enlarged, and this requires that through his teacher, here for the most part Mme. de Renal, fresh insights into the local political situation be managed for Julien and for the reader. It is as if by seducing Mme. de Renal, Julien has displayed sufficient initiative so that he may now sit back without having to play an active role himself. He will have only to feel the effects of his relationship with Mme. de Renal and of other conditions existing in Verrieres. Besides, this is also a political novel, and Stendhal takes time out to add to his scornful expose of the evils of the Restoration on the local level. It is mainly to Mme. de Renal that the initiative falls because her love has taught her the necessity of ruse. Julien's earlier petty scheming seems even more ludicrous judged against Mme. de Renal's daring and heroic stratagems inspired by love. Her love has crystallized to the point where she would make any sacrifice for Julien: She educates him socially and, at the risk of scandal, obtains for Julien the position in the guard of honor. It is likewise she who takes the initiative to skillfully dupe her husband about the anonymous letters. Their love is that of mother and son at the same time that it is of mistress and lover. Julien has never had a mother or the love of a family, and Stendhal remedies this lack by the insertion of an idyllic family scene in which Julien displaces completely Mayor Renal in Chapter 22. The conclusions to be drawn about Stendhal's own childhood are obvious. Note that it is mainly on faith that we must believe in Julien's superior intelligence, for Stendhal will rarely permit us to witness any examples of his brilliance and articulate eloquence. The author intervenes to assure us of Julien's superiority, others acclaim him , and Mme. de Renal herself predicts a great future for such a brilliant man. His inexperience, at this stage, accounts somewhat for the lack of indications, it is true, but in his later experiences in Paris, the same absence of proof will be noticeable. Julien out-Jesuits the sub-prefect when the latter attempts to enlist him in the service of Valenod, but we hear none of his brilliant conversational digressions to avoid an answer. Stendhal simply tells us that his reply was perfect, as long-winded as a pastoral letter in that it suggested everything and stated nothing. Since Stendhal was, in a sense, writing the novel for himself and for the \"happy few,\" he evidently felt no need to demonstrate a superiority of which he was convinced. His modesty was another factor in this reticence. Thanks to the love that Mme. de Renal has for him, Julien has made two noticeable strides ahead in his onslaught on society: He enjoys a vicarious military experience in the guard of honor and, because of his roles that day, is soon sought after by all of Verrieres. He makes progress and profits from his education in spite of the generally passive role he assumes. He has progressed in the art of hypocrisy: When he lets slip praise of Napoleon and is rebuked for it by Mme. de Renal, his pride does not incapacitate him, and he is even adroit enough to dodge responsibility for the statement. Julien's self-appointed role as messenger to Bishop Agde previews his later roles as secretary and as spy. Julien will never attain a position of independence vis-a-vis society; rather, he will always be a protected and cherished instrument of others. He actively compares the success of alternative ways of action as he sees them in others. He prefers the refined manners of Bishop Agde to those he has found in the province. He sees everywhere examples of compromise in order to succeed: the letter left in the room occupied by M. de La Mole; the mission of the Italian singer. The latter he compares favorably to M. de Renal, who is forced to humiliate himself before the Congregation. At the Valenod's dinner, Julien is horrified at the ill-treatment the workhouse inmates receive, although he is able to contain his true feelings. In the face of the ultimatum given him by Chelan, Julien debates as to whether he should take offense, but again he remains master of himself, silent in a feigned attitude of humility. It must be reiterated that Stendhal does not condemn Julien's hypocrisy. A nature as sensitive, generous, and spontaneous as Julien's is forced to this extremity to survive. The playing out of the novel's title in Chapter 18 will not have been missed by the reader: Julien plays alternately the role of soldier, then priest. It will be, of course, the latter vocation that he will choose as a means to success since Napoleon's disappearance has rendered the former impossible. Nonetheless, the spurs that he wears under the priest's cassock indicate that his career in the priesthood will be marked with the ruthlessness and dashing of the soldier. Although Julien is capable of more love for Mme. de Renal than before his seduction of her, he is far from being a victim of it. Goaded by ambition, Julien's mind is not yet a fecund \"theater\" where this imperious emotion may manifest itself and thrive. Stendhal makes passing allusions to the \"mad\" love Julien has for her and to the fact that he finds new reasons to love her, but we are hardly convinced. His love for Mme. de Renal must await the end of the novel for its full development. It might be argued that in making Julien master of the love experience, Stendhal is getting his revenge on all of the women with whom he had been unsuccessful. Julien's love brings him, at this stage, contentment and a peace and happiness he has never known. He seems to love her more as he sees more and more how much she loves him -- particularly when Mme. de Renal's son is critically ill. At that moment, Julien realizes how completely his mistress is a helpless, suffering victim of love. He feels only momentarily the doubts and torments that continue to plague her and that move her love to constant renewal in new crystallizations. It is quite possible that it is Stendhal's own sensibility, modesty, and need for privacy that prevent him from disclosing much of what Julien's love for Mme. de Renal entails, for Julien is a projection of what Stendhal would like to be, as are all his protagonists. It will be obvious to the reader at this point in the novel that Stendhal does not take great pains to conceive an overall view of the action in which subsequent events are mutually interdependent and which would seem to be \"necessary\" as logical and expected results of previous causes. On the contrary, he invents incidents as he needs them, and the resulting haphazard nature of succession results from an almost improvisational technique of composition and is one of the meanings of his definition of the novel as a \"mirror which is carried along the road.\" He needed, for example, the sudden grave illness of Stanislas to permit a further crystallization of Mme. de Renal's love for Julien and an intensification of his love for her. The unannounced arrival of Geronimo is a fortuitous event needed to alleviate the series of defeats that M. de Renal has just undergone and that have plunged the household into gloom. In Chapter 23, almost without any warning, the reader learns that because of the scandal of Julien's affair with Mme. de Renal, a scandal hardly surprising but heretofore not even alluded to by Stendhal, a decision must be made as to Julien's future. Obviously. Stendhal wants to move him on to Besancon, and this is the logical means. Similarly, Elisa chooses this moment to inform Chelan of Julien's conduct, and it is this \"father-figure\" alone who can prevail on Julien to leave."}

CHAPTER XVI THE DAY AFTER He turned his lips to hers and with his hand Called back the tangles of her wandering hair. _Don Juan,_ c. I, st. 170. Happily for Julien's fame, Madame de Renal had been too agitated and too astonished to appreciate the stupidity of the man who had in a single moment become the whole to world her. "Oh, my God!" she said to herself, as she pressed him to retire when she saw the dawn break, "if my husband has heard the noise, I am lost." Julien, who had had the time to make up some phrases, remembered this one, "Would you regret your life?" "Oh, very much at a moment like this, but I should not regret having known you." Julien thought it incumbent on his dignity to go back to his room in broad daylight and with deliberate imprudence. The continuous attention with which he kept on studying his slightest actions with the absurd idea of appearing a man of experience had only one advantage. When he saw Madame de Renal again at breakfast his conduct was a masterpiece of prudence. As for her, she could not look at him without blushing up to the eyes, and could not live a moment without looking at him. She realised her own nervousness, and her efforts to hide it redoubled. Julien only lifted his eyes towards her once. At first Madame de Renal admired his prudence: soon seeing that this single look was not repealed, she became alarmed. "Could it be that he does not love me?" she said to herself. "Alas! I am quite old for him. I am ten years older than he is." As she passed from the dining-room to the garden, she pressed Julien's hand. In the surprise caused by so singular a mark of love, he regarded her with passion, for he had thought her very pretty over breakfast, and while keeping his eyes downcast he had passed his time in thinking of the details of her charms. This look consoled Madame de Renal. It did not take away all her anxiety, but her anxiety tended to take away nearly completely all her remorse towards her husband. The husband had noticed nothing at breakfast. It was not so with Madame Derville. She thought she saw Madame de Renal on the point of succumbing. During the whole day her bold and incisive friendship regaled her cousin with those innuendoes which were intended to paint in hideous colours the dangers she was running. Madame de Renal was burning to find herself alone with Julien. She wished to ask him if he still loved her. In spite of the unalterable sweetness of her character, she was several times on the point of notifying her friend how officious she was. Madame Derville arranged things so adroitly that evening in the garden, that she found herself placed between Madame de Renal and Julien. Madame de Renal, who had thought in her imagination how delicious it would be to press Julien's hand and carry it to her lips, was not able to address a single word to him. This hitch increased her agitation. She was devoured by one pang of remorse. She had so scolded Julien for his imprudence in coming to her room on the preceding night, that she trembled lest he should not come to-night. She left the garden early and went and ensconced herself in her room, but not being able to control her impatience, she went and glued her ear to Julien's door. In spite of the uncertainty and passion which devoured her, she did not dare to enter. This action seemed to her the greatest possible meanness, for it forms the basis of a provincial proverb. The servants had not yet all gone to bed. Prudence at last compelled her to return to her room. Two hours of waiting were two centuries of torture. Julien was too faithful to what he called his duty to fail to accomplish stage by stage what he had mapped out for himself. As one o'clock struck, he escaped softly from his room, assured himself that the master of the house was soundly asleep, and appeared in Madame de Renal's room. To-night he experienced more happiness by the side of his love, for he thought less constantly about the part he had to play. He had eyes to see, and ears to hear. What Madame de Renal said to him about his age contributed to give him some assurance. "Alas! I am ten years older than you. How can you love me?" she repeated vaguely, because the idea oppressed her. Julien could not realise her happiness, but he saw that it was genuine and he forgot almost entirely his own fear of being ridiculous. The foolish thought that he was regarded as an inferior, by reason of his obscure birth, disappeared also. As Julien's transports reassured his timid mistress, she regained a little of her happiness, and of her power to judge her lover. Happily, he had not, on this occasion, that artificial air which had made the assignation of the previous night a triumph rather than a pleasure. If she had realised his concentration on playing a part that melancholy discovery would have taken away all her happiness for ever. She could only have seen in it the result of the difference in their ages. Although Madame de Renal had never thought of the theories of love, difference in age is next to difference in fortune, one of the great commonplaces of provincial witticisms, whenever love is the topic of conversation. In a few days Julien surrendered himself with all the ardour of his age, and was desperately in love. "One must own," he said to himself, "that she has an angelic kindness of soul, and no one in the world is prettier." He had almost completely given up playing a part. In a moment of abandon, he even confessed to her all his nervousness. This confidence raised the passion which he was inspiring to its zenith. "And I have no lucky rival after all," said Madame de Renal to herself with delight. She ventured to question him on the portrait in which he used to be so interested. Julien swore to her that it was that of a man. When Madame de Renal had enough presence of mind left to reflect, she did not recover from her astonishment that so great a happiness could exist; and that she had never had anything of. "Oh," she said to herself, "if I had only known Julien ten years ago when I was still considered pretty." Julien was far from having thoughts like these. His love was still akin to ambition. It was the joy of possessing, poor, unfortunate and despised as he was, so beautiful a woman. His acts of devotion, and his ecstacies at the sight of his mistress's charms finished by reassuring her a little with regard to the difference of age. If she had possessed a little of that knowledge of life which the woman of thirty has enjoyed in the more civilised of countries for quite a long time, she would have trembled for the duration of a love, which only seemed to thrive on novelty and the intoxication of a young man's vanity. In those moments when he forgot his ambition, Julien admired ecstatically even the hats and even the dresses of Madame de Renal. He could not sate himself with the pleasure of smelling their perfume. He would open her mirrored cupboard, and remain hours on end admiring the beauty and the order of everything that he found there. His love leaned on him and looked at him. He was looking at those jewels and those dresses which had had been her wedding presents. "I might have married a man like that," thought Madame de Renal sometimes. "What a fiery soul! What a delightful life one would have with him?" As for Julien, he had never been so near to those terrible instruments of feminine artillery. "It is impossible," he said to himself "for there to be anything more beautiful in Paris." He could find no flaw in his happiness. The sincere admiration and ecstacies of his mistress would frequently make him forget that silly pose which had rendered him so stiff and almost ridiculous during the first moments of the intrigue. There were moments where, in spite of his habitual hypocrisy, he found an extreme delight in confessing to this great lady who admired him, his ignorance of a crowd of little usages. His mistress's rank seemed to lift him above himself. Madame de Renal, on her side, would find the sweetest thrill of intellectual voluptuousness in thus instructing in a number of little things this young man who was so full of genius, and who was looked upon by everyone as destined one day to go so far. Even the sub-prefect and M. Valenod could not help admiring him. She thought it made them less foolish. As for Madame Derville, she was very far from being in a position to express the same sentiments. Rendered desperate by what she thought she divined, and seeing that her good advice was becoming offensive to a woman who had literally lost her head, she left Vergy without giving the explanation, which her friend carefully refrained from asking. Madame de Renal shed a few tears for her, and soon found her happiness greater than ever. As a result of her departure, she found herself alone with her lover nearly the whole day. Julien abandoned himself all the more to the delightful society of his sweetheart, since, whenever he was alone, Fouque's fatal proposition still continued to agitate him. During the first days of his novel life there were moments when the man who had never loved, who had never been loved by anyone, would find so delicious a pleasure in being sincere, that he was on the point of confessing to Madame de Renal that ambition which up to then had been the very essence of his existence. He would have liked to have been able to consult her on the strange temptation which Fouque's offer held out to him, but a little episode rendered any frankness impossible. CHAPTER XVII THE FIRST DEPUTY Oh, how this spring of love resembleth The uncertain glory of an April day, Which now shows all the beauty of the sun, And by and by a cloud takes all away. _Two Gentlemen of Verona._ One evening when the sun was setting, and he was sitting near his love, at the bottom of the orchard, far from all intruders, he meditated deeply. "Will such sweet moments" he said to himself "last for ever?" His soul was engrossed in the difficulty of deciding on a calling. He lamented that great attack of unhappiness which comes at the end of childhood and spoils the first years of youth in those who are not rich. "Ah!" he exclaimed, "was not Napoleon the heaven-sent saviour for young Frenchmen? Who is to replace him? What will those unfortunate youths do without him, who, even though they are richer than I am, have only just the few crowns necessary to procure an education for themselves, but have not at the age of twenty enough money to buy a man and advance themselves in their career." "Whatever one does," he added, with a deep sigh, "this fatal memory will always prevent our being happy." He suddenly saw Madame de Renal frown. She assumed a cold and disdainful air. She thought his way of looking at things typical of a servant. Brought up as she was with the idea that she was very rich, she took it for granted that Julien was so also. She loved him a thousand times more than life and set no store by money. Julien was far from guessing these ideas, but that frown brought him back to earth. He had sufficient presence of mind to manipulate his phrases, and to give the noble lady who was sitting so near him on the grass seat to understand that the words he had just repeated had been heard by him during his journey to his friend the wood merchant. It was the logic of infidels. "Well, have nothing to do with those people," said Madame de Renal, still keeping a little of that icy air which had suddenly succeeded an expression of the warmest tenderness. This frown, or rather his remorse for his own imprudence, was the first check to the illusion which was transporting Julien. He said to himself, "She is good and sweet, she has a great fancy for me, but she has been brought up in the enemy's camp. They must be particularly afraid of that class of men of spirit who, after a good education, have not enough money to take up a career. What would become of those nobles if we had an opportunity of fighting them with equal arms. Suppose me, for example, mayor of Verrieres, and as well meaning and honest as M. de Renal is at bottom. What short shrift I should make of the vicaire, M. Valenod and all their jobberies! How justice would triumph in Verrieres. It is not their talents which would stop me. They are always fumbling about." That day Julien's happiness almost became permanent. Our hero lacked the power of daring to be sincere. He ought to have had the courage to have given battle, and on the spot; Madame de Renal had been astonished by Julien's phrase, because the men in her circle kept on repeating that the return of Robespierre was essentially possible by reason of those over-educated young persons of the lower classes. Madame de Renal's coldness lasted a longish time, and struck Julien as marked. The reason was that the fear that she had said something in some way or other disagreeable to him, succeeded her annoyance for his own breach of taste. This unhappiness was vividly reflected in those features which looked so pure and so naive when she was happy and away from intruders. Julien no longer dared to surrender himself to his dreams. Growing calmer and less infatuated, he considered that it was imprudent to go and see Madame de Renal in her room. It was better for her to come to him. If a servant noticed her going about the house, a dozen different excuses could explain it. But this arrangement had also its inconveniences. Julien had received from Fouque some books, which he, as a theology student would never have dared to ask for in a bookshop. He only dared to open them at night. He would often have found it much more convenient not to be interrupted by a visit, the very waiting for which had even on the evening before the little scene in the orchard completely destroyed his mood for reading. He had Madame de Renal to thank for understanding books in quite a new way. He had dared to question her on a number of little things, the ignorance of which cuts quite short the intellectual progress of any young man born out of society, however much natural genius one may choose to ascribe to him. This education given through sheer love by a woman who was extremely ignorant, was a piece of luck. Julien managed to get a clear insight into society such as it is to-day. His mind was not bewildered by the narration of what it had been once, two thousand years ago, or even sixty years ago, in the time of Voltaire and Louis XV. The scales fell from his eyes to his inexpressible joy, and he understood at last what was going on in Verrieres. In the first place there were the very complicated intrigues which had been woven for the last two years around the prefect of Besancon. They were backed up by letters from Paris, written by the cream of the aristocracy. The scheme was to make M. de Moirod (he was the most devout man in the district) the first and not the second deputy of the mayor of Verrieres. He had for a competitor a very rich manufacturer whom it was essential to push back into the place of second deputy. Julien understood at last the innuendoes which he had surprised, when the high society of the locality used to come and dine at M. de Renal's. This privileged society was deeply concerned with the choice of a first deputy, while the rest of the town, and above all, the Liberals, did not even suspect its possibility. The factor which made the matter important was that, as everybody knows, the east side of the main street of Verrieres has to be put more than nine feet back since that street has become a royal route. Now if M. de Moirod, who had three houses liable to have their frontage put back, succeeded in becoming first deputy and consequently mayor in the event of M. de Renal being elected to the chamber, he would shut his eyes, and it would be possible to make little imperceptible repairs in the houses projecting on to the public road, as the result of which they would last a hundred years. In spite of the great piety and proved integrity of M. de Moirod, everyone was certain that he would prove amenable, because he had a great many children. Among the houses liable to have their frontage put back nine belonged to the cream of Verrieres society. In Julien's eyes this intrigue was much more important than the history of the battle of Fontenoy, whose name he now came across for the first time in one of the books which Fouque had sent him. There had been many things which had astonished Julien since the time five years ago when he had started going to the cure's in the evening. But discretion and humility of spirit being the primary qualities of a theological student, it had always been impossible for him to put questions. One day Madame de Renal was giving an order to her husband's valet who was Julien's enemy. "But, Madame, to-day is the last Friday in the month," the man answered in a rather strange manner. "Go," said Madame de Renal. "Well," said Julien, "I suppose he's going to go to that corn shop which was once a church, and has recently been restored to religion, but what is he going to do there? That's one of the mysteries which I have never been able to fathom." "It's a very literary institution, but a very curious one," answered Madame de Renal. "Women are not admitted to it. All I know is, that everybody uses the second person singular. This servant, for instance, will go and meet M. Valenod there, and the haughty prig will not be a bit offended at hearing himself addressed by Saint-Jean in that familiar way, and will answer him in the same way. If you are keen on knowing what takes place, I will ask M. de Maugiron and M. Valenod for details. We pay twenty francs for each servant, to prevent their cutting our throats one fine day." Time flew. The memory of his mistress's charms distracted Julien from his black ambition. The necessity of refraining from mentioning gloomy or intellectual topics since they both belonged to opposing parties, added, without his suspecting it, to the happiness which he owed her, and to the dominion which she acquired over him. On the occasions when the presence of the precocious children reduced them to speaking the language of cold reason, Julien looking at her with eyes sparkling with love, would listen with complete docility to her explanations of the world as it is. Frequently, in the middle of an account of some cunning piece of jobbery, with reference to a road or a contract, Madame de Renal's mind would suddenly wander to the very point of delirium. Julien found it necessary to scold her. She indulged when with him in the same intimate gestures which she used with her own children. The fact was that there were days when she deceived herself that she loved him like her own child. Had she not repeatedly to answer his naive questions about a thousand simple things that a well-born child of fifteen knows quite well? An instant afterwards she would admire him like her master. His genius would even go so far as to frighten her. She thought she should see more clearly every day the future great man in this young abbe. She saw him Pope; she saw him first minister like Richelieu. "Shall I live long enough to see you in your glory?" she said to Julien. "There is room for a great man; church and state have need of one." CHAPTER XVIII A KING AT VERRIERES Do you not deserve to be thrown aside like a plebeian corpse which has no soul and whose blood flows no longer in its veins. _Sermon of the Bishop at the Chapel of Saint Clement_. On the 3rd of September at ten o'clock in the evening, a gendarme woke up the whole of Verrieres by galloping up the main street. He brought the news that His Majesty the King of ---- would arrive the following Sunday, and it was already Tuesday. The prefect authorised, that is to say, demanded the forming of a guard of honour. They were to exhibit all possible pomp. An express messenger was sent to Vergy. M. de Renal arrived during the night and found the town in a commotion. Each individual had his own pretensions; those who were less busy hired balconies to see the King. Who was to command the Guard of Honour? M. de Renal at once realised how essential it was in the interests of the houses liable to have their frontage put back that M. de Moirod should have the command. That might entitle him to the post of first deputy-mayor. There was nothing to say against the devoutness of M. de Moirod. It brooked no comparison, but he had never sat on a horse. He was a man of thirty-six, timid in every way, and equally frightened of falling and of looking ridiculous. The mayor had summoned him as early as five o'clock in the morning. "You see, monsieur, I ask your advice, as though you already occupy that post to which all the people on the right side want to carry you. In this unhappy town, manufacturers are prospering, the Liberal party is becoming possessed of millions, it aspires to power; it will manage to exploit everything to its own ends. Let us consult the interests of the king, the interest of the monarchy, and above all, the interest of our holy religion. Who do you think, monsieur, could be entrusted with the command of the guard of honour?" In spite of the terrible fear with which horses inspired him, M. de Moirod finished by accepting this honour like a martyr. "I shall know how to take the right tone," he said to the mayor. There was scarcely time enough to get ready the uniforms which had served seven years ago on the occasion of the passage of a prince of the blood. At seven o'clock, Madame de Renal arrived at Vergy with Julien and the children. She found her drawing room filled with Liberal ladies who preached the union of all parties and had come to beg her to urge her husband to grant a place to theirs in the guard of honour. One of them actually asserted that if her husband was not chosen he would go bankrupt out of chagrin. Madame de Renal quickly got rid of all these people. She seemed very engrossed. Julien was astonished, and what was more, angry that she should make a mystery of what was disturbing her, "I had anticipated it," he said bitterly to himself. "Her love is being over-shadowed by the happiness of receiving a King in her house. All this hubbub overcomes her. She will love me once more when the ideas of her caste no longer trouble her brain." An astonishing fact, he only loved her the more. The decorators began to fill the house. He watched a long time for the opportunity to exchange a few words. He eventually found her as she was coming out of his own room, carrying one of his suits. They were alone. He tried to speak to her. She ran away, refusing to listen to him. "I am an absolute fool to love a woman like that, whose ambition renders her as mad as her husband." She was madder. One of her great wishes which she had never confessed to Julien for fear of shocking him, was to see him leave off, if only for one day, his gloomy black suit. With an adroitness which was truly admirable in so ingenuous a woman, she secured first from M. de Moirod, and subsequently, from M. the sub-perfect de Maugiron, an assurance that Julien should be nominated a guard of honour in preference to five or six young people, the sons of very well-off manufacturers, of whom two at least, were models of piety. M. de Valenod, who reckoned on lending his carriage to the prettiest women in the town, and on showing off his fine Norman steeds, consented to let Julien (the being he hated most in the whole world) have one of his horses. But all the guards of honour, either possessed or had borrowed, one of those pretty sky-blue uniforms, with two silver colonel epaulettes, which had shone seven years ago. Madame de Renal wanted a new uniform, and she only had four days in which to send to Besancon and get from there the uniform, the arms, the hat, etc., everything necessary for a Guard of Honour. The most delightful part of it was that she thought it imprudent to get Julien's uniform made at Verrieres. She wanted to surprise both him and the town. Having settled the questions of the guards of honour, and of the public welcome finished, the mayor had now to organise a great religious ceremony. The King of ---- did not wish to pass through Verrieres without visiting the famous relic of St. Clement, which is kept at Bray-le-Haut barely a league from the town. The authorities wanted to have a numerous attendance of the clergy, but this matter was the most difficult to arrange. M. Maslon, the new cure, wanted to avoid at any price the presence of M. Chelan. It was in vain that M. de Renal tried to represent to him that it would be imprudent to do so. M. the Marquis de La Mole whose ancestors had been governors of the province for so many generations, had been chosen to accompany the King of ----. He had known the abbe Chelan for thirty years. He would certainly ask news of him when he arrived at Verrieres, and if he found him disgraced he was the very man to go and route him out in the little house to which he had retired, accompanied by all the escort that he had at his disposition. What a rebuff that would be? "I shall be disgraced both here and at Besancon," answered the abbe Maslon, "if he appears among my clergy. A Jansenist, by the Lord." "Whatever you can say, my dear abbe," replied M. de Renal, "I'll never expose the administration of Verrieres to receiving such an affront from M. de la Mole. You do not know him. He is orthodox enough at Court, but here in the provinces, he is a satirical wit and cynic, whose only object is to make people uncomfortable. He is capable of covering us with ridicule in the eyes of the Liberals, simply in order to amuse himself." It was only on the night between the Saturday and the Sunday, after three whole days of negotiations that the pride of the abbe Maslon bent before the fear of the mayor, which was now changing into courage. It was necessary to write a honeyed letter to the abbe Chelan, begging him to be present at the ceremony in connection with the relic of Bray-le-Haut, if of course, his great age and his infirmity allowed him to do so. M. Chelan asked for and obtained a letter of invitation for Julien, who was to accompany him as his sub-deacon. From the beginning of the Sunday morning, thousands of peasants began to arrive from the neighbouring mountains, and to inundate the streets of Verrieres. It was the finest sunshine. Finally, about three o'clock, a thrill swept through all this crowd. A great fire had been perceived on a rock two leagues from Verrieres. This signal announced that the king had just entered the territory of the department. At the same time, the sound of all the bells and the repeated volleys from an old Spanish cannon which belonged to the town, testified to its joy at this great event. Half the population climbed on to the roofs. All the women were on the balconies. The guard of honour started to march, The brilliant uniforms were universally admired; everybody recognised a relative or a friend. They made fun of the timidity of M. de Moirod, whose prudent hand was ready every single minute to catch hold of his saddle-bow. But one remark resulted in all the others being forgotten; the first cavalier in the ninth line was a very pretty, slim boy, who was not recognised at first. He soon created a general sensation, as some uttered a cry of indignation, and others were dumbfounded with astonishment. They recognised in this young man, who was sitting one of the Norman horses of M. Valenod, little Sorel, the carpenter's son. There was a unanimous out-cry against the mayor, above all on the part of the Liberals. What, because this little labourer, who masqueraded as an abbe, was tutor to his brats, he had the audacity to nominate him guard of honour to the prejudice of rich manufacturers like so-and-so and so-and-so! "Those gentlemen," said a banker's wife, "ought to put that insolent gutter-boy in his proper place." "He is cunning and carries a sabre," answered her neighbour. "He would be dastardly enough to slash them in the face." The conversation of aristocratic society was more dangerous. The ladies began to ask each other if the mayor alone was responsible for this grave impropriety. Speaking generally, they did justice to his contempt for lack of birth. Julien was the happiest of men, while he was the subject of so much conversation. Bold by nature, he sat a horse better than the majority of the young men of this mountain town. He saw that, in the eyes of the women, he was the topic of interest. His epaulettes were more brilliant than those of the others, because they were new. His horse pranced at every moment. He reached the zenith of joy. His happiness was unbounded when, as they passed by the old rampart, the noise of the little cannon made his horse prance outside the line. By a great piece of luck he did not fall; from that moment he felt himself a hero. He was one of Napoleon's officers of artillery, and was charging a battery. One person was happier than he. She had first seen him pass from one of the folding windows in the Hotel de Ville. Then taking her carriage and rapidly making a long detour, she arrived in time to shudder when his horse took him outside the line. Finally she put her carriage to the gallop, left by another gate of the town, succeeded in rejoining the route by which the King was to pass, and was able to follow the Guard of Honour at twenty paces distance in the midst of a noble dust. Six thousand peasants cried "Long live the King," when the mayor had the honour to harangue his Majesty. An hour afterwards, when all the speeches had been listened to, and the King was going to enter the town, the little cannon began again to discharge its spasmodic volleys. But an accident ensued, the victim being, not one of the cannoneers who had proved their mettle at Leipsic and at Montreuil, but the future deputy-mayor, M. de Moirod. His horse gently laid him in the one heap of mud on the high road, a somewhat scandalous circumstance, inasmuch as it was necessary to extricate him to allow the King to pass. His Majesty alighted at the fine new church, which was decked out to-day with all its crimson curtains. The King was due to dine, and then afterwards take his carriage again and go and pay his respects to the celebrated relic of Saint Clement. Scarcely was the King in the church than Julien galloped towards the house of M. de Renal. Once there he doffed with a sigh his fine sky-blue uniform, his sabre and his epaulettes, to put on again his shabby little black suit. He mounted his horse again, and in a few moments was at Bray-le-Haut, which was on the summit of a very pretty hill. "Enthusiasm is responsible for these numbers of peasants," thought Julien. It was impossible to move a step at Verrieres, and here there were more than ten thousand round this ancient abbey. Half ruined by the vandalism of the Revolution, it had been magnificently restored since the Restoration, and people were already beginning to talk of miracles. Julien rejoined the abbe Chelan, who scolded him roundly and gave him a cassock and a surplice. He dressed quickly and followed M. Chelan, who was going to pay a call on the young bishop of Agde. He was a nephew of M. de la Mole, who had been recently nominated, and had been charged with the duty of showing the relic to the King. But the bishop was not to be found. The clergy began to get impatient. It was awaiting its chief in the sombre Gothic cloister of the ancient abbey. Twenty-four cures had been brought together so as to represent the ancient chapter of Bray-le-Haut, which before 1789 consisted of twenty-four canons. The cures, having deplored the bishop's youth for three-quarters of an hour, thought it fitting for their senior to visit Monseigneur to apprise him that the King was on the point of arriving, and that it was time to betake himself to the choir. The great age of M. Chelan gave him the seniority. In spite of the bad temper which he was manifesting to Julien, he signed him to follow. Julien was wearing his surplice with distinction. By means of some trick or other of ecclesiastical dress, he had made his fine curling hair very flat, but by a forgetfulness, which redoubled the anger of M. Chelan, the spurs of the Guard of Honour could be seen below the long folds of his cassock. When they arrived at the bishop's apartment, the tall lackeys with their lace-frills scarcely deigned to answer the old cure to the effect that Monseigneur was not receiving. They made fun of him when he tried to explain that in his capacity of senior member of the chapter of Bray-le-Haut, he had the privilege of being admitted at any time to the officiating bishop. Julien's haughty temper was shocked by the lackeys' insolence. He started to traverse the corridors of the ancient abbey, and to shake all the doors which he found. A very small one yielded to his efforts, and he found himself in a cell in the midst of Monseigneur's valets, who were dressed in black suits with chains on their necks. His hurried manner made these gentlemen think that he had been sent by the bishop, and they let him pass. He went some steps further on, and found himself in an immense Gothic hall, which was extremely dark, and completely wainscotted in black oak. The ogive windows had all been walled in with brick except one. There was nothing to disguise the coarseness of this masonry, which offered a melancholy contrast to the ancient magnificence of the woodwork. The two great sides of this hall, so celebrated among Burgundian antiquaries, and built by the Duke, Charles the Bold, about 1470 in expiation of some sin, were adorned with richly sculptured wooden stalls. All the mysteries of the Apocalypse were to be seen portrayed in wood of different colours. This melancholy magnificence, debased as it was by the sight of the bare bricks and the plaster (which was still quite white) affected Julien. He stopped in silence. He saw at the other extremity of the hall, near the one window which let in the daylight, a movable mahogany mirror. A young man in a violet robe and a lace surplice, but with his head bare, was standing still three paces from the glass. This piece of furniture seemed strange in a place like this, and had doubtless been only brought there on the previous day. Julien thought that the young man had the appearance of being irritated. He was solemnly giving benedictions with his right hand close to the mirror. "What can this mean," he thought. "Is this young priest performing some preliminary ceremony? Perhaps he is the bishop's secretary. He will be as insolent as the lackeys. Never mind though! Let us try." He advanced and traversed somewhat slowly the length of the hall, with his gaze fixed all the time on the one window, and looking at the young man who continued without any intermission bestowing slowly an infinite number of blessings. The nearer he approached the better he could distinguish his angry manner. The richness of the lace surplice stopped Julien in spite of himself some paces in front of the mirror. "It is my duty to speak," he said to himself at last. But the beauty of the hall had moved him, and he was already upset by the harsh words he anticipated. The young man saw him in the mirror, turned round, and suddenly discarding his angry manner, said to him in the gentlest tone, "Well, Monsieur, has it been arranged at last?" Julien was dumbfounded. As the young man began to turn towards him, Julien saw the pectoral cross on his breast. It was the bishop of Agde. "As young as that," thought Julien. "At most six or eight years older than I am!" He was ashamed of his spurs. "Monseigneur," he said at last, "I am sent by M. Chelan, the senior of the chapter." "Ah, he has been well recommended to me," said the bishop in a polished tone which doubled Julien's delight, "But I beg your pardon, Monsieur, I mistook you for the person who was to bring me my mitre. It was badly packed at Paris. The silver cloth towards the top has been terribly spoiled. It will look awful," ended the young bishop sadly, "And besides, I am being kept waiting." "Monseigneur, I will go and fetch the mitre if your grace will let me." Julien's fine eyes did their work. "Go, Monsieur," answered the bishop, with charming politeness. "I need it immediately. I am grieved to keep the gentlemen of the chapter waiting." When Julien reached the centre of the hall, he turned round towards the bishop, and saw that he had again commenced giving benedictions. "What can it be?" Julien asked himself. "No doubt it is a necessary ecclesiastical preliminary for the ceremony which is to take place." When he reached the cell in which the valets were congregated, he saw the mitre in their hands. These gentlemen succumbed in spite of themselves to his imperious look, and gave him Monseigneur's mitre. He felt proud to carry it. As he crossed the hall he walked slowly. He held it with reverence. He found the bishop seated before the glass, but from time to time, his right hand, although fatigued, still gave a blessing. Julien helped him to adjust his mitre. The bishop shook his head. "Ah! it will keep on," he said to Julien with an air of satisfaction. "Do you mind going a little way off?" Then the bishop went very quickly to the centre of the room, then approached the mirror, again resumed his angry manner, and gravely began to give blessings. Julien was motionless with astonishment. He was tempted to understand, but did not dare. The bishop stopped, and suddenly abandoning his grave manner looked at him and said: "What do you think of my mitre, monsieur, is it on right?" "Quite right, Monseigneur." "It is not too far back? That would look a little silly, but I mustn't on the other hand wear it down over the eyes like an officer's shako." "It seems to me to be on quite right." "The King of ---- is accustomed to a venerable clergy who are doubtless very solemn. I should not like to appear lacking in dignity, especially by reason of my youth." And the bishop started again to walk about and give benedictions. "It is quite clear," said Julien, daring to understand at last, "He is practising giving his benediction." "I am ready," the bishop said after a few moments. "Go, Monsieur, and advise the senior and the gentlemen of the chapter." Soon M. Chelan, followed by the two oldest cures, entered by a big magnificently sculptured door, which Julien had not previously noticed. But this time he remained in his place quite at the back, and was only able to see the bishop over the shoulders of ecclesiastics who were pressing at the door in crowds. The bishop began slowly to traverse the hall. When he reached the threshold, the cures formed themselves into a procession. After a short moment of confusion, the procession began to march intoning the psalm. The bishop, who was between M. Chelan and a very old cure, was the last to advance. Julien being in attendance on the abbe Chelan managed to get quite near Monseigneur. They followed the long corridors of the abbey of Bray-le-Haut. In spite of the brilliant sun they were dark and damp. They arrived finally at the portico of the cloister. Julien was dumbfounded with admiration for so fine a ceremony. His emotions were divided between thoughts of his own ambition which had been reawakened by the bishop's youth and thoughts of the latter's refinement and exquisite politeness. This politeness was quite different to that of M. de Renal, even on his good days. "The higher you lift yourself towards the first rank of society," said Julien to himself, "the more charming manners you find." They entered the church by a side door; suddenly an awful noise made the ancient walls echo. Julien thought they were going to crumble. It was the little piece of artillery again. It had been drawn at a gallop by eight horses and had just arrived. Immediately on its arrival it had been run out by the Leipsic cannoneers and fired five shots a minute as though the Prussians had been the target. But this admirable noise no longer produced any effect on Julien. He no longer thought of Napoleon and military glory. "To be bishop of Agde so young," he thought. "But where is Agde? How much does it bring in? Two or three hundred thousand francs, perhaps." Monseigneur's lackeys appeared with a magnificent canopy. M. Chelan took one of the poles, but as a matter of fact it was Julien who carried it. The bishop took his place underneath. He had really succeeded in looking old; and our hero's admiration was now quite unbounded. "What can't one accomplish with skill," he thought. The king entered. Julien had the good fortune to see him at close quarters. The bishop began to harangue him with unction, without forgetting a little nuance of very polite anxiety for his Majesty. We will not repeat a description of the ceremony of Bray-le-Haut. They filled all the columns of the journals of the department for a fortnight on end. Julien learnt from the bishop that the king was descended from Charles the Bold. At a later date, it was one of Julien's duties to check the accounts of the cost of this ceremony. M. de la Mole, who had succeeded in procuring a bishopric for his nephew, had wished to do him the favour of being himself responsible for all the expenses. The ceremony alone of Bray-le-Haute cost three thousand eight hundred francs. After the speech of the bishop, and the answer of the king, his Majesty took up a position underneath the canopy, and then knelt very devoutly on a cushion near the altar. The choir was surrounded by stalls, and the stalls were raised two steps from the pavement. It was at the bottom of these steps that Julien sat at the feet of M. de Chelan almost like a train-bearer sitting next to his cardinal in the Sixtine chapel at Rome. There was a _Te Deum_, floods of incense, innumerable volleys of musketry and artillery; the peasants were drunk with happiness and piety. A day like this undoes the work of a hundred numbers of the Jacobin papers. Julien was six paces from the king, who was really praying with devotion. He noticed for the first time a little man with a witty expression, who wore an almost plain suit. But he had a sky-blue ribbon over this very simple suit. He was nearer the king than many other lords, whose clothes were embroidered with gold to such an extent that, to use Julien's expression, it was impossible to see the cloth. He learnt some minutes later that it was Monsieur de la Mole. He thought he looked haughty, and even insolent. "I'm sure this marquis is not so polite as my pretty bishop," he thought. "Ah, the ecclesiastical calling makes men mild and good. But the king has come to venerate the relic, and I don't see a trace of the relic. Where has Saint Clement got to?" A little priest who sat next to him informed him that the venerable relic was at the top of the building in a _chapelle ardente_. "What is a _chapelle ardente_," said Julien to himself. But he was reluctant to ask the meaning of this word. He redoubled his attention. The etiquette on the occasion of a visit of a sovereign prince is that the canons do not accompany the bishop. But, as he started on his march to the _chapelle ardente_, my lord bishop of Agde called the abbe Chelan. Julien dared to follow him. Having climbed up a long staircase, they reached an extremely small door whose Gothic frame was magnificently gilded. This work looked as though it had been constructed the day before. Twenty-four young girls belonging to the most distinguished families in Verrieres were assembled in front of the door. The bishop knelt down in the midst of these pretty maidens before he opened the door. While he was praying aloud, they seemed unable to exhaust their admiration for his fine lace, his gracious mien, and his young and gentle face. This spectacle deprived our hero of his last remnants of reason. At this moment he would have fought for the Inquisition, and with a good conscience. The door suddenly opened. The little chapel was blazing with light. More than a thousand candles could be seen before the altar, divided into eight lines and separated from each other by bouquets of flowers. The suave odour of the purest incense eddied out from the door of the sanctuary. The chapel, which had been newly gilded, was extremely small but very high. Julien noticed that there were candles more than fifteen feet high upon the altar. The young girls could not restrain a cry of admiration. Only the twenty-four young girls, the two cures and Julien had been admitted into the little vestibule of the chapel. Soon the king arrived, followed by Monsieur de la Mole and his great Chamberlain. The guards themselves remained outside kneeling and presenting arms. His Majesty precipitated, rather than threw himself, on to the stool. It was only then that Julien, who was keeping close to the gilded door, perceived over the bare arm of a young girl, the charming statue of St. Clement. It was hidden under the altar, and bore the dress of a young Roman soldier. It had a large wound on its neck, from which the blood seemed to flow. The artist had surpassed himself. The eyes, which though dying were full of grace, were half closed. A budding moustache adored that charming mouth which, though half closed, seemed notwithstanding to be praying. The young girl next to Julien wept warm tears at the sight. One of her tears fell on Julien's hand. After a moment of prayer in the profoundest silence, that was only broken by the distant sound of the bells of all the villages within a radius of ten leagues, the bishop of Agde asked the king's permission to speak. He finished a short but very touching speech with a passage, the very simplicity of which assured its effectiveness: "Never forget, young Christian women, that you have seen one of the greatest kings of the world on his knees before the servants of this Almighty and terrible God. These servants, feeble, persecuted, assassinated as they were on earth, as you can see by the still bleeding wounds of Saint Clement, will triumph in Heaven. You will remember them, my young Christian women, will you not, this day for ever, and will detest the infidel. You will be for ever faithful to this God who is so great, so terrible, but so good?" With these words the bishop rose authoritatively. "You promise me?" he said, lifting up his arm with an inspired air. "We promise," said the young girls melting into tears. "I accept your promise in the name of the terrible God," added the bishop in a thunderous voice, and the ceremony was at an end. The king himself was crying. It was only a long time afterwards that Julien had sufficient self-possession to enquire "where were the bones of the Saint that had been sent from Rome to Philip the Good, Duke of Burgundy?" He was told that they were hidden in the charming waxen figure. His Majesty deigned to allow the young ladies who had accompanied him into the chapel to wear a red ribbon on which were embroidered these words, "HATE OF THE INFIDEL. PERPETUAL ADORATION." Monsieur de la Mole had ten thousand bottles of wine distributed among the peasants. In the evening at Verrieres, the Liberals made a point of having illuminations which were a hundred times better than those of the Royalists. Before leaving, the king paid a visit to M. de Moirod. CHAPTER XIX THINKING PRODUCES SUFFERING The grotesqueness of every-day events conceals the real unhappiness of the passions.--_Barnave_. As he was replacing the usual furniture in the room which M. de la Mole had occupied, Julien found a piece of very strong paper folded in four. He read at the bottom of the first page "To His Excellency M. le Marquis de la Mole, peer of France, Chevalier of the Orders of the King, etc. etc." It was a petition in the rough hand-writing of a cook. "Monsieur le Marquis, I have had religious principles all my life. I was in Lyons exposed to the bombs at the time of the siege, in '93 of execrable memory. I communicate, I go to Mass every Sunday in the parochial church. I have never missed the paschal duty, even in '93 of execrable memory. My cook used to keep servants before the revolution, my cook fasts on Fridays. I am universally respected in Verrieres, and I venture to say I deserve to be so. I walk under the canopy in the processions at the side of the cure and of the mayor. On great occasions I carry a big candle, bought at my own expense. "I ask Monsieur the marquis for the lottery appointment of Verrieres, which in one way or another is bound to be vacant shortly as the beneficiary is very ill, and moreover votes on the wrong side at elections, etc. De Cholin." In the margin of this petition was a recommendation signed "de Moirod" which began with this line, "I have had the honour, the worthy person who makes this request." "So even that imbecile de Cholin shows me the way to go about things," said Julien to himself. Eight days after the passage of the King of ---- through Verrieres, the one question which predominated over the innumerable falsehoods, foolish conjectures, and ridiculous discussions, etc., etc., which had had successively for their object the king, the Marquis de la Mole, the ten thousand bottles of wine, the fall of poor de Moirod, who, hoping to win a cross, only left his room a week after his fall, was the absolute indecency of having _foisted_ Julien Sorel, a carpenter's son, into the Guard of Honour. You should have heard on this point the rich manufacturers of printed calico, the very persons who used to bawl themselves hoarse in preaching equality, morning and evening in the cafe. That haughty woman, Madame de Renal, was of course responsible for this abomination. The reason? The fine eyes and fresh complexion of the little abbe Sorel explained everything else. A short time after their return to Vergy, Stanislas, the youngest of the children, caught the fever; Madame de Renal was suddenly attacked by an awful remorse. For the first time she reproached herself for her love with some logic. She seemed to understand as though by a miracle the enormity of the sin into which she had let herself be swept. Up to that moment, although deeply religious, she had never thought of the greatness of her crime in the eyes of God. In former times she had loved God passionately in the Convent of the Sacred Heart; in the present circumstances, she feared him with equal intensity. The struggles which lacerated her soul were all the more awful in that her fear was quite irrational. Julien found that the least argument irritated instead of soothing her. She saw in the illness the language of hell. Moreover, Julien was himself very fond of the little Stanislas. It soon assumed a serious character. Then incessant remorse deprived Madame de Renal of even her power of sleep. She ensconced herself in a gloomy silence: if she had opened her mouth, it would only have been to confess her crime to God and mankind. "I urge you," said Julien to her, as soon as they got alone, "not to speak to anyone. Let me be the sole confidant of your sufferings. If you still love me, do not speak. Your words will not be able to take away our Stanislas' fever." But his consolations produced no effect. He did not know that Madame de Renal had got it into her head that, in order to appease the wrath of a jealous God, it was necessary either to hate Julien, or let her son die. It was because she felt she could not hate her lover that she was so unhappy. "Fly from me," she said one day to Julien. "In the name of God leave this house. It is your presence here which kills my son. God punishes me," she added in a low voice. "He is just. I admire his fairness. My crime is awful, and I was living without remorse," she exclaimed. "That was the first sign of my desertion of God: I ought to be doubly punished." Julien was profoundly touched. He could see in this neither hypocrisy nor exaggeration. "She thinks that she is killing her son by loving me, and all the same the unhappy woman loves me more than her son. I cannot doubt it. It is remorse for that which is killing her. Those sentiments of hers have real greatness. But how could I have inspired such a love, I who am so poor, so badly-educated, so ignorant, and sometimes so coarse in my manners?" One night the child was extremely ill. At about two o'clock in the morning, M. de Renal came to see it. The child consumed by fever, and extremely flushed, could not recognise its father. Suddenly Madame de Renal threw herself at her husband's feet; Julien saw that she was going to confess everything and ruin herself for ever. Fortunately this extraordinary proceeding annoyed M. de Renal. "Adieu! Adieu!" he said, going away. "No, listen to me," cried his wife on her knees before him, trying to hold him back. "Hear the whole truth. It is I who am killing my son. I gave him life, and I am taking it back. Heaven is punishing me. In the eyes of God I am guilty of murder. It is necessary that I should ruin and humiliate myself. Perhaps that sacrifice will appease the the Lord." If M. de Renal had been a man of any imagination, he would then have realized everything. "Romantic nonsense," he cried, moving his wife away as she tried to embrace his knees. "All that is romantic nonsense! Julien, go and fetch the doctor at daybreak," and he went back to bed. Madame de Renal fell on her knees half-fainting, repelling Julien's help with a hysterical gesture. Julien was astonished. "So this is what adultery is," he said to himself. "Is it possible that those scoundrels of priests should be right, that they who commit so many sins themselves should have the privilege of knowing the true theory of sin? How droll!" For twenty minutes after M. de Renal had gone back to bed, Julien saw the woman he loved with her head resting on her son's little bed, motionless, and almost unconscious. "There," he said to himself, "is a woman of superior temperament brought to the depths of unhappiness simply because she has known me." "Time moves quickly. What can I do for her? I must make up my mind. I have not got simply myself to consider now. What do I care for men and their buffooneries? What can I do for her? Leave her? But I should be leaving her alone and a prey to the most awful grief. That automaton of a husband is more harm to her than good. He is so coarse that he is bound to speak harshly to her. She may go mad and throw herself out of the window." "If I leave her, if I cease to watch over her, she will confess everything, and who knows, in spite of the legacy which she is bound to bring him, he will create a scandal. She may confess everything (great God) to that scoundrel of an abbe who makes the illness of a child of six an excuse for not budging from this house, and not without a purpose either. In her grief and her fear of God, she forgets all she knows of the man; she only sees the priest." "Go away," said Madame de Renal suddenly to him, opening her eyes. "I would give my life a thousand times to know what could be of most use to you," answered Julien. "I have never loved you so much, my dear angel, or rather it is only from this last moment that I begin to adore you as you deserve to be adored. What would become of me far from you, and with the consciousness that you are unhappy owing to what I have done? But don't let my suffering come into the matter. I will go--yes, my love! But if I leave you, dear; if I cease to watch over you, to be incessantly between you and your husband, you will tell him everything. You will ruin yourself. Remember that he will hound you out of his house in disgrace. Besancon will talk of the scandal. You will be said to be absolutely in the wrong. You will never lift up your head again after that shame." "That's what I ask," she cried, standing up. "I shall suffer, so much the better." "But you will also make him unhappy through that awful scandal." "But I shall be humiliating myself, throwing myself into the mire, and by those means, perhaps, I shall save my son. Such a humiliation in the eyes of all is perhaps to be regarded as a public penitence. So far as my weak judgment goes, is it not the greatest sacrifice that I can make to God?--perhaps He will deign to accept my humiliation, and to leave me my son. Show me another sacrifice which is more painful and I will rush to it." "Let me punish myself. I too am guilty. Do you wish me to retire to the Trappist Monastery? The austerity of that life may appease your God. Oh, heaven, why cannot I take Stanislas's illness upon myself?" "Ah, do you love him then," said Madame de Renal, getting up and throwing herself in his arms. At the same time she repelled him with horror. "I believe you! I believe you! Oh, my one friend," she cried falling on her knees again. "Why are you not the father of Stanislas? In that case it would not be a terrible sin to love you more than your son." "Won't you allow me to stay and love you henceforth like a brother? It is the only rational atonement. It may appease the wrath of the Most High." "Am I," she cried, getting up and taking Julien's head between her two hands, and holding it some distance from her. "Am I to love you as if you were a brother? Is it in my power to love you like that?" Julien melted into tears. "I will obey you," he said, falling at her feet. "I will obey you in whatever you order me. That is all there is left for me to do. My mind is struck with blindness. I do not see any course to take. If I leave you you will tell your husband everything. You will ruin yourself and him as well. He will never be nominated deputy after incurring such ridicule. If I stay, you will think I am the cause of your son's death, and you will die of grief. Do you wish to try the effect of my departure. If you wish, I will punish myself for our sin by leaving you for eight days. I will pass them in any retreat you like. In the abbey of Bray-le-Haut, for instance. But swear that you will say nothing to your husband during my absence. Remember that if you speak I shall never be able to come back." She promised and he left, but was called back at the end of two days. "It is impossible for me to keep my oath without you. I shall speak to my husband if you are not constantly there to enjoin me to silence by your looks. Every hour of this abominable life seems to last a day." Finally heaven had pity on this unfortunate mother. Little by little Stanislas got out of danger. But the ice was broken. Her reason had realised the extent of her sin. She could not recover her equilibrium again. Her pangs of remorse remained, and were what they ought to have been in so sincere a heart. Her life was heaven and hell: hell when she did not see Julien; heaven when she was at his feet. "I do not deceive myself any more," she would say to him, even during the moments when she dared to surrender herself to his full love. "I am damned, irrevocably damned. You are young, heaven may forgive you, but I, I am damned. I know it by a certain sign. I am afraid, who would not be afraid at the sight of hell? but at the bottom of my heart I do not repent at all. I would commit my sin over again if I had the opportunity. If heaven will only forbear to punish me in this world and through my children, I shall have more than I deserve. But you, at any rate, my Julien," she would cry at other moments, "are you happy? Do you think I love you enough?" The suspiciousness and morbid pride of Julien, who needed, above all, a self-sacrificing love, altogether vanished when he saw at every hour of the day so great and indisputable a sacrifice. He adored Madame de Renal. "It makes no difference her being noble, and my being a labourer's son. She loves me.... she does not regard me as a valet charged with the functions of a lover." That fear once dismissed, Julien fell into all the madness of love, into all its deadly uncertainties. "At any rate," she would cry, seeing his doubts of her love, "let me feel quite happy during the three days we still have together. Let us make haste; perhaps to-morrow will be too late. If heaven strikes me through my children, it will be in vain that I shall try only to live to love you, and to be blind to the fact that it is my crime which has killed them. I could not survive that blow. Even if I wished I could not; I should go mad." "Ah, if only I could take your sin on myself as you so generously offered to take Stanislas' burning fever!" This great moral crisis changed the character of the sentiment which united Julien and his mistress. His love was no longer simply admiration for her beauty, and the pride of possessing her. Henceforth their happiness was of a quite superior character. The flame which consumed them was more intense. They had transports filled with madness. Judged by the worldly standard their happiness would have appeared intensified. But they no longer found that delicious serenity, that cloudless happiness, that facile joy of the first period of their love, when Madame de Renal's only fear was that Julien did not love her enough. Their happiness had at times the complexion of crime. In their happiest and apparently their most tranquil moments, Madame de Renal would suddenly cry out, "Oh, great God, I see hell," as she pressed Julien's hand with a convulsive grasp. "What horrible tortures! I have well deserved them." She grasped him and hung on to him like ivy onto a wall. Julien would try in vain to calm that agitated soul. She would take his hand, cover it with kisses. Then, relapsing into a gloomy reverie, she would say, "Hell itself would be a blessing for me. I should still have some days to pass with him on this earth, but hell on earth, the death of my children. Still, perhaps my crime will be forgiven me at that price. Oh, great God, do not grant me my pardon at so great a price. These poor children have in no way transgressed against You. I, I am the only culprit. I love a man who is not my husband." Julien subsequently saw Madame de Renal attain what were apparently moments of tranquillity. She was endeavouring to control herself; she did not wish to poison the life of the man she loved. They found the days pass with the rapidity of lightning amid these alternating moods of love, remorse, and voluptuousness. Julien lost the habit of reflecting. Mademoiselle Elisa went to attend to a little lawsuit which she had at Verrieres. She found Valenod very piqued against Julien. She hated the tutor and would often speak about him. "You will ruin me, Monsieur, if I tell the truth," she said one day to Valenod. "All masters have an understanding amongst themselves with regard to matters of importance. There are certain disclosures which poor servants are never forgiven." After these stereotyped phrases, which his curiosity managed to cut short, Monsieur Valenod received some information extremely mortifying to his self-conceit. This woman, who was the most distinguished in the district, the woman on whom he had lavished so much attention in the last six years, and made no secret of it, more was the pity, this woman who was so proud, whose disdain had put him to the blush times without number, had just taken for her lover a little workman masquerading as a tutor. And to fill the cup of his jealousy, Madame de Renal adored that lover. "And," added the housemaid with a sigh, "Julien did not put himself out at all to make his conquest, his manner was as cold as ever, even with Madame." Elisa had only become certain in the country, but she believed that this intrigue dated from much further back. "That is no doubt the reason," she added spitefully, "why he refused to marry me. And to think what a fool I was when I went to consult Madame de Renal and begged her to speak to the tutor." The very same evening, M. de Renal received from the town, together with his paper, a long anonymous letter which apprised him in the greatest detail of what was taking place in his house. Julien saw him pale as he read this letter written on blue paper, and look at him with a malicious expression. During all that evening the mayor failed to throw off his trouble. It was in vain that Julien paid him court by asking for explanations about the genealogy of the best families in Burgundy. CHAPTER XX ANONYMOUS LETTERS Do not give dalliance Too much the rein; the strongest oaths are straw To the fire i' the blood.--_Tempest_. As they left the drawing-room about midnight, Julien had time to say to his love, "Don't let us see each other to-night. Your husband has suspicions. I would swear that that big letter he read with a sigh was an anonymous letter." Fortunately, Julien locked himself into his room. Madame de Renal had the mad idea that this warning was only a pretext for not seeing her. She absolutely lost her head, and came to his door at the accustomed hour. Julien, who had heard the noise in the corridor, immediately blew out his lamp. Someone was trying to open the door. Was it Madame de Renal? Was it a jealous husband? Very early next morning the cook, who liked Julien, brought him a book, on the cover of which he read these words written in Italian: _Guardate alla pagina_ 130. Julien shuddered at the imprudence, looked for page 130, and found pinned to it the following letter hastily written, bathed with tears, and full of spelling mistakes. Madame de Renal was usually very correct. He was touched by this circumstance, and somewhat forgot the awfulness of the indiscretion. "So you did not want to receive me to-night? There are moments when I think that I have never read down to the depths of your soul. Your looks frighten me. I am afraid of you. Great God! perhaps you have never loved me? In that case let my husband discover my love, and shut me up in a prison in the country far away from my children. Perhaps God wills it so. I shall die soon, but you will have proved yourself a monster. "Do you not love me? Are you tired of my fits of folly and of remorse, you wicked man? Do you wish to ruin me? I will show you an easy way. Go and show this letter to all Verrieres, or rather show it to M. Valenod. Tell him that I love you, nay, do not utter such a blasphemy, tell him I adore you, that it was only on the day I saw you that my life commenced; that even in the maddest moments of my youth I never even dreamt of the happiness that I owe to you, that I have sacrificed my life to you and that I am sacrificing my soul. You know that I am sacrificing much more. But does that man know the meaning of sacrifice? Tell him, I say, simply to irritate him, that I will defy all evil tongues, that the only misfortune for me in the whole world would be to witness any change in the only man who holds me to life. What a happiness it would be to me to lose my life, to offer it up as a sacrifice and to have no longer any fear for my children. "Have no doubt about it, dear one, if it is an anonymous letter, it comes from that odious being who has persecuted me for the last six years with his loud voice, his stories about his jumps on horseback, his fatuity, and the never ending catalogue of all his advantages. "Is there an anonymous letter? I should like to discuss that question with you, you wicked man; but no, you acted rightly. Clasping you in my arms perhaps for the last time, I should never have been able to argue as coldly as I do, now that I am alone. From this moment our happiness will no longer be so easy. Will that be a vexation for you? Yes, on those days when you haven't received some amusing book from M. Fouque. The sacrifice is made; to-morrow, whether there is or whether there is not any anonymous letter, I myself will tell my husband I have received an anonymous letter and that it is necessary to give you a golden bridge at once, find some honourable excuse, and send you back to your parents without delay. "Alas, dear one, we are going to be separated for a fortnight, perhaps a month! Go, I will do you justice, you will suffer as much as I, but anyway, this is the only means of disposing of this anonymous letter. It is not the first that my husband has received, and on my score too. Alas! how I used to laugh over them! "My one aim is to make my husband think that the letter comes from M. Valenod; I have no doubt that he is its author. If you leave the house, make a point of establishing yourself at Verrieres; I will manage that my husband should think of passing a fortnight there in order to prove to the fools there was no coldness between him and me. Once at Verrieres, establish ties of friendship with everyone, even with the Liberals. I am sure that all their ladies will seek you out. "Do not quarrel with M. Valenod, or cut off his ears, as you said you would one day. Try, on the contrary, to ingratiate yourself with him. The essential point is that it should be notorious in Verrieres that you are going to enter the household either of Valenod or of someone else to take charge of the children's education. "That is what my husband will never put up with. If he does feel bound to resign himself to it, well, at any rate, you will be living in Verrieres and I shall be seeing you sometimes. My children, who love you so much, will go and see you. Great God! I feel that I love my children all the more because they love you. How is all this going to end? I am wandering.... Anyway you understand your line of conduct. Be nice, polite, but not in any way disdainful to those coarse persons. I ask you on my knees; they will be the arbiters of our fate. Do not fear for a moment but that, so far as you are concerned, my husband will conform to what public opinion lays down for him. "It is you who will supply me with the anonymous letter. Equip yourself with patience and a pair of scissors, cut out from a book the words which you will see, then stick them with the mouth-glue on to the leaf of loose paper which I am sending you. It comes to me from M. Valenod. Be on your guard against a search in your room; burn the pages of the book which you are going to mutilate. If you do not find the words ready-made, have the patience to form them letter by letter. I have made the anonymous letter too short. ANONYMOUS LETTER. 'MADAME, All your little goings-on are known, but the persons interested in stopping have been warned. I have still sufficient friendship left for you to urge you to cease all relations with the little peasant. If you are sensible enough to do this, your husband will believe that the notification he has received is misleading, and he will be left in his illusion. Remember that I have your secret; tremble, unhappy woman, you must now _walk straight_ before me.' "As soon as you have finished glueing together the words that make up this letter (have you recognised the director's special style of speech) leave the house, I will meet you. "I will go into the village and come back with a troubled face. As a matter of fact I shall be very much troubled. Great God! What a risk I run, and all because you thought you guessed an anonymous letter. Finally, looking very much upset, I shall give this letter to my husband and say that an unknown man handed it to me. As for you, go for a walk with the children, on the road to the great woods, and do not come back before dinner-time. "You will be able to see the tower of the dovecot from the top of the rocks. If things go well for us, I will place a white handkerchief there, in case of the contrary, there will be nothing at all. "Ungrateful man, will not your heart find out some means of telling me that you love me before you leave for that walk. Whatever happens, be certain of one thing: I shall never survive our final separation by a single day. Oh, you bad mother! but what is the use of my writing those two words, dear Julien? I do not feel them, at this moment I can only think of you. I have only written them so as not to be blamed by you, but what is the good of deception now that I find myself face to face with losing you? Yes, let my soul seem monstrous to you, but do not let me lie to the man whom I adore. I have already deceived only too much in this life of mine. Go! I forgive you if you love me no more. I have not the time to read over my letter. It is a small thing in my eyes to pay for the happy days that I have just passed in your arms with the price of my life. You know that they will cost me more." CHAPTER XXI DIALOGUE WITH A MASTER Alas, our frailty is the cause, not we; For such as we are made of, such we be.--_Twelfth Night_. It was with a childish pleasure that for a whole hour Julien put the words together. As he came out of his room, he met his pupils with their mother. She took the letter with a simplicity and a courage whose calmness terrified him. "Is the mouth-glue dry enough yet?" she asked him. "And is this the woman who was so maddened by remorse?" he thought. "What are her plans at this moment?" He was too proud to ask her, but she had never perhaps pleased him more. "If this turns out badly," she added with the same coolness, "I shall be deprived of everything. Take charge of this, and bury it in some place of the mountain. It will perhaps one day be my only resource." She gave him a glass case in red morocco filled with gold and some diamonds. "Now go," she said to him. She kissed the children, embracing the youngest twice. Julien remained motionless. She left him at a rapid pace without looking at him. From the moment that M. de Renal had opened the anonymous letter his life had been awful. He had not been so agitated since a duel which he had just missed having in 1816, and to do him justice, the prospect of receiving a bullet would have made him less unhappy. He scrutinised the letter from every standpoint. "Is that not a woman's handwriting?" he said to himself. In that case, what woman had written it? He reviewed all those whom he knew at Verrieres without being able to fix his suspicions on any one. Could a man have dictated that letter? Who was that man? Equal uncertainty on this point. The majority of his acquaintances were jealous of him, and, no doubt, hated him. "I must consult my wife," he said to himself through habit, as he got up from the arm-chair in which he had collapsed. "Great God!" he said aloud before he got up, striking his head, "it is she above all of whom I must be distrustful. At the present moment she is my enemy," and tears came into his eyes through sheer anger. By a poetic justice for that hardness of heart which constitutes the provincial idea of shrewdness, the two men whom M. de Renal feared the most at the present moment were his two most intimate friends. "I have ten friends perhaps after those," and he passed them in review, gauging the degree of consolation which he could get from each one. "All of them, all of them," he exclaimed in a rage, "will derive the most supreme pleasure from my awful experience." As luck would have it, he thought himself envied, and not without reason. Apart from his superb town mansion in which the king of ---- had recently spent the night, and thus conferred on it an enduring honour, he had decorated his chateau at Vergy extremely well. The facade was painted white and the windows adorned with fine green shutters. He was consoled for a moment by the thought of this magnificence. The fact was that this chateau was seen from three or four leagues off, to the great prejudice of all the country houses or so-called chateaux of the neighbourhood, which had been left in the humble grey colour given them by time. There was one of his friends on whose pity and whose tears M. de Renal could count, the churchwarden of the parish; but he was an idiot who cried at everything. This man, however, was his only resource. "What unhappiness is comparable to mine," he exclaimed with rage. "What isolation!" "Is it possible?" said this truly pitiable man to himself. "Is it possible that I have no friend in my misfortune of whom I can ask advice? for my mind is wandering, I feel it. Oh, Falcoz! oh, Ducros!" he exclaimed with bitterness. Those were the names of two friends of his childhood whom he had dropped owing to his snobbery in 1814. They were not noble, and he had wished to change the footing of equality on which they had been living with him since their childhood. One of them, Falcoz, a paper-merchant of Verrieres, and a man of intellect and spirit, had bought a printing press in the chief town of the department and undertaken the production of a journal. The priestly congregation had resolved to ruin him; his journal had been condemned, and he had been deprived of his printer's diploma. In these sad circumstances he ventured to write to M. de Renal for the first time for ten years. The mayor of Verrieres thought it his duty to answer in the old Roman style: "If the King's Minister were to do me the honour of consulting me, I should say to him, ruin ruthlessly all the provincial printers, and make printing a monopoly like tobacco." M. de Renal was horrified to remember the terms of this letter to an intimate friend whom all Verrieres had once admired, "Who would have said that I, with my rank, my fortune, my decorations, would ever come to regret it?" It was in these transports of rage, directed now against himself, now against all his surroundings, that he passed an awful night; but, fortunately, it never occurred to him to spy on his wife. "I am accustomed to Louise," he said to himself, "she knows all my affairs. If I were free to marry to-morrow, I should not find anyone to take her place." Then he began to plume himself on the idea that his wife was innocent. This point of view did not require any manifestation of character, and suited him much better. "How many calumniated women has one not seen?" "But," he suddenly exclaimed, as he walked about feverishly, "shall I put up with her making a fool of me with her lover as though I were a man of no account, some mere ragamuffin? Is all Verrieres to make merry over my complaisance? What have they not said about Charmier (he was a husband in the district who was notoriously deceived)? Was there not a smile on every lip at the mention of his name? He is a good advocate, but whoever said anything about his talent for speaking? 'Oh, Charmier,' they say, 'Bernard's Charmier,' he is thus designated by the name of the man who disgraces him." "I have no daughter, thank heaven," M. de Renal would say at other times, "and the way in which I am going to punish the mother will consequently not be so harmful to my children's household. I could surprise this little peasant with my wife and kill them both; in that case the tragedy of the situation would perhaps do away with the grotesque element." This idea appealed to him. He followed it up in all its details. "The penal code is on my side, and whatever happens our congregation and my friends on the jury will save me." He examined his hunting-knife which was quite sharp, but the idea of blood frightened him. "I could thrash this insolent tutor within an inch of his life and hound him out of the house; but what a sensation that would make in Verrieres and even over the whole department! After Falcoz' journal had been condemned, and when its chief editor left prison, I had a hand in making him lose his place of six hundred francs a year. They say that this scribbler has dared to show himself again in Besancon. He may lampoon me adroitly and in such a way that it will be impossible to bring him up before the courts. Bring him up before the courts! The insolent wretch will insinuate in a thousand and one ways that he has spoken the truth. A well-born man who keeps his place like I do, is hated by all the plebeians. I shall see my name in all those awful Paris papers. Oh, my God, what depths. To see the ancient name of Renal plunged in the mire of ridicule. If I ever travel I shall have to change my name. What! abandon that name which is my glory and my strength. Could anything be worse than that? "If I do not kill my wife but turn her out in disgrace, she has her aunt in Besancon who is going to hand all her fortune over to her. My wife will go and live in Paris with Julien. It will be known at Verrieres, and I shall be taken for a dupe." The unhappy man then noticed from the paleness of the lamplight that the dawn was beginning to appear. He went to get a little fresh air in the garden. At this moment he had almost determined to make no scandal, particularly in view of the fact that a scandal would overwhelm with joy all his good friends in Verrieres. The promenade in the garden calmed him a little. "No," he exclaimed, "I shall not deprive myself of my wife, she is too useful to me." He imagined with horror what his house would be without his wife. The only relative he had was the Marquise of R---- old, stupid, and malicious. A very sensible idea occurred to him, but its execution required a strength of character considerably superior to the small amount of character which the poor man possessed. "If I keep my wife," he said to himself, "I know what I shall do one day; on some occasion when she makes me lose patience, I shall reproach her with her guilt. She is proud, we shall quarrel, and all this will happen before she has inherited her aunt's fortune. And how they will all make fun of me then! My wife loves her children, the result will be that everything will go to them. But as for me, I shall be the laughing-stock of Verrieres. 'What,' they will say, 'he could not even manage to revenge himself on his wife!' Would it not be better to leave it and verify nothing? In that case I tie my hands, and cannot afterwards reproach her with anything." An instant afterwards M. de Renal, once more a prey to wounded vanity, set himself laboriously to recollect all the methods of procedure mentioned in the billiard-room of the _Casino_ or the _Nobles' Club_ in Verrieres, when some fine talker interrupted the pool to divert himself at the expense of some deceived husband. How cruel these pleasantries appeared to him at the present moment! "My God, why is my wife not dead! then I should be impregnable against ridicule. Why am I not a widower? I should go and pass six months in Paris in the best society. After this moment of happiness occasioned by the idea of widowerhood, his imagination reverted to the means of assuring himself of the truth. Should he put a slight layer of bran before the door of Julien's room at midnight after everyone had gone to bed? He would see the impression of the feet in the following morning. "But that's no good," he suddenly exclaimed with rage. "That inquisitive Elisa will notice it, and they will soon know all over the house that I am jealous." In another _Casino_ tale a husband had assured himself of his misfortune by tying a hair with a little wax so that it shut the door of the gallant as effectually as a seal. After so many hours of uncertainty this means of clearing up his fate seemed to him emphatically the best, and he was thinking of availing himself of it when, in one of the turnings of the avenue he met the very woman whom he would like to have seen dead. She was coming back from the village. She had gone to hear mass in the church of Vergy. A tradition, extremely doubtful in the eyes of the cold philosopher, but in which she believed, alleges that the little church was once the chapel of the chateau of the Lord of Vergy. This idea obsessed Madame de Renal all the time in the church that she had counted on spending in prayer. She kept on imagining to herself the spectacle of her husband killing Julien when out hunting as though by accident, and then making her eat his heart in the evening. "My fate," she said to herself, "depends on what he will think when he listens to me. It may be I shall never get another opportunity of speaking to him after this fatal quarter of an hour. He is not a reasonable person who is governed by his intellect. In that case, with the help of my weak intelligence, I could anticipate what he will do or say. He will decide our common fate. He has the power. But this fate depends on my adroitness, on my skill in directing the ideas of this crank, who is blinded by his rage and unable to see half of what takes place. Great God! I need talent and coolness, where shall I get it?" She regained her calmness as though by magic, and she entered the garden and saw her husband in the distance. His dishevelled hair and disordered dress showed that he had not slept. She gave him a letter with a broken seal but folded. As for him, without opening it, he gazed at his wife with the eyes of a madman. "Here's an abominable thing," she said to him, "which an evil-looking man who makes out that he knows you and is under an obligation to you, handed to me as I was passing behind the notary's garden. I insist on one thing and that is that you send back this M. Julien to his parents and without delay." Madame de Renal hastened to say these words, perhaps a little before the psychological moment, in order to free herself from the awful prospect of having to say them. She was seized with joy on seeing that which she was occasioning to her husband. She realised from the fixed stare which he was rivetting on her that Julien had surmised rightly. "What a genius he is to be so brilliantly diplomatic instead of succumbing to so real a misfortune," she thought. "He will go very far in the future! Alas, his successes will only make him forget me." This little act of admiration for the man whom she adored quite cured her of her trouble. She congratulated herself on her tactics. "I have not been unworthy of Julien," she said to herself with a sweet and secret pleasure. M. de Renal kept examining the second anonymous letter which the reader may remember was composed of printed words glued on to a paper verging on blue. He did not say a word for fear of giving himself away. "They still make fun of me in every possible way," said M. de Renal to himself, overwhelmed with exhaustion. "Still more new insults to examine and all the time on account of my wife." He was on the point of heaping on her the coarsest insults. He was barely checked by the prospects of the Besancon legacy. Consumed by the need of venting his feelings on something, he crumpled up the paper of the second anonymous letter and began to walk about with huge strides. He needed to get away from his wife. A few moments afterwards he came back to her in a quieter frame of mind. "The thing is to take some definite line and send Julien away," she said immediately, "after all it is only a labourer's son. You will compensate him by a few crowns and besides he is clever and will easily manage to find a place, with M. Valenod for example, or with the sub-prefect De Maugiron who both have children. In that way you will not be doing him any wrong...." "There you go talking like the fool that you are," exclaimed M. de Renal in a terrible voice. "How can one hope that a woman will show any good sense? You never bother yourself about common sense. How can you ever get to know anything? Your indifference and your idleness give you no energy except for hunting those miserable butterflies, which we are unfortunate to have in our houses." Madame de Renal let him speak and he spoke for a long time. _He was working off his anger_, to use the local expression. "Monsieur," she answered him at last, "I speak as a woman who has been outraged in her honour, that is to say, in what she holds most precious." Madame de Renal preserved an unalterable sang-froid during all this painful conversation on the result of which depended the possibility of still living under the same roof as Julien. She sought for the ideas which she thought most adapted to guide her husband's blind anger into a safe channel. She had been insensible to all the insulting imputations which he had addressed to her. She was not listening to them, she was then thinking about Julien. "Will he be pleased with me?" "This little peasant whom we have loaded with attentions, and even with presents, may be innocent," she said to him at last, "but he is none the less the occasion of the first affront that I have ever received. Monsieur, when I read this abominable paper, I vowed to myself that either he or I should leave your house." "Do you want to make a scandal so as to dishonour me and yourself as well? You will make things hum in Verrieres I can assure you." "It is true, the degree of prosperity in which your prudent management has succeeded in placing you yourself, your family and the town is the subject of general envy.... Well, I will urge Julien to ask you for a holiday to go and spend the month with that wood-merchant of the mountains, a fit friend to be sure for this little labourer." "Mind you do nothing at all," resumed M. de Renal with a fair amount of tranquillity. "I particularly insist on your not speaking to him. You will put him into a temper and make him quarrel with me. You know to what extent this little gentleman is always spoiling for a quarrel." "That young man has no tact," resumed Madame de Renal. "He may be learned, you know all about that, but at bottom he is only a peasant. For my own part I never thought much of him since he refused to marry Elisa. It was an assured fortune; and that on the pretext that sometimes she had made secret visits to M. Valenod." "Ah," said M. de Renal, lifting up his eyebrows inordinately. "What, did Julien tell you that?" "Not exactly, he always talked of the vocation which calls him to the holy ministry, but believe me, the first vocation for those lower-class people is getting their bread and butter. He gave me to understand that he was quite aware of her secret visits." "And I--I was ignorant," exclaimed M. de Renal, growing as angry as before and accentuating his words. "Things take place in my house which I know nothing about.... What! has there been anything between Elisa and Valenod?" "Oh, that's old history, my dear," said Madame de Renal with a smile, "and perhaps no harm has come of it. It was at the time when your good friend Valenod would not have minded their thinking at Verrieres that a perfectly platonic little affection was growing up between him and me." "I had that idea once myself," exclaimed M. de Renal, furiously striking his head as he progressed from discovery to discovery, "and you told me nothing about it." "Should one set two friends by the ears on account of a little fit of vanity on the part of our dear director? What society woman has not had addressed to her a few letters which were both extremely witty and even a little gallant?" "He has written to you?" "He writes a great deal." "Show me those letters at once, I order you," and M. de Renal pulled himself up to his six feet. "I will do nothing of the kind," he was answered with a sweetness verging on indifference. "I will show you them one day when you are in a better frame of mind." "This very instant, odds life," exclaimed M. de Renal, transported with rage and yet happier than he had been for twelve hours. "Will you swear to me," said Madame de Renal quite gravely, "never to quarrel with the director of the workhouse about these letters?" "Quarrel or no quarrel, I can take those foundlings away from him, but," he continued furiously, "I want those letters at once. Where are they?" "In a drawer in my secretary, but I shall certainly not give you the key." "I'll manage to break it," he cried, running towards his wife's room. He did break in fact with a bar of iron a costly secretary of veined mahogany which came from Paris and which he had often been accustomed to wipe with the nap of his coat, when he thought he had detected a spot. Madame de Renal had climbed up at a run the hundred and twenty steps of the dovecot. She tied the corner of a white handkerchief to one of the bars of iron of the little window. She was the happiest of women. With tears in her eyes she looked towards the great mountain forest. "Doubtless," she said to herself, "Julien is watching for this happy signal." She listened attentively for a long time and then she cursed the monotonous noise of the grasshopper and the song of the birds. "Had it not been for that importunate noise, a cry of joy starting from the big rocks could have arrived here." Her greedy eye devoured that immense slope of dark verdure which was as level as a meadow. "Why isn't he clever enough," she said to herself, quite overcome, "to invent some signal to tell me that his happiness is equal to mine?" She only came down from the dovecot when she was frightened of her husband coming there to look for her. She found him furious. He was perusing the soothing phrases of M. de Valenod and reading them with an emotion to which they were but little used. "I always come back to the same idea," said Madame de Renal seizing a moment when a pause in her husband's ejaculations gave her the possibility of getting heard. "It is necessary for Julien to travel. Whatever talent he may have for Latin, he is only a peasant after all, often coarse and lacking in tact. Thinking to be polite, he addresses inflated compliments to me every day, which are in bad taste. He learns them by heart out of some novel or other." "He never reads one," exclaimed M. de Renal. "I am assured of it. Do you think that I am the master of a house who is so blind as to be ignorant of what takes place in his own home." "Well, if he doesn't read these droll compliments anywhere, he invents them, and that's all the worse so far as he is concerned. He must have talked about me in this tone in Verrieres and perhaps without going so far," said Madame Renal with the idea of making a discovery, "he may have talked in the same strain to Elisa, which is almost the same as if he had said it to M. Valenod." "Ah," exclaimed M. de Renal, shaking the table and the room with one of the most violent raps ever made by a human fist. "The anonymous printed letter and Valenod's letters are written on the same paper." "At last," thought Madame de Renal. She pretended to be overwhelmed at this discovery, and without having the courage to add a single word, went and sat down some way off on the divan at the bottom of the drawing-room. From this point the battle was won. She had a great deal of trouble in preventing M. de Renal from going to speak to the supposed author of the anonymous letter. "What, can't you see that making a scene with M. Valenod without sufficient proof would be the most signal mistake? You are envied, Monsieur, and who is responsible? Your talents: your wise management, your tasteful buildings, the dowry which I have brought you, and above all, the substantial legacy which we are entitled to hope for from my good aunt, a legacy, the importance of which is inordinately exaggerated, have made you into the first person in Verrieres." "You are forgetting my birth," said M. de Renal, smiling a little. "You are one of the most distinguished gentlemen in the province," replied Madame de Renal emphatically. "If the king were free and could give birth its proper due, you would no doubt figure in the Chamber of Peers, etc. And being in this magnificent position, you yet wish to give the envious a fact to take hold of." "To speak about this anonymous letter to M. Valenod is equivalent to proclaiming over the whole of Verrieres, nay, over the whole of Besancon, over the whole province that this little bourgeois who has been admitted perhaps imprudently to intimacy _with a Renal_, has managed to offend him. At the time when those letters which you have just taken prove that I have reciprocated M. Valenod's love, you ought to kill me. I should have deserved it a hundred times over, but not to show him your anger. Remember that all our neighbours are only waiting for an excuse to revenge themselves for your superiority. Remember that in 1816 you had a hand in certain arrests. "I think that you show neither consideration nor love for me," exclaimed M. de Renal with all the bitterness evoked by such a memory, "and I was not made a peer." "I am thinking, my dear," resumed Madame de Renal with a smile, "that I shall be richer than you are, that I have been your companion for twelve years, and that by virtue of those qualifications I am entitled to have a voice in the council and, above all, in to-day's business. If you prefer M. Julien to me," she added, with a touch of temper which was but thinly disguised, "I am ready to go and pass a winter with my aunt." These words proved a lucky shot. They possessed a firmness which endeavoured to clothe itself with courtesy. It decided M. de Renal, but following the provincial custom, he still thought for a long time, and went again over all his arguments; his wife let him speak. There was still a touch of anger in his intonation. Finally two hours of futile rant exhausted the strength of a man who had been subject during the whole night to a continuous fit of anger. He determined on the line of conduct he was going to follow with regard to M. Valenod, Julien and even Elisa. Madame de Renal was on the point once or twice during this great scene of feeling some sympathy for the very real unhappiness of the man who had been so dear to her for twelve years. But true passions are selfish. Besides she was expecting him every instant to mention the anonymous letter which he had received the day before and he did not mention it. In order to feel quite safe, Madame de Renal wanted to know the ideas which the letter had succeeding in suggesting to the man on whom her fate depended, for, in the provinces the husbands are the masters of public opinion. A husband who complains covers himself with ridicule, an inconvenience which becomes no less dangerous in France with each succeeding year; but if he refuses to provide his wife with money, she falls to the status of a labouring woman at fifteen sous a day, while the virtuous souls have scruples about employing her. An odalisque in the seraglio can love the Sultan with all her might. He is all-powerful and she has no hope of stealing his authority by a series of little subtleties. The master's vengeance is terrible and bloody but martial and generous; a dagger thrust finishes everything. But it is by stabbing her with public contempt that a nineteenth-century husband kills his wife. It is by shutting against her the doors of all the drawing-rooms. When Madame de Renal returned to her room, her feeling of danger was vividly awakened. She was shocked by the disorder in which she found it. The locks of all the pretty little boxes had been broken. Many planks in the floor had been lifted up. "He would have no pity on me," she said to herself. "To think of his spoiling like this, this coloured wood floor which he likes so much; he gets red with rage whenever one of his children comes into it with wet shoes, and now it is spoilt for ever." The spectacle of this violence immediately banished the last scruples which she was entertaining with respect to that victory which she had won only too rapidly. Julien came back with the children a little before the dinner-bell. Madame de Renal said to him very drily at dessert when the servant had left the room: "You have told me about your wish to go and spend a fortnight at Verrieres. M. de Renal is kind enough to give you a holiday. You can leave as soon as you like, but the childrens' exercises will be sent to you every day so that they do not waste their time." "I shall certainly not allow you more than a week," said M. de Renal in a very bitter tone. Julien thought his visage betrayed the anxiety of a man who was seriously harassed. "He has not yet decided what line to take," he said to his love during a moment when they were alone together in the drawing-room. Madame de Renal rapidly recounted to him all she had done since the morning. "The details are for to-night," she added with a smile. "Feminine perversity," thought Julien, "What can be the pleasure, what can be the instinct which induces them to deceive us." "I think you are both enlightened and at the same time blinded by your love," he said to her with some coldness. "Your conduct to-day has been admirable, but is it prudent for us to try and see each other to-night? This house is paved with enemies. Just think of Elisa's passionate hatred for me." "That hate is very like the passionate indifference which you no doubt have for me." "Even if I were indifferent I ought to save you from the peril in which I have plunged you. If chance so wills it that M. de Renal should speak to Elisa, she can acquaint him with everything in a single word. What is to prevent him from hiding near my room fully armed?" "What, not even courage?" said Madame de Renal, with all the haughtiness of a scion of nobility. "I will never demean myself to speak about my courage," said Julien, coldly, "it would be mean to do so. Let the world judge by the facts. But," he added, taking her hand, "you have no idea how devoted I am to you and how over-joyed I am of being able to say good-bye to you before this cruel separation." CHAPTER XXII MANNERS OF PROCEDURE IN 1830 Speech has been given to man to conceal his thought. _R.P. Malagrida_. Julien had scarcely arrived at Verrieres before he reproached himself with his injustice towards Madame de Renal. "I should have despised her for a weakling of a woman if she had not had the strength to go through with her scene with M. de Renal. But she has acquitted herself like a diplomatist and I sympathise with the defeat of the man who is my enemy. There is a bourgeois prejudice in my action; my vanity is offended because M. de Renal is a man. Men form a vast and illustrious body to which I have the honour to belong. I am nothing but a fool." M. Chelan had refused the magnificent apartments which the most important Liberals in the district had offered him, when his loss of his living had necessitated his leaving the parsonage. The two rooms which he had rented were littered with his books. Julien, wishing to show Verrieres what a priest could do, went and fetched a dozen pinewood planks from his father, carried them on his back all along the Grande-Rue, borrowed some tools from an old comrade and soon built a kind of book-case in which he arranged M. Chelan's books. "I thought you were corrupted by the vanity of the world," said the old man to him as he cried with joy, "but this is something which well redeems all the childishness of that brilliant Guard of Honour uniform which has made you so many enemies." M. de Renal had ordered Julien to stay at his house. No one suspected what had taken place. The third day after his arrival Julien saw no less a personage than M. the sub-prefect de Maugiron come all the way up the stairs to his room. It was only after two long hours of fatuous gossip and long-winded lamentations about the wickedness of man, the lack of honesty among the people entrusted with the administration of the public funds, the dangers of his poor France, etc. etc., that Julien was at last vouchsafed a glimpse of the object of the visit. They were already on the landing of the staircase and the poor half disgraced tutor was escorting with all proper deference the future prefect of some prosperous department, when the latter was pleased to take an interest in Julien's fortune, to praise his moderation in money matters, etc., etc. Finally M. de Maugiron, embracing him in the most paternal way, proposed that he should leave M. de Renal and enter the household of an official who had children to educate and who, like King Philippe, thanked Heaven not so much that they had been granted to him, but for the fact that they had been born in the same neighbourhood as M. Julien. Their tutor would enjoy a salary of 800 francs, payable not from month to month, which is not at all aristocratic, said M. de Maugiron, but quarterly and always in advance. It was Julien's turn now. After he had been bored for an hour and a half by waiting for what he had to say, his answer was perfect and, above all, as long as a bishop's charge. It suggested everything and yet said nothing clearly. It showed at the same time respect for M. de Renal, veneration for the public of Verrieres and gratitude to the distinguished sub-prefect. The sub-prefect, astonished at finding him more Jesuitical than himself, tried in vain to obtain something definite. Julien was delighted, seized the opportunity to practise, and started his answer all over again in different language. Never has an eloquent minister who wished to make the most of the end of a session when the Chamber really seemed desirous of waking up, said less in more words. M. de Maugiron had scarcely left before Julien began to laugh like a madman. In order to exploit his Jesuitical smartness, he wrote a nine-page letter to M. de Renal in which he gave him an account of all that had been said to him and humbly asked his advice. "But the old scoundrel has not told me the name of the person who is making the offer. It is bound to be M. Valenod who, no doubt, sees in my exile at Verrieres the result of his anonymous letter." Having sent off his despatch and feeling as satisfied as a hunter who at six o'clock in the morning on a fine autumn day, comes out into a plain that abounds with game, he went out to go and ask advice of M. Chelan. But before he had arrived at the good cure's, providence, wishing to shower favours upon him, threw in his path M. de Valenod, to whom he owned quite freely that his heart was torn in two; a poor lad such as he was owed an exclusive devotion to the vocation to which it had pleased Heaven to call him. But vocation was not everything in this base world. In order to work worthily at the vine of the Lord, and to be not totally unworthy of so many worthy colleagues, it was necessary to be educated; it was necessary to spend two expensive years at the seminary of Besancon; saving consequently became an imperative necessity, and was certainly much easier with a salary of eight hundred francs paid quarterly than with six hundred francs which one received monthly. On the other hand, did not Heaven, by placing him by the side of the young de Renals, and especially by inspiring him with a special devotion to them, seem to indicate that it was not proper to abandon that education for another one. Julien reached such a degree of perfection in that particular kind of eloquence which has succeeded the drastic quickness of the empire, that he finished by boring himself with the sound of his own words. On reaching home he found a valet of M. Valenod in full livery who had been looking for him all over the town, with a card inviting him to dinner for that same day. Julien had never been in that man's house. Only a few days before he had been thinking of nothing but the means of giving him a sound thrashing without getting into trouble with the police. Although the time of the dinner was one o'clock, Julien thought it was more deferential to present himself at half-past twelve at the office of M. the director of the workhouse. He found him parading his importance in the middle of a lot of despatch boxes. His large black whiskers, his enormous quantity of hair, his Greek bonnet placed across the top of his head, his immense pipe, his embroidered slippers, the big chains of gold crossed all over his breast, and the whole stock-in-trade of a provincial financier who considers himself prosperous, failed to impose on Julien in the least: They only made him think the more of the thrashing which he owed him. He asked for the honour of being introduced to Madame Valenod. She was dressing and was unable to receive him. By way of compensation he had the privilege of witnessing the toilet of M. the director of the workhouse. They subsequently went into the apartment of Madame Valenod, who introduced her children to him with tears in her eyes. This lady was one of the most important in Verrieres, had a big face like a man's, on which she had put rouge in honour of this great function. She displayed all the maternal pathos of which she was capable. Julien thought all the time of Madame de Renal. His distrust made him only susceptible to those associations which are called up by their opposites, but he was then affected to the verge of breaking down. This tendency was increased by the sight of the house of the director of the workhouse. He was shown over it. Everything in it was new and magnificent, and he was told the price of every article of furniture. But Julien detected a certain element of sordidness, which smacked of stolen money into the bargain. Everybody in it, down to the servants, had the air of setting his face in advance against contempt. The collector of taxes, the superintendent of indirect taxes, the officer of gendarmerie, and two or three other public officials arrived with their wives. They were followed by some rich Liberals. Dinner was announced. It occurred to Julien, who was already feeling upset, that there were some poor prisoners on the other side of the dining-room wall, and that an illicit profit had perhaps been made over their rations of meat in order to purchase all that garish luxury with which they were trying to overwhelm him. "Perhaps they are hungry at this very minute," he said to himself. He felt a choking in his throat. He found it impossible to eat and almost impossible to speak. Matters became much worse a quarter of an hour afterwards; they heard in the distance some refrains of a popular song that was, it must be confessed, a little vulgar, which was being sung by one of the inmates. M. Valenod gave a look to one of his liveried servants who disappeared and soon there was no more singing to be heard. At that moment a valet offered Julien some Rhine wine in a green glass and Madame Valenod made a point of asking him to note that this wine cost nine francs a bottle in the market. Julien held up his green glass and said to M. Valenod, "They are not singing that wretched song any more." "Zounds, I should think not," answered the triumphant governor. "I have made the rascals keep quiet." These words were too much for Julien. He had the manners of his new position, but he had not yet assimilated its spirit. In spite of all his hypocrisy and its frequent practice, he felt a big tear drip down his cheek. He tried to hide it in the green glass, but he found it absolutely impossible to do justice to the Rhine wine. "Preventing singing he said to himself: Oh, my God, and you suffer it." Fortunately nobody noticed his ill-bred emotion. The collector of taxes had struck up a royalist song. "So this," reflected Julien's conscience during the hubbub of the refrain which was sung in chorus, "is the sordid prosperity which you will eventually reach, and you will only enjoy it under these conditions and in company like this. You will, perhaps, have a post worth twenty thousand francs; but while you gorge yourself on meat, you will have to prevent a poor prisoner from singing; you will give dinners with the money which you have stolen out of his miserable rations and during your dinners he will be still more wretched. Oh, Napoleon, how sweet it was to climb to fortune in your way through the dangers of a battle, but to think of aggravating the pain of the unfortunate in this cowardly way." I own that the weakness which Julien had been manifesting in this soliloquy gives me a poor opinion of him. He is worthy of being the accomplice of those kid-gloved conspirators who purport to change the whole essence of a great country's existence, without wishing to have on their conscience the most trivial scratch. Julien was sharply brought back to his role. He had not been invited to dine in such good company simply to moon dreamily and say nothing. A retired manufacturer of cotton prints, a corresponding member of the Academy of Besancon and of that of Uzes, spoke to him from the other end of the table and asked him if what was said everywhere about his astonishing progress in the study of the New Testament was really true. A profound silence was suddenly inaugurated. A New Testament in Latin was found as though by magic in the possession of the learned member of the two Academies. After Julien had answered, part of a sentence in Latin was read at random. Julien then recited. His memory proved faithful and the prodigy was admired with all the boisterous energy of the end of dinner. Julien looked at the flushed faces of the ladies. A good many were not so plain. He recognised the wife of the collector, who was a fine singer. "I am ashamed, as a matter of fact, to talk Latin so long before these ladies," he said, turning his eyes on her. "If M. Rubigneau," that was the name of the member of the two Academies, "will be kind enough to read a Latin sentence at random instead of answering by following the Latin text, I will try to translate it impromptu." This second test completed his glory. Several Liberals were there, who, though rich, were none the less the happy fathers of children capable of obtaining scholarships, and had consequently been suddenly converted at the last mission. In spite of this diplomatic step, M. de Renal had never been willing to receive them in his house. These worthy people, who only knew Julien by name and from having seen him on horseback on the day of the king of ----'s entry, were his most noisy admirers. "When will those fools get tired of listening to this Biblical language, which they don't understand in the least," he thought. But, on the contrary, that language amused them by its strangeness and made them smile. But Julien got tired. As six o'clock struck he got up gravely and talked about a chapter in Ligorio's New Theology which he had to learn by heart to recite on the following day to M. Chelan, "for," he added pleasantly, "my business is to get lessons said by heart to me, and to say them by heart myself." There was much laughter and admiration; such is the kind of wit which is customary in Verrieres. Julien had already got up and in spite of etiquette everybody got up as well, so great is the dominion exercised by genius. Madame Valenod kept him for another quarter of an hour. He really must hear her children recite their catechisms. They made the most absurd mistakes which he alone noticed. He was careful not to point them out. "What ignorance of the first principles of religion," he thought. Finally he bowed and thought he could get away; but they insisted on his trying a fable of La Fontaine. "That author is quite immoral," said Julien to Madame Valenod. A certain fable on Messire Jean Chouart dares to pour ridicule on all that we hold most venerable. He is shrewdly blamed by the best commentators. Before Julien left he received four or five invitations to dinner. "This young man is an honour to the department," cried all the guests in chorus. They even went so far as to talk of a pension voted out of the municipal funds to put him in the position of continuing his studies at Paris. While this rash idea was resounding through the dining-room Julien had swiftly reached the front door. "You scum, you scum," he cried, three or four times in succession in a low voice as he indulged in the pleasure of breathing in the fresh air. He felt quite an aristocrat at this moment, though he was the very man who had been shocked for so long a period by the haughty smile of disdainful superiority which he detected behind all the courtesies addressed to him at M. de Renal's. He could not help realising the extreme difference. Why let us even forget the fact of its being money stolen from the poor inmates, he said to himself as he went away, let us forget also their stopping the singing. M. de Renal would never think of telling his guests the price of each bottle of wine with which he regales them, and as for this M. Valenod, and his chronic cataloguing of his various belongings, he cannot talk of his house, his estate, etc., in the presence of his wife without saying, "Your house, your estate." This lady, who was apparently so keenly alive to the delights of decorum, had just had an awful scene during the dinner with a servant who had broken a wine-glass and spoilt one of her dozens; and the servant too had answered her back with the utmost insolence. "What a collection," said Julien to himself; "I would not live like they do were they to give me half of all they steal. I shall give myself away one fine day. I should not be able to restrain myself from expressing the disgust with which they inspire one." It was necessary, however, to obey Madame de Renal's injunction and be present at several dinners of the same kind. Julien was the fashion; he was forgiven his Guard of Honour uniform, or rather that indiscretion was the real cause of his successes. Soon the only question in Verrieres was whether M. de Renal or M. the director of the workhouse would be the victor in the struggle for the clever young man. These gentlemen formed, together with M. Maslon, a triumvirate which had tyrannised over the town for a number of years. People were jealous of the mayor, and the Liberals had good cause for complaint, but, after all, he was noble and born for a superior position, while M. Valenod's father had not left him six hundred francs a year. His career had necessitated a transition from pitying the shabby green suit which had been so notorious in his youth, to envying the Norman horses, his gold chains, his Paris clothes, his whole present prosperity. Julien thought that he had discovered one honest man in the whirlpool of this novel world. He was a geometrist named Gros, and had the reputation of being a Jacobin. Julien, who had vowed to say nothing but that which he disbelieved himself, was obliged to watch himself carefully when speaking to M. Gros. He received big packets of exercises from Vergy. He was advised to visit his father frequently, and he fulfilled his unpleasant duty. In a word he was patching his reputation together pretty well, when he was thoroughly surprised to find himself woken up one morning by two hands held over his eyes. It was Madame de Renal who had made a trip to the town, and who, running up the stairs four at a time while she left her children playing with a pet rabbit, had reached Julien's room a moment before her sons. This moment was delicious but very short: Madame de Renal had disappeared when the children arrived with the rabbit which they wanted to show to their friend. Julien gave them all a hearty welcome, including the rabbit. He seemed at home again. He felt that he loved these children and that he enjoyed gossiping with them. He was astonished at the sweetness of their voices, at the simplicity and dignity of their little ways; he felt he needed to purge his imagination of all the vulgar practices and all the unpleasantnesses among which he had been living in Verrieres. For there everyone was always frightened of being scored off, and luxury and poverty were at daggers drawn. The people with whom he would dine would enter into confidences over the joint which were as humiliating for themselves as they were nauseating to the hearer. "You others, who are nobles, you are right to be proud," he said to Madame de Renal, as he gave her an account of all the dinners which he had put up with. "You're the fashion then," and she laughed heartily as she thought of the rouge which Madame Valenod thought herself obliged to put on each time she expected Julien. "I think she has designs on your heart," she added. The breakfast was delicious. The presence of the children, though apparently embarrassing, increased as a matter of fact the happiness of the party. The poor children did not know how to give expression to the joy at seeing Julien again. The servants had not failed to tell them that he had been offered two hundred francs a year more to educate the little Valenods. Stanislas-Xavier, who was still pale from his illness, suddenly asked his mother in the middle of the breakfast, the value of his silver cover and of the goblet in which he was drinking. "Why do you want to know that?" "I want to sell them to give the price to M. Julien so that he shan't be _done_ if he stays with us." Julien kissed him with tears in his eyes. His mother wept unrestrainedly, for Julien took Stanislas on his knees and explained to him that he should not use the word "done" which, when employed in that meaning was an expression only fit for the servants' hall. Seeing the pleasure which he was giving to Madame de Renal, he tried to explain the meaning of being "done" by picturesque illustrations which amused the children. "I understand," said Stanislas, "it's like the crow who is silly enough to let his cheese fall and be taken by the fox who has been playing the flatterer." Madame de Renal felt mad with joy and covered her children with kisses, a process which involved her leaning a little on Julien. Suddenly the door opened. It was M. de Renal. His severe and discontented expression contrasted strangely with the sweet joy which his presence dissipated. Madame de Renal grew pale, she felt herself incapable of denying anything. Julien seized command of the conversation and commenced telling M. the mayor in a loud voice the incident of the silver goblet which Stanislas wanted to sell. He was quite certain this story would not be appreciated. M. de Renal first of all frowned mechanically at the mere mention of money. Any allusion to that mineral, he was accustomed to say, is always a prelude to some demand made upon my purse. But this was something more than a mere money matter. His suspicions were increased. The air of happiness which animated his family during his absence was not calculated to smooth matters over with a man who was a prey to so touchy a vanity. "Yes, yes," he said, as his wife started to praise to him the combined grace and cleverness of the way in which Julien gave ideas to his pupils. "I know, he renders me hateful to my own children. It is easy enough for him to make himself a hundred times more loveable to them than I am myself, though after all, I am the master. In this century everything tends to make _legitimate_ authority unpopular. Poor France!" Madame de Renal had not stopped to examine the fine shades of the welcome which her husband gave her. She had just caught a glimpse of the possibility of spending twelve hours with Julien. She had a lot of purchases to make in the town and declared that she positively insisted in going to dine at the tavern. She stuck to her idea in spite of all her husband's protests and remonstrances. The children were delighted with the mere word tavern, which our modern prudery denounces with so much gusto. M. de Renal left his wife in the first draper's shop which she entered and went to pay some visits. He came back more morose than he had been in the morning. He was convinced that the whole town was busy with himself and Julien. As a matter of fact no one had yet given him any inkling as to the more offensive part of the public gossip. Those items which had been repeated to M. the mayor dealt exclusively with the question of whether Julien would remain with him with six hundred francs, or would accept the eight hundred francs offered by M. the director of the workhouse. The director, when he met M. de Renal in society, gave him the cold shoulder. These tactics were not without cleverness. There is no impulsiveness in the provinces. Sensations are so rare there that they are never allowed to be wasted. M. le Valenod was what is called a hundred miles from Paris a _faraud_; that means a coarse imprudent type of man. His triumphant existence since 1815 had consolidated his natural qualities. He reigned, so to say, in Verrieres subject to the orders of M. de Renal; but as he was much more energetic, was ashamed of nothing, had a finger in everything, and was always going about writing and speaking, and was oblivious of all snubs, he had, although without any personal pretensions, eventually come to equal the mayor in reputation in the eyes of the ecclesiastical authorities. M. Valenod had, as it were, said to the local tradesmen "Give me the two biggest fools among your number;" to the men of law "Show me the two greatest dunces;" to the sanitary officials "Point out to me the two biggest charlatans." When he had thus collected the most impudent members of each separate calling, he had practically said to them, "Let us reign together." The manners of those people were offensive to M. de Renal. The coarseness of Valenod took offence at nothing, not even the frequency with which the little abbe Maslon would give the lie to him in public. But in the middle of all this prosperity M. Valenod found it necessary to reassure himself by a number of petty acts of insolence on the score of the crude truths which he well realised that everybody was justified in addressing to him. His activity had redoubled since the fears which the visit of M. Appert had left him. He had made three journeys to Besancon. He wrote several letters by each courier; he sent others by unknown men who came to his house at nightfall. Perhaps he had been wrong in securing the dismissal of the old cure Chelan. For this piece of vindictiveness had resulted in his being considered an extremely malicious man by several pious women of good birth. Besides, the rendering of this service had placed him in absolute dependence on M. the Grand Vicar de Frilair from whom he received some strange commissions. He had reached this point in his intrigues when he had yielded to the pleasure of writing an anonymous letter, and thus increasing his embarrassment. His wife declared to him that she wanted to have Julien in her house; her vanity was intoxicated with the idea. Such being his position M. Valenod imagined in advance a decisive scene with his old colleague M. de Renal. The latter might address to him some harsh words, which he would not mind much; but he might write to Besancon and even to Paris. Some minister's cousin might suddenly fall down on Verrieres and take over the workhouse. Valenod thought of coming to terms with the Liberals. It was for that purpose that several of them had been invited to the dinner when Julien was present. He would have obtained powerful support against the mayor but the elections might supervene, and it was only too evident that the directorship of the workhouse was inconsistent with voting on the wrong side. Madame de Renal had made a shrewd guess at this intrigue, and while she explained it to Julien as he gave her his arm to pass from one shop to another, they found themselves gradually taken as far as the _Cours de la Fidelite_ where they spent several hours nearly as tranquil as those at Vergy. At the same time M. Valenod was trying to put off a definite crisis with his old patron by himself assuming the aggressive. These tactics succeeded on this particular day, but aggravated the mayor's bad temper. Never has vanity at close grips with all the harshness and meanness of a pettifogging love of money reduced a man to a more sorry condition than that of M. de Renal when he entered the tavern. The children, on the other hand, had never been more joyful and more merry. This contrast put the finishing touch on his pique. "So far as I can see I am not wanted in my family," he said as he entered in a tone which he meant to be impressive. For answer, his wife took him on one side and declared that it was essential to send Julien away. The hours of happiness which she had just enjoyed had given her again the ease and firmness of demeanour necessary to follow out the plan of campaign which she had been hatching for a fortnight. The finishing touch to the trouble of the poor mayor of Verrieres was the fact that he knew that they joked publicly in the town about his love for cash. Valenod was as generous as a thief, and on his side had acquitted himself brilliantly in the last five or six collections for the Brotherhood of St. Joseph, the congregation of the Virgin, the congregation of the Holy Sacrament, etc., etc. M. de Renal's name had been seen more than once at the bottom of the list of gentlefolk of Verrieres, and the surrounding neighbourhood who were adroitly classified in the list of the collecting brethren according to the amount of their offerings. It was in vain that he said that he was _not making money_. The clergy stands no nonsense in such matters. CHAPTER XXIII SORROWS OF AN OFFICIAL Il piacere di alzar la testa tutto l'anno, e ben pagato da certi quarti d'ora che bisogna passar.--_Casti_. Let us leave this petty man to his petty fears; why did he take a man of spirit into his household when he needed someone with the soul of a valet? Why can't he select his staff? The ordinary trend of the nineteenth century is that when a noble and powerful individual encounters a man of spirit, he kills him, exiles him and imprisons him, or so humiliates him that the other is foolish enough to die of grief. In this country it so happens that it is not merely the man of spirit who suffers. The great misfortunes of the little towns of France and of representative governments, like that of New York, is that they find it impossible to forget the existence of individuals like M. de Renal. It is these men who make public opinion in a town of twenty thousand inhabitants, and public opinion is terrible in a country which has a charter of liberty. A man, though of a naturally noble and generous disposition, who would have been your friend in the natural course of events, but who happens to live a hundred leagues off, judges you by the public opinion of your town which is made by those fools who have chanced to be born noble, rich and conservative. Unhappy is the man who distinguishes himself. Immediately after dinner they left for Vergy, but the next day but one Julien saw the whole family return to Verrieres. An hour had not passed before he discovered to his great surprise that Madame de Renal had some mystery up her sleeve. Whenever he came into the room she would break off her conversation with her husband and would almost seem to desire that he should go away. Julien did not need to be given this hint twice. He became cold and reserved. Madame de Renal noticed it and did not ask for an explanation. "Is she going to give me a successor," thought Julien. "And to think of her being so familiar with me the day before yesterday, but that is how these great ladies are said to act. It's just like kings. One never gets any more warning than the disgraced minister who enters his house to find his letter of dismissal." Julien noticed that these conversations which left off so abruptly at his approach, often dealt with a big house which belonged to the municipality of Verrieres, a house which though old was large and commodious and situated opposite the church in the most busy commercial district of the town. "What connection can there be between this house and a new lover," said Julien to himself. In his chagrin he repeated to himself the pretty verses of Francis I. which seemed novel to him, for Madame de Renal had only taught him them a month before: Souvent femme varie Bien fol est qui s'y fie. M. de Renal took the mail to Besancon. This journey was a matter of two hours. He seemed extremely harassed. On his return he threw a big grey paper parcel on the table. "Here's that silly business," he said to his wife. An hour afterwards Julien saw the bill-poster carrying the big parcel. He followed him eagerly. "I shall learn the secret at the first street corner." He waited impatiently behind the bill-poster who was smearing the back of the poster with his big brush. It had scarcely been put in its place before Julien's curiosity saw the detailed announcement of the putting up for public auction of that big old house whose name had figured so frequently in M. de Renal's conversations with his wife. The auction of the lease was announced for to-morrow at two o'clock in the Town Hall after the extinction of the third fire. Julien was very disappointed. He found the time a little short. How could there be time to apprise all the other would-be purchasers. But, moreover, the bill, which was dated a fortnight back, and which he read again in its entirety in three distinct places, taught him nothing. He went to visit the house which was to let. The porter, who had not seen him approach, was saying mysteriously to a neighbour: "Pooh, pooh, waste of time. M. Maslon has promised him that he shall have it for three hundred francs; and, as the mayor kicked, he has been summoned to the bishop's palace by M. the Grand Vicar de Frilair." Julien's arrival seemed very much to disconcert the two friends who did not say another word. Julien made a point of being present at the auction of the lease. There was a crowd in the badly-lighted hall, but everybody kept quizzing each other in quite a singular way. All eyes were fixed on a table where Julien perceived three little lighted candle-ends on a tin plate. The usher was crying out "Three hundred francs, gentlemen." "Three hundred francs, that's a bit too thick," said a man to his neighbour in a low voice. Julien was between the two of them. "It's worth more than eight hundred, I will raise the bidding." "It's cutting off your nose to spite your face. What will you gain by putting M. Maslon, M. Valenod, the Bishop, this terrible Grand Vicar de Frilair and the whole gang on your track." "Three hundred and twenty francs," shouted out the other. "Damned brute," answered his neighbour. "Why here we have a spy of the mayor," he added, designating Julien. Julien turned sharply round to punish this remark, but the two, Franc-comtois, were no longer paying any attention to him. Their coolness gave him back his own. At that moment the last candle-end went out and the usher's drawling voice awarded the house to M. de St. Giraud of the office of the prefecture of ---- for a term of nine years and for a rent of 320 francs. As soon as the mayor had left the hall, the gossip began again. "Here's thirty francs that Grogeot's recklessness is landing the municipality in for," said one--"But," answered another, "M. de Saint Giraud will revenge himself on Grogeot." "How monstrous," said a big man on Julien's left. "A house which I myself would have given eight hundred francs for my factory, and I would have got a good bargain." "Pooh!" answered a young manufacturer, "doesn't M. de St. Giraud belong to the congregation? Haven't his four children got scholarships? poor man! The community of Verrieres must give him five hundred francs over and above his salary, that is all." "And to say that the mayor was not able to stop it," remarked a third. "For he's an ultra he is, I'm glad to say, but he doesn't steal." "Doesn't he?" answered another. "Suppose it's simply a mere game of 'snap'[1] then. Everything goes into a big common purse, and everything is divided up at the end of the year. But here's that little Sorel, let's go away." Julien got home in a very bad temper. He found Madame de Renal very sad. "You come from the auction?" she said to him. "Yes, madam, where I had the honour of passing for a spy of M. the Mayor." "If he had taken my advice, he would have gone on a journey." At this moment Monsieur de Renal appeared: he looked very dismal. The dinner passed without a single word. Monsieur de Renal ordered Julien to follow the children to Vergy. Madame de Renal endeavoured to console her husband. "You ought to be used to it, my dear." That evening they were seated in silence around the domestic hearth. The crackle of the burnt pinewood was their only distraction. It was one of those moments of silence which happen in the most united families. One of the children cried out gaily, "Somebody's ringing, somebody's ringing!" "Zounds! supposing it's Monsieur de Saint Giraud who has come under the pretext of thanking me," exclaimed the mayor. "I will give him a dressing down. It is outrageous. It is Valenod to whom he'll feel under an obligation, and it is I who get compromised. What shall I say if those damned Jacobin journalists get hold of this anecdote, and turn me into a M. Nonante Cinque." A very good-looking man, with big black whiskers, entered at this moment, preceded by the servant. "Monsieur the mayor, I am Signor Geronimo. Here is a letter which M. the Chevalier de Beauvoisis, who is attached to the Embassy of Naples, gave me for you on my departure. That is only nine days ago, added Signor Geronimo, gaily looking at Madame de Renal. Your cousin, and my good friend, Signor de Beauvoisis says that you know Italian, Madame." The Neapolitan's good humour changed this gloomy evening into a very gay one. Madame de Renal insisted upon giving him supper. She put the whole house on the go. She wanted to free Julien at any price from the imputation of espionage which she had heard already twice that day. Signor Geronimo was an excellent singer, excellent company, and had very gay qualities which, at any rate in France, are hardly compatible with each other. After dinner he sang a little duet with Madame de Renal, and told some charming tales. At one o'clock in the morning the children protested, when Julien suggested that they should go to bed. "Another of those stories," said the eldest. "It is my own, Signorino," answered Signor Geronimo. "Eight years ago I was, like you, a young pupil of the Naples Conservatoire. I mean I was your age, but I did not have the honour to be the son of the distinguished mayor of the pretty town of Verrieres." This phrase made M. de Renal sigh, and look at his wife. "Signor Zingarelli," continued the young singer, somewhat exaggerating his action, and thus making the children burst into laughter, "Signor Zingarelli was an excellent though severe master. He is not popular at the Conservatoire, but he insists on the pretence being kept up that he is. I went out as often as I could. I used to go to the little Theatre de San Carlino, where I used to hear divine music. But heavens! the question was to scrape together the eight sous which were the price of admission to the parterre? An enormous sum," he said, looking at the children and watching them laugh. "Signor Giovannone, director of the San Carlino, heard me sing. I was sixteen. 'That child is a treasure,' he said. "'Would you like me to engage you, my dear boy?' he said. "'And how much will you give me?' "'Forty ducats a month.' That is one hundred and sixty francs, gentlemen. I thought the gates of heaven had opened. "'But,' I said to Giovannone, 'how shall I get the strict Zingarelli to let me go out?' "'_Lascia fare a me_.'" "Leave it to me," exclaimed the eldest of the children. "Quite right, my young sir. Signor Giovannone he says to me, 'First sign this little piece of paper, my dear friend.' I sign. "He gives me three ducats. I had never seen so much money. Then he told me what I had to do. "Next day I asked the terrible Zingarelli for an audience. His old valet ushered me in. "'What do you want of me, you naughty boy?' said Zingarelli. "'Maestro,' I said, 'I repent of all my faults. I will never go out of the Conservatoire by passing through the iron grill. I will redouble my diligence.' "'If I were not frightened of spoiling the finest bass voice I have ever heard, I would put you in prison for a fortnight on bread and water, you rascal.' "'Maestro,' I answered, 'I will be the model boy of the whole school, _credete a me_, but I would ask one favour of you. If anyone comes and asks permission for me to sing outside, refuse. As a favour, please say that you cannot let me.' "'And who the devil do you think is going to ask for a ne'er-do-well like you? Do you think I should ever allow you to leave the Conservatoire? Do you want to make fun of me? Clear out! Clear out!' he said, trying to give me a kick, 'or look out for prison and dry bread.'" One thing astonished Julien. The solitary weeks passed at Verrieres in de Renal's house had been a period of happiness for him. He had only experienced revulsions and sad thoughts at the dinners to which he had been invited. And was he not able to read, write and reflect, without being distracted, in this solitary house? He was not distracted every moment from his brilliant reveries by the cruel necessity of studying the movement of a false soul in order to deceive it by intrigue and hypocrisy. "To think of happiness being so near to me--the expense of a life like that is small enough. I could have my choice of either marrying Mademoiselle Elisa or of entering into partnership with Fouque. But it is only the traveller who has just scaled a steep mountain and sits down on the summit who finds a perfect pleasure in resting. Would he be happy if he had to rest all the time?" Madame de Renal's mind had now reached a state of desperation. In spite of her resolutions, she had explained to Julien all the details of the auction. "He will make me forget all my oaths!" she thought. She would have sacrificed her life without hesitation to save that of her husband if she had seen him in danger. She was one of those noble, romantic souls who find a source of perpetual remorse equal to that occasioned by the actual perpetration of a crime, in seeing the possibility of a generous action and not doing it. None the less, there were deadly days when she was not able to banish the imagination of the excessive happiness which she would enjoy if she suddenly became a widow, and were able to marry Julien. He loved her sons much more than their father did; in spite of his strict justice they were devoted to him. She quite realised that if she married Julien, it would be necessary to leave that Vergy, whose shades were so dear to her. She pictured herself living at Paris, and continuing to give her sons an education which would make them admired by everyone. Her children, herself, and Julien! They would be all perfectly happy! Strange result of marriage such as the nineteenth century has made it! The boredom of matrimonial life makes love fade away inevitably, when love has preceded the marriage. But none the less, said a philosopher, married life soon reduces those people who are sufficiently rich not to have to work, to a sense of being utterly bored by all quiet enjoyments. And among women, it is only arid souls whom it does not predispose to love. The philosopher's reflection makes me excuse Madame de Renal, but she was not excused in Verrieres, and without her suspecting it, the whole town found its sole topic of interest in the scandal of her intrigue. As a result of this great affair, the autumn was less boring than usual. The autumn and part of the winter passed very quickly. It was necessary to leave the woods of Vergy. Good Verrieres society began to be indignant at the fact that its anathemas made so little impression on Monsieur de Renal. Within eight days, several serious personages who made up for their habitual gravity of demeanour by their pleasure in fulfilling missions of this kind, gave him the most cruel suspicions, at the same time utilising the most measured terms. M. Valenod, who was playing a deep game, had placed Elisa in an aristocratic family of great repute, where there were five women. Elisa, fearing, so she said, not to find a place during the winter, had only asked from this family about two-thirds of what she had received in the house of the mayor. The girl hit upon the excellent idea of going to confession at the same time to both the old cure Chelan, and also to the new one, so as to tell both of them in detail about Julien's amours. The day after his arrival, the abbe Chelan summoned Julien to him at six o'clock in the morning. "I ask you nothing," he said. "I beg you, and if needs be I insist, that you either leave for the Seminary of Besancon, or for your friend Fouque, who is always ready to provide you with a splendid future. I have seen to everything and have arranged everything, but you must leave, and not come back to Verrieres for a year." Julien did not answer. He was considering whether his honour ought to regard itself offended at the trouble which Chelan, who, after all, was not his father, had taken on his behalf. "I shall have the honour of seeing you again to-morrow at the same hour," he said finally to the cure. Chelan, who reckoned on carrying so young a man by storm, talked a great deal. Julien, cloaked in the most complete humbleness, both of demeanour and expression, did not open his lips. Eventually he left, and ran to warn Madame de Renal whom he found in despair. Her husband had just spoken to her with a certain amount of frankness. The weakness of his character found support in the prospect of the legacy, and had decided him to treat her as perfectly innocent. He had just confessed to her the strange state in which he had found public opinion in Verrieres. The public was wrong; it had been misled by jealous tongues. But, after all, what was one to do? Madame de Renal was, for the moment, under the illusion that Julien would accept the offer of Valenod and stay at Verrieres. But she was no longer the simple, timid woman that she had been the preceding year. Her fatal passion and remorse had enlightened her. She soon realised the painful truth (while at the same time she listened to her husband), that at any rate a temporary separation had become essential. When he is far from me, Julien will revert to those ambitious projects which are so natural when one has no money. And I, Great God! I am so rich, and my riches are so useless for my happiness. He will forget me. Loveable as he is, he will be loved, and he will love. You unhappy woman. What can I complain of? Heaven is just. I was not virtuous enough to leave off the crime. Fate robs me of my judgment. I could easily have bribed Elisa if I had wanted to; nothing was easier. I did not take the trouble to reflect for a moment. The mad imagination of love absorbed all my time. I am ruined. When Julien apprised Madame de Renal of the terrible news of his departure, he was struck with one thing. He did not find her put forward any selfish objections. She was evidently making efforts not to cry. "We have need of firmness, my dear." She cut off a strand of her hair. "I do no know what I shall do," she said to him, "but promise me if I die, never to forget my children. Whether you are far or near, try to make them into honest men. If there is a new revolution, all the nobles will have their throats cut. Their father will probably emigrate, because of that peasant on the roof who got killed. Watch over my family. Give me your hand. Adieu, my dear. These are our last moments. Having made this great sacrifice, I hope I shall have the courage to consider my reputation in public." Julien had been expecting despair. The simplicity of this farewell touched him. "No, I am not going to receive your farewell like this. I will leave you now, as you yourself wish it. But three days after my departure I will come back to see you at night." Madame de Renal's life was changed. So Julien really loved her, since of his own accord he had thought of seeing her again. Her awful grief became changed into one of the keenest transports of joy which she had felt in her whole life. Everything became easy for her. The certainty of seeing her lover deprived these last moments of their poignancy. From that moment, both Madame de Renal's demeanour and the expression of her face were noble, firm, and perfectly dignified. M. de Renal soon came back. He was beside himself. He eventually mentioned to his wife the anonymous letter which he had received two months before. "I will take it to the Casino, and shew everybody that it has been sent by that brute Valenod, whom I took out of the gutter and made into one of the richest tradesmen in Verrieres. I will disgrace him publicly, and then I will fight him. This is too much." "Great Heavens! I may become a widow," thought Madame de Renal, and almost at the same time she said to herself, "If I do not, as I certainly can, prevent this duel, I shall be the murderess of my own husband." She had never expended so much skill in honoring his vanity. Within two hours she made him see, and always by virtue of reasons which he discovered himself, that it was necessary to show more friendship than ever to M. Valenod, and even to take Elisa back into the household. Madame de Renal had need of courage to bring herself to see again the girl who was the cause of her unhappiness. But this idea was one of Julien's. Finally, having been put on the track three or four times, M. de Renal arrived spontaneously at the conclusion, disagreeable though it was from the financial standpoint, that the most painful thing that could happen to him would be that Julien, in the middle of the effervescence of popular gossip throughout Verrieres, should stay in the town as the tutor of Valenod's children. It was obviously to Julien's interest to accept the offer of the director of the workhouse. Conversely, it was essential for M. de Renal's prestige that Julien should leave Verrieres to enter the seminary of Besancon or that of Dijon. But how to make him decide on that course? And then how is he going to live? M. de Renal, seeing a monetary sacrifice looming in the distance, was in deeper despair than his wife. As for her, she felt after this interview in the position of a man of spirit who, tired of life, has taken a dose of stramonium. He only acts mechanically so to speak, and takes no longer any interest in anything. In this way, Louis XIV. came to say on his death-bed, "When I was king." An admirable epigram. Next morning, M. de Renal received quite early an anonymous letter. It was written in a most insulting style, and the coarsest words applicable to his position occurred on every line. It was the work of some jealous subordinate. This letter made him think again of fighting a duel with Valenod. Soon his courage went as far as the idea of immediate action. He left the house alone, went to the armourer's and got some pistols which he loaded. "Yes, indeed," he said to himself, "even though the strict administration of the Emperor Napoleon were to become fashionable again, I should not have one sou's worth of jobbery to reproach myself with; at the outside, I have shut my eyes, and I have some good letters in my desk which authorise me to do so." Madame de Renal was terrified by her husband's cold anger. It recalled to her the fatal idea of widowhood which she had so much trouble in repelling. She closeted herself with him. For several hours she talked to him in vain. The new anonymous letter had decided him. Finally she succeeded in transforming the courage which had decided him to box Valenod's ears, into the courage of offering six hundred francs to Julien, which would keep him for one year in a seminary. M. de Renal cursed a thousand times the day that he had had the ill-starred idea of taking a tutor into his house, and forgot the anonymous letter. He consoled himself a little by an idea which he did not tell his wife. With the exercise of some skill, and by exploiting the romantic ideas of the young man, he hoped to be able to induce him to refuse M. Valenod's offer at a cheaper price. Madame de Renal had much more trouble in proving to Julien that inasmuch as he was sacrificing the post of six hundred francs a year in order to enable her husband to keep up appearances, he need have no shame about accepting the compensation. But Julien would say each time, "I have never thought for a moment of accepting that offer. You have made me so used to a refined life that the coarseness of those people would kill me." Cruel necessity bent Julien's will with its iron hand. His pride gave him the illusion that he only accepted the sum offered by M. de Renal as a loan, and induced him to give him a promissory note, repayable in five years with interest. Madame de Renal had, of course, many thousands of francs which had been concealed in the little mountain cave. She offered them to him all a tremble, feeling only too keenly that they would be angrily refused. "Do you wish," said Julien to her, "to make the memory of our love loathsome?" Finally Julien left Verrieres. M. de Renal was very happy, but when the fatal moment came to accept money from him the sacrifice proved beyond Julien's strength. He refused point blank. M. de Renal embraced him around the neck with tears in his eyes. Julien had asked him for a testimonial of good conduct, and his enthusiasm could find no terms magnificent enough in which to extol his conduct. Our hero had five louis of savings and he reckoned on asking Fouque for an equal sum. He was very moved. But one league from Verrieres, where he left so much that was dear to him, he only thought of the happiness of seeing the capital of a great military town like Besancon. During the short absence of three days, Madame de Renal was the victim of one of the cruellest deceptions to which love is liable. Her life was tolerable, because between her and extreme unhappiness there was still that last interview which she was to have with Julien. Finally during the night of the third day, she heard from a distance the preconcerted signal. Julien, having passed through a thousand dangers, appeared before her. In this moment she only had one thought--"I see him for the last time." Instead of answering the endearments of her lover, she seemed more dead than alive. If she forced herself to tell him that she loved him, she said it with an embarrassed air which almost proved the contrary. Nothing could rid her of the cruel idea of eternal separation. The suspicious Julien thought for the moment that he was already forgotten. His pointed remarks to this effect were only answered by great tears which flowed down in silence, and by some hysterical pressings of the hand. "But," Julien would answer his mistress's cold protestations, "Great Heavens! How can you expect me to believe you? You would show one hundred times more sincere affection to Madame Derville to a mere acquaintance." Madame de Renal was petrified, and at a loss for an answer. "It is impossible to be more unhappy. I hope I am going to die. I feel my heart turn to ice." Those were the longest answers which he could obtain. When the approach of day rendered it necessary for him to leave Madame de Renal, her tears completely ceased. She saw him tie a knotted rope to the window without saying a word, and without returning her kisses. It was in vain that Julien said to her. "So now we have reached the state of affairs which you wished for so much. Henceforward you will live without remorse. The slightest indisposition of your children will no longer make you see them in the tomb." "I am sorry that you cannot kiss Stanislas," she said coldly. Julien finished by being profoundly impressed by the cold embraces of this living corpse. He could think of nothing else for several leagues. His soul was overwhelmed, and before passing the mountain, and while he could still see the church tower of Verrieres he turned round frequently. [1] C'est pigeon qui vole. A reference to a contemporary animal game with a pun on the word "vole."

Chapters 16-23

https://web.archive.org/web/20201128052739/https://www.cliffsnotes.com/literature/r/the-red-and-the-black/summary-and-analysis/part-1-chapters-1623

Now their love idyll begins: Julien loves her madly, says Stendhal, but his love is still a form of ambition. Mme. de Renal's great joy is clouded only by the fear that she is too old for Julien. The second night finds Julien forgetting his role and enjoying his experience. Mme. de Renal takes great pleasure in educating Julien in social manners and in all the political intrigue that reigns in Verrieres, of which Julien has been completely ignorant. The town is honored by a visit of the king, and Mme. de Renal succeeds in having a place in the guard of honor awarded to Julien. From his role of dashing, handsome officer, Julien moves to that of attendant priest to Chelan in a religious ceremony honoring the local saint. Other important personages to whose presence his role gives him access are the young Bishop Agde, officiating prelate, and M. de La Mole, influential and powerful Parisian aristocrat, Peer of France, in the king's entourage. When one of her sons falls seriously ill, Mme. de Renal is convinced that God is punishing her adultery. Witnessing her anguish and torment, Julien finds new reasons to love her. When Stanislas is well, her anguish nevertheless remains since the experience has made her aware of guilt. Their love, however, becomes deeper, more desperate, and somber. M. de Renal receives an anonymous letter denouncing Julien as his wife's lover. Julien senses what the letter is and warns Mme. de Renal not to come to his room that night. She, however, constantly wary that Julien is looking for an excuse to abandon her, comes to his room anyway but is not received. She writes Julien a long letter, elaborating her doubts and reiterating her undying love for him. At the same time, however, she is capable of devising a plan in the event that there does exist an anonymous letter denouncing them. She will pretend also to have received such a letter and will deliver it to her husband to confound him and to allay his doubts. M. de Renal is suffering greatly from wounded pride, anger, and self-pity. He is unable to bring himself to take any decisive step. His wife arrives, hands her letter to him, and in the next breath requests that Julien be sent away for a time until the scandal dies down. This represents exactly the solution Renal would have wanted. It relieves him of the necessity of finding out the truth since it is an avowal of innocence on her part. She furnishes him with further evidence in the form of old love letters written to her by Valenod. She succeeds masterfully in putting him on the wrong track, thereby saving appearances and her affair with Julien. In order to prove to the town that all is well in the Renal household, Julien lives in their townhouse. There he is visited by the sub-prefect, M. de Maugiron, who, on the behalf of another, sounds out Julien on the possibility of leaving the Renal household for a new position. Julien congratulates himself on his ability to satisfy Maugiron with a long-winded answer that constitutes, in effect, no answer to his proposition. Invited to dinner at the home of Valenod, Julien inwardly condemns the vulgar ostentation and bad taste of his hosts. When Valenod silences one of the inmates of the workhouse, Julien finds further grounds to feel superior to Valenod and to scorn him. Julien is invited everywhere; he is held in such esteem as a learned and talented tutor. When the Renals come for the day to Verrieres, mother and children form a happy family group with Julien, and their happiness irks the mayor, who interrupts the scene. The mayor has been forced by the Congregation to rent out a property at a much lower sum than he could have asked. Valenod, his subordinate whose trickery and intriguing with the Congregation have brought about the downfall of the Jansenist Chelan, has played a role in this intrigue. Valenod is indebted to the Vicar Frilair of the Congregation, and at the same time he is ingratiating himself with the liberals in the event that he falls out of favor with the conservatives and that M. de Renal takes steps to disgrace him. Julien learns of these machinations from Mme. de Renal, and since he attends the mysterious auction, he is taken for the Renals' spy. The gloom that reigns in the Renal household is momentarily dispelled by the unexpected arrival of an Italian singer, recommended highly to Renal and seeking further recommendations to the French court. His gaiety, exuberance, and talent provide a welcome interlude for the family, and his mission further edifies Julien as to how influence assures promotion and personal advancement. Meanwhile, several factors precipitate Julien's departure to Besancon. The town is scandalized that M. de Renal has ignored the talk about the affair in his household. Through Valenod's machinations, Elisa has related to the Jesuit Maslon and to Chelan what is going on between Julien and Mme. de Renal. Chelan therefore requires of Julien that he either enter the seminary at Besancon, the director of which is Chelan's lifelong friend, or that Julien become the partner of Fouque. M. de Renal agrees that Julien must leave. Julien accepts the ultimatum but volunteers, to the great joy of Mme. de Renal, to return after three days for a last farewell. If Julien goes to Besancon, his education must be financed; if he stays, Valenod will engage him as tutor. Another anonymous letter received by Renal presents the occasion for the final intervention of Mme. de Renal to convince her husband of the necessity of offering money to Julien. At first, Julien accepts the money as a loan, but ultimately, to the joy of the mayor, he refuses it because of his great pride. Mme. de Renal, paradoxically, lives only for the last night's rendezvous with Julien, but when it arrives, she is cold and lifeless, anticipating the future emptiness of her life. Julien departs for Besancon.

In these chapters, Julien plays a relatively passive role since his education requires that his experience be enlarged, and this requires that through his teacher, here for the most part Mme. de Renal, fresh insights into the local political situation be managed for Julien and for the reader. It is as if by seducing Mme. de Renal, Julien has displayed sufficient initiative so that he may now sit back without having to play an active role himself. He will have only to feel the effects of his relationship with Mme. de Renal and of other conditions existing in Verrieres. Besides, this is also a political novel, and Stendhal takes time out to add to his scornful expose of the evils of the Restoration on the local level. It is mainly to Mme. de Renal that the initiative falls because her love has taught her the necessity of ruse. Julien's earlier petty scheming seems even more ludicrous judged against Mme. de Renal's daring and heroic stratagems inspired by love. Her love has crystallized to the point where she would make any sacrifice for Julien: She educates him socially and, at the risk of scandal, obtains for Julien the position in the guard of honor. It is likewise she who takes the initiative to skillfully dupe her husband about the anonymous letters. Their love is that of mother and son at the same time that it is of mistress and lover. Julien has never had a mother or the love of a family, and Stendhal remedies this lack by the insertion of an idyllic family scene in which Julien displaces completely Mayor Renal in Chapter 22. The conclusions to be drawn about Stendhal's own childhood are obvious. Note that it is mainly on faith that we must believe in Julien's superior intelligence, for Stendhal will rarely permit us to witness any examples of his brilliance and articulate eloquence. The author intervenes to assure us of Julien's superiority, others acclaim him , and Mme. de Renal herself predicts a great future for such a brilliant man. His inexperience, at this stage, accounts somewhat for the lack of indications, it is true, but in his later experiences in Paris, the same absence of proof will be noticeable. Julien out-Jesuits the sub-prefect when the latter attempts to enlist him in the service of Valenod, but we hear none of his brilliant conversational digressions to avoid an answer. Stendhal simply tells us that his reply was perfect, as long-winded as a pastoral letter in that it suggested everything and stated nothing. Since Stendhal was, in a sense, writing the novel for himself and for the "happy few," he evidently felt no need to demonstrate a superiority of which he was convinced. His modesty was another factor in this reticence. Thanks to the love that Mme. de Renal has for him, Julien has made two noticeable strides ahead in his onslaught on society: He enjoys a vicarious military experience in the guard of honor and, because of his roles that day, is soon sought after by all of Verrieres. He makes progress and profits from his education in spite of the generally passive role he assumes. He has progressed in the art of hypocrisy: When he lets slip praise of Napoleon and is rebuked for it by Mme. de Renal, his pride does not incapacitate him, and he is even adroit enough to dodge responsibility for the statement. Julien's self-appointed role as messenger to Bishop Agde previews his later roles as secretary and as spy. Julien will never attain a position of independence vis-a-vis society; rather, he will always be a protected and cherished instrument of others. He actively compares the success of alternative ways of action as he sees them in others. He prefers the refined manners of Bishop Agde to those he has found in the province. He sees everywhere examples of compromise in order to succeed: the letter left in the room occupied by M. de La Mole; the mission of the Italian singer. The latter he compares favorably to M. de Renal, who is forced to humiliate himself before the Congregation. At the Valenod's dinner, Julien is horrified at the ill-treatment the workhouse inmates receive, although he is able to contain his true feelings. In the face of the ultimatum given him by Chelan, Julien debates as to whether he should take offense, but again he remains master of himself, silent in a feigned attitude of humility. It must be reiterated that Stendhal does not condemn Julien's hypocrisy. A nature as sensitive, generous, and spontaneous as Julien's is forced to this extremity to survive. The playing out of the novel's title in Chapter 18 will not have been missed by the reader: Julien plays alternately the role of soldier, then priest. It will be, of course, the latter vocation that he will choose as a means to success since Napoleon's disappearance has rendered the former impossible. Nonetheless, the spurs that he wears under the priest's cassock indicate that his career in the priesthood will be marked with the ruthlessness and dashing of the soldier. Although Julien is capable of more love for Mme. de Renal than before his seduction of her, he is far from being a victim of it. Goaded by ambition, Julien's mind is not yet a fecund "theater" where this imperious emotion may manifest itself and thrive. Stendhal makes passing allusions to the "mad" love Julien has for her and to the fact that he finds new reasons to love her, but we are hardly convinced. His love for Mme. de Renal must await the end of the novel for its full development. It might be argued that in making Julien master of the love experience, Stendhal is getting his revenge on all of the women with whom he had been unsuccessful. Julien's love brings him, at this stage, contentment and a peace and happiness he has never known. He seems to love her more as he sees more and more how much she loves him -- particularly when Mme. de Renal's son is critically ill. At that moment, Julien realizes how completely his mistress is a helpless, suffering victim of love. He feels only momentarily the doubts and torments that continue to plague her and that move her love to constant renewal in new crystallizations. It is quite possible that it is Stendhal's own sensibility, modesty, and need for privacy that prevent him from disclosing much of what Julien's love for Mme. de Renal entails, for Julien is a projection of what Stendhal would like to be, as are all his protagonists. It will be obvious to the reader at this point in the novel that Stendhal does not take great pains to conceive an overall view of the action in which subsequent events are mutually interdependent and which would seem to be "necessary" as logical and expected results of previous causes. On the contrary, he invents incidents as he needs them, and the resulting haphazard nature of succession results from an almost improvisational technique of composition and is one of the meanings of his definition of the novel as a "mirror which is carried along the road." He needed, for example, the sudden grave illness of Stanislas to permit a further crystallization of Mme. de Renal's love for Julien and an intensification of his love for her. The unannounced arrival of Geronimo is a fortuitous event needed to alleviate the series of defeats that M. de Renal has just undergone and that have plunged the household into gloom. In Chapter 23, almost without any warning, the reader learns that because of the scandal of Julien's affair with Mme. de Renal, a scandal hardly surprising but heretofore not even alluded to by Stendhal, a decision must be made as to Julien's future. Obviously. Stendhal wants to move him on to Besancon, and this is the logical means. Similarly, Elisa chooses this moment to inform Chelan of Julien's conduct, and it is this "father-figure" alone who can prevail on Julien to leave.

shmoop

all_chapterized_books/107-chapters/29.txt

finished_summaries/shmoop/Far From the Madding Crowd/section_28_part_0.txt

Far From the Madding Crowd.chapter 29

chapter 29

{"name": "Chapter 29", "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20201219162644/https://www.shmoop.com/study-guides/literature/far-from-the-madding-crowd/summary/chapter-29", "summary": "Bathsheba is now in love with Sergeant Troy, but she won't let anyone know about it. Nonetheless, it doesn't take long for Gabriel Oak to realize that she's in love. One night, Gabriel meets her during an evening walk and advises her against getting involved with Sergeant Troy. Bathsheba tells him to mind his own business or she'll fire him... again. Oak says that Sergeant Troy is a bad man. Bathsheba counters by saying that Troy goes to church every Sunday through a secret little side door. That's why Oak has never seen him attend a service. Finally, Bathsheba commands Oak to go away, as in leave the farm. But this time, Oak ignores her request and tells her that they both know she's not going to fire him. As he leaves, Oak sees Troy emerge from the fields to stand and talk to Bathsheba. He realizes that the whole reason she went for a walk to begin with was to meet up with Troy. On his way home, Oak walks by the church and checks out the little side door that Troy supposedly uses to go in. It is completely overgrown with ivy, meaning that no one has used it in years. In other words, Troy has no problem telling flat-out lies to Bathsheba.", "analysis": ""}

PARTICULARS OF A TWILIGHT WALK We now see the element of folly distinctly mingling with the many varying particulars which made up the character of Bathsheba Everdene. It was almost foreign to her intrinsic nature. Introduced as lymph on the dart of Eros, it eventually permeated and coloured her whole constitution. Bathsheba, though she had too much understanding to be entirely governed by her womanliness, had too much womanliness to use her understanding to the best advantage. Perhaps in no minor point does woman astonish her helpmate more than in the strange power she possesses of believing cajoleries that she knows to be false--except, indeed, in that of being utterly sceptical on strictures that she knows to be true. Bathsheba loved Troy in the way that only self-reliant women love when they abandon their self-reliance. When a strong woman recklessly throws away her strength she is worse than a weak woman who has never had any strength to throw away. One source of her inadequacy is the novelty of the occasion. She has never had practice in making the best of such a condition. Weakness is doubly weak by being new. Bathsheba was not conscious of guile in this matter. Though in one sense a woman of the world, it was, after all, that world of daylight coteries and green carpets wherein cattle form the passing crowd and winds the busy hum; where a quiet family of rabbits or hares lives on the other side of your party-wall, where your neighbour is everybody in the tything, and where calculation is confined to market-days. Of the fabricated tastes of good fashionable society she knew but little, and of the formulated self-indulgence of bad, nothing at all. Had her utmost thoughts in this direction been distinctly worded (and by herself they never were), they would only have amounted to such a matter as that she felt her impulses to be pleasanter guides than her discretion. Her love was entire as a child's, and though warm as summer it was fresh as spring. Her culpability lay in her making no attempt to control feeling by subtle and careful inquiry into consequences. She could show others the steep and thorny way, but "reck'd not her own rede." And Troy's deformities lay deep down from a woman's vision, whilst his embellishments were upon the very surface; thus contrasting with homely Oak, whose defects were patent to the blindest, and whose virtues were as metals in a mine. The difference between love and respect was markedly shown in her conduct. Bathsheba had spoken of her interest in Boldwood with the greatest freedom to Liddy, but she had only communed with her own heart concerning Troy. All this infatuation Gabriel saw, and was troubled thereby from the time of his daily journey a-field to the time of his return, and on to the small hours of many a night. That he was not beloved had hitherto been his great sorrow; that Bathsheba was getting into the toils was now a sorrow greater than the first, and one which nearly obscured it. It was a result which paralleled the oft-quoted observation of Hippocrates concerning physical pains. That is a noble though perhaps an unpromising love which not even the fear of breeding aversion in the bosom of the one beloved can deter from combating his or her errors. Oak determined to speak to his mistress. He would base his appeal on what he considered her unfair treatment of Farmer Boldwood, now absent from home. An opportunity occurred one evening when she had gone for a short walk by a path through the neighbouring cornfields. It was dusk when Oak, who had not been far a-field that day, took the same path and met her returning, quite pensively, as he thought. The wheat was now tall, and the path was narrow; thus the way was quite a sunken groove between the embowing thicket on either side. Two persons could not walk abreast without damaging the crop, and Oak stood aside to let her pass. "Oh, is it Gabriel?" she said. "You are taking a walk too. Good-night." "I thought I would come to meet you, as it is rather late," said Oak, turning and following at her heels when she had brushed somewhat quickly by him. "Thank you, indeed, but I am not very fearful." "Oh no; but there are bad characters about." "I never meet them." Now Oak, with marvellous ingenuity, had been going to introduce the gallant sergeant through the channel of "bad characters." But all at once the scheme broke down, it suddenly occurring to him that this was rather a clumsy way, and too barefaced to begin with. He tried another preamble. "And as the man who would naturally come to meet you is away from home, too--I mean Farmer Boldwood--why, thinks I, I'll go," he said. "Ah, yes." She walked on without turning her head, and for many steps nothing further was heard from her quarter than the rustle of her dress against the heavy corn-ears. Then she resumed rather tartly-- "I don't quite understand what you meant by saying that Mr. Boldwood would naturally come to meet me." "I meant on account of the wedding which they say is likely to take place between you and him, miss. Forgive my speaking plainly." "They say what is not true." she returned quickly. "No marriage is likely to take place between us." Gabriel now put forth his unobscured opinion, for the moment had come. "Well, Miss Everdene," he said, "putting aside what people say, I never in my life saw any courting if his is not a courting of you." Bathsheba would probably have terminated the conversation there and then by flatly forbidding the subject, had not her conscious weakness of position allured her to palter and argue in endeavours to better it. "Since this subject has been mentioned," she said very emphatically, "I am glad of the opportunity of clearing up a mistake which is very common and very provoking. I didn't definitely promise Mr. Boldwood anything. I have never cared for him. I respect him, and he has urged me to marry him. But I have given him no distinct answer. As soon as he returns I shall do so; and the answer will be that I cannot think of marrying him." "People are full of mistakes, seemingly." "They are." "The other day they said you were trifling with him, and you almost proved that you were not; lately they have said that you be not, and you straightway begin to show--" "That I am, I suppose you mean." "Well, I hope they speak the truth." "They do, but wrongly applied. I don't trifle with him; but then, I have nothing to do with him." Oak was unfortunately led on to speak of Boldwood's rival in a wrong tone to her after all. "I wish you had never met that young Sergeant Troy, miss," he sighed. Bathsheba's steps became faintly spasmodic. "Why?" she asked. "He is not good enough for 'ee." "Did any one tell you to speak to me like this?" "Nobody at all." "Then it appears to me that Sergeant Troy does not concern us here," she said, intractably. "Yet I must say that Sergeant Troy is an educated man, and quite worthy of any woman. He is well born." "His being higher in learning and birth than the ruck o' soldiers is anything but a proof of his worth. It show's his course to be down'ard." "I cannot see what this has to do with our conversation. Mr. Troy's course is not by any means downward; and his superiority IS a proof of his worth!" "I believe him to have no conscience at all. And I cannot help begging you, miss, to have nothing to do with him. Listen to me this once--only this once! I don't say he's such a bad man as I have fancied--I pray to God he is not. But since we don't exactly know what he is, why not behave as if he MIGHT be bad, simply for your own safety? Don't trust him, mistress; I ask you not to trust him so." "Why, pray?" "I like soldiers, but this one I do not like," he said, sturdily. "His cleverness in his calling may have tempted him astray, and what is mirth to the neighbours is ruin to the woman. When he tries to talk to 'ee again, why not turn away with a short 'Good day'; and when you see him coming one way, turn the other. When he says anything laughable, fail to see the point and don't smile, and speak of him before those who will report your talk as 'that fantastical man,' or 'that Sergeant What's-his-name.' 'That man of a family that has come to the dogs.' Don't be unmannerly towards en, but harmless-uncivil, and so get rid of the man." No Christmas robin detained by a window-pane ever pulsed as did Bathsheba now. "I say--I say again--that it doesn't become you to talk about him. Why he should be mentioned passes me quite!" she exclaimed desperately. "I know this, th-th-that he is a thoroughly conscientious man--blunt sometimes even to rudeness--but always speaking his mind about you plain to your face!" "Oh." "He is as good as anybody in this parish! He is very particular, too, about going to church--yes, he is!" "I am afeard nobody saw him there. I never did, certainly." "The reason of that is," she said eagerly, "that he goes in privately by the old tower door, just when the service commences, and sits at the back of the gallery. He told me so." This supreme instance of Troy's goodness fell upon Gabriel ears like the thirteenth stroke of crazy clock. It was not only received with utter incredulity as regarded itself, but threw a doubt on all the assurances that had preceded it. Oak was grieved to find how entirely she trusted him. He brimmed with deep feeling as he replied in a steady voice, the steadiness of which was spoilt by the palpableness of his great effort to keep it so:-- "You know, mistress, that I love you, and shall love you always. I only mention this to bring to your mind that at any rate I would wish to do you no harm: beyond that I put it aside. I have lost in the race for money and good things, and I am not such a fool as to pretend to 'ee now I am poor, and you have got altogether above me. But Bathsheba, dear mistress, this I beg you to consider--that, both to keep yourself well honoured among the workfolk, and in common generosity to an honourable man who loves you as well as I, you should be more discreet in your bearing towards this soldier." "Don't, don't, don't!" she exclaimed, in a choking voice. "Are ye not more to me than my own affairs, and even life!" he went on. "Come, listen to me! I am six years older than you, and Mr. Boldwood is ten years older than I, and consider--I do beg of 'ee to consider before it is too late--how safe you would be in his hands!" Oak's allusion to his own love for her lessened, to some extent, her anger at his interference; but she could not really forgive him for letting his wish to marry her be eclipsed by his wish to do her good, any more than for his slighting treatment of Troy. "I wish you to go elsewhere," she commanded, a paleness of face invisible to the eye being suggested by the trembling words. "Do not remain on this farm any longer. I don't want you--I beg you to go!" "That's nonsense," said Oak, calmly. "This is the second time you have pretended to dismiss me; and what's the use o' it?" "Pretended! You shall go, sir--your lecturing I will not hear! I am mistress here." "Go, indeed--what folly will you say next? Treating me like Dick, Tom and Harry when you know that a short time ago my position was as good as yours! Upon my life, Bathsheba, it is too barefaced. You know, too, that I can't go without putting things in such a strait as you wouldn't get out of I can't tell when. Unless, indeed, you'll promise to have an understanding man as bailiff, or manager, or something. I'll go at once if you'll promise that." "I shall have no bailiff; I shall continue to be my own manager," she said decisively. "Very well, then; you should be thankful to me for biding. How would the farm go on with nobody to mind it but a woman? But mind this, I don't wish 'ee to feel you owe me anything. Not I. What I do, I do. Sometimes I say I should be as glad as a bird to leave the place--for don't suppose I'm content to be a nobody. I was made for better things. However, I don't like to see your concerns going to ruin, as they must if you keep in this mind.... I hate taking my own measure so plain, but, upon my life, your provoking ways make a man say what he wouldn't dream of at other times! I own to being rather interfering. But you know well enough how it is, and who she is that I like too well, and feel too much like a fool about to be civil to her!" It is more than probable that she privately and unconsciously respected him a little for this grim fidelity, which had been shown in his tone even more than in his words. At any rate she murmured something to the effect that he might stay if he wished. She said more distinctly, "Will you leave me alone now? I don't order it as a mistress--I ask it as a woman, and I expect you not to be so uncourteous as to refuse." "Certainly I will, Miss Everdene," said Gabriel, gently. He wondered that the request should have come at this moment, for the strife was over, and they were on a most desolate hill, far from every human habitation, and the hour was getting late. He stood still and allowed her to get far ahead of him till he could only see her form upon the sky. A distressing explanation of this anxiety to be rid of him at that point now ensued. A figure apparently rose from the earth beside her. The shape beyond all doubt was Troy's. Oak would not be even a possible listener, and at once turned back till a good two hundred yards were between the lovers and himself. Gabriel went home by way of the churchyard. In passing the tower he thought of what she had said about the sergeant's virtuous habit of entering the church unperceived at the beginning of service. Believing that the little gallery door alluded to was quite disused, he ascended the external flight of steps at the top of which it stood, and examined it. The pale lustre yet hanging in the north-western heaven was sufficient to show that a sprig of ivy had grown from the wall across the door to a length of more than a foot, delicately tying the panel to the stone jamb. It was a decisive proof that the door had not been opened at least since Troy came back to Weatherbury.

Chapter 29

https://web.archive.org/web/20201219162644/https://www.shmoop.com/study-guides/literature/far-from-the-madding-crowd/summary/chapter-29

Bathsheba is now in love with Sergeant Troy, but she won't let anyone know about it. Nonetheless, it doesn't take long for Gabriel Oak to realize that she's in love. One night, Gabriel meets her during an evening walk and advises her against getting involved with Sergeant Troy. Bathsheba tells him to mind his own business or she'll fire him... again. Oak says that Sergeant Troy is a bad man. Bathsheba counters by saying that Troy goes to church every Sunday through a secret little side door. That's why Oak has never seen him attend a service. Finally, Bathsheba commands Oak to go away, as in leave the farm. But this time, Oak ignores her request and tells her that they both know she's not going to fire him. As he leaves, Oak sees Troy emerge from the fields to stand and talk to Bathsheba. He realizes that the whole reason she went for a walk to begin with was to meet up with Troy. On his way home, Oak walks by the church and checks out the little side door that Troy supposedly uses to go in. It is completely overgrown with ivy, meaning that no one has used it in years. In other words, Troy has no problem telling flat-out lies to Bathsheba.

shmoop

all_chapterized_books/107-chapters/52.txt

finished_summaries/shmoop/Far From the Madding Crowd/section_51_part_0.txt

Far From the Madding Crowd.chapter 52

chapter 52

{"name": "Chapter 52", "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20201219162644/https://www.shmoop.com/study-guides/literature/far-from-the-madding-crowd/summary/chapter-52", "summary": "Soon enough, Christmas Eve is upon the people of Weatherbury. Everyone learns that Farmer Boldwood is going to give a huge party, which is strange because the guy has never been known to party hearty. Meanwhile, Bathsheba is getting ready to attend the party, full of dread. She knows that Boldwood is having the party so he can publicly announce their engagement, and she doesn't know if she has the power to refuse him. The narrator swoops us over the Boldwood's house. More than usual, he's been very particular about the suit his tailor is making for him. He wants everything to be perfect. When the tailor leaves Gabriel Oak walks into the room. Boldwood dances around the \"promise\" that he thinks a lady has made to him, and Oak knows exactly what he's talking about. Gabriel warns him about being deceived, though, which makes Boldwood a little annoyed with him. Next, we look in on Sergeant Troy, who is hanging out at a place called the White Hart tavern in the nearby town of Casterbridge. There's a knock at his door, and Pennyways struts in. Troy has sent Pennyways out to inquire about what legal repercussions Troy would face for returning to Weatherbury after pretending he was dead. It turns out that he'd have to receive some sort of punishment for what he's done. Next, Troy wants to know if Bathsheba really plans on marrying Boldwood, as many people have said. Pennyways suggests that all the affection seems to be coming from Boldwood. The two of them briefly discuss how Gabriel Oak has flourished in Pennyways' old role, but Troy says this is just because Pennyways is kind of an incompetence fool. Apparently, the Pennyways knows how to take an insult, because he doesn't punch Troy in the nose. Now we're back with Bathsheba and Liddy. Bathsheba wants to keep making herself plainer and plainer for Boldwood's party, but she can't really do it: she's just too pretty to uglify. Liddy makes a joke about Bathsheba marrying Boldwood, but Bathsheba scolds her. Cut back to Oak and Boldwood. Being in a very good mood, Boldwood tells Oak that he plans on giving Oak a very large stake in his farm. He also says that when he marries Bathsheba he'll be looking to retire, so Oak will take over for him. Finally, Boldwood admits that he knows about the affection Oak has always held for Bathsheba, and he wants to reward him for always behaving with so much dignity. He knows it can't be easy for Oak to stand around listening to someone else talk about marrying Bathsheba. After Oak has left, Boldwood goes to a cupboard and takes out a box with an engagement ring inside it. At this point, he hears his first guests arriving. Once more, we flash back to Sergeant Troy, who is getting himself into a disguise so he won't be recognized at Boldwood's party. Yup, the guy plans on going, even though Pennyways advises against it. Troy knows, though, that people around Casterbridge have already seen and recognized him, so it won't be long before word of his existence gets back to Weatherbury.", "analysis": ""}

CONVERGING COURSES Christmas-eve came, and a party that Boldwood was to give in the evening was the great subject of talk in Weatherbury. It was not that the rarity of Christmas parties in the parish made this one a wonder, but that Boldwood should be the giver. The announcement had had an abnormal and incongruous sound, as if one should hear of croquet-playing in a cathedral aisle, or that some much-respected judge was going upon the stage. That the party was intended to be a truly jovial one there was no room for doubt. A large bough of mistletoe had been brought from the woods that day, and suspended in the hall of the bachelor's home. Holly and ivy had followed in armfuls. From six that morning till past noon the huge wood fire in the kitchen roared and sparkled at its highest, the kettle, the saucepan, and the three-legged pot appearing in the midst of the flames like Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego; moreover, roasting and basting operations were continually carried on in front of the genial blaze. As it grew later the fire was made up in the large long hall into which the staircase descended, and all encumbrances were cleared out for dancing. The log which was to form the back-brand of the evening fire was the uncleft trunk of a tree, so unwieldy that it could be neither brought nor rolled to its place; and accordingly two men were to be observed dragging and heaving it in by chains and levers as the hour of assembly drew near. In spite of all this, the spirit of revelry was wanting in the atmosphere of the house. Such a thing had never been attempted before by its owner, and it was now done as by a wrench. Intended gaieties would insist upon appearing like solemn grandeurs, the organization of the whole effort was carried out coldly, by hirelings, and a shadow seemed to move about the rooms, saying that the proceedings were unnatural to the place and the lone man who lived therein, and hence not good. Bathsheba was at this time in her room, dressing for the event. She had called for candles, and Liddy entered and placed one on each side of her mistress's glass. "Don't go away, Liddy," said Bathsheba, almost timidly. "I am foolishly agitated--I cannot tell why. I wish I had not been obliged to go to this dance; but there's no escaping now. I have not spoken to Mr. Boldwood since the autumn, when I promised to see him at Christmas on business, but I had no idea there was to be anything of this kind." "But I would go now," said Liddy, who was going with her; for Boldwood had been indiscriminate in his invitations. "Yes, I shall make my appearance, of course," said Bathsheba. "But I am THE CAUSE of the party, and that upsets me!--Don't tell, Liddy." "Oh no, ma'am. You the cause of it, ma'am?" "Yes. I am the reason of the party--I. If it had not been for me, there would never have been one. I can't explain any more--there's no more to be explained. I wish I had never seen Weatherbury." "That's wicked of you--to wish to be worse off than you are." "No, Liddy. I have never been free from trouble since I have lived here, and this party is likely to bring me more. Now, fetch my black silk dress, and see how it sits upon me." "But you will leave off that, surely, ma'am? You have been a widow-lady fourteen months, and ought to brighten up a little on such a night as this." "Is it necessary? No; I will appear as usual, for if I were to wear any light dress people would say things about me, and I should seem to be rejoicing when I am solemn all the time. The party doesn't suit me a bit; but never mind, stay and help to finish me off." Boldwood was dressing also at this hour. A tailor from Casterbridge was with him, assisting him in the operation of trying on a new coat that had just been brought home. Never had Boldwood been so fastidious, unreasonable about the fit, and generally difficult to please. The tailor walked round and round him, tugged at the waist, pulled the sleeve, pressed out the collar, and for the first time in his experience Boldwood was not bored. Times had been when the farmer had exclaimed against all such niceties as childish, but now no philosophic or hasty rebuke whatever was provoked by this man for attaching as much importance to a crease in the coat as to an earthquake in South America. Boldwood at last expressed himself nearly satisfied, and paid the bill, the tailor passing out of the door just as Oak came in to report progress for the day. "Oh, Oak," said Boldwood. "I shall of course see you here to-night. Make yourself merry. I am determined that neither expense nor trouble shall be spared." "I'll try to be here, sir, though perhaps it may not be very early," said Gabriel, quietly. "I am glad indeed to see such a change in 'ee from what it used to be." "Yes--I must own it--I am bright to-night: cheerful and more than cheerful--so much so that I am almost sad again with the sense that all of it is passing away. And sometimes, when I am excessively hopeful and blithe, a trouble is looming in the distance: so that I often get to look upon gloom in me with content, and to fear a happy mood. Still this may be absurd--I feel that it is absurd. Perhaps my day is dawning at last." "I hope it 'ill be a long and a fair one." "Thank you--thank you. Yet perhaps my cheerfulness rests on a slender hope. And yet I trust my hope. It is faith, not hope. I think this time I reckon with my host.--Oak, my hands are a little shaky, or something; I can't tie this neckerchief properly. Perhaps you will tie it for me. The fact is, I have not been well lately, you know." "I am sorry to hear that, sir." "Oh, it's nothing. I want it done as well as you can, please. Is there any late knot in fashion, Oak?" "I don't know, sir," said Oak. His tone had sunk to sadness. Boldwood approached Gabriel, and as Oak tied the neckerchief the farmer went on feverishly-- "Does a woman keep her promise, Gabriel?" "If it is not inconvenient to her she may." "--Or rather an implied promise." "I won't answer for her implying," said Oak, with faint bitterness. "That's a word as full o' holes as a sieve with them." "Oak, don't talk like that. You have got quite cynical lately--how is it? We seem to have shifted our positions: I have become the young and hopeful man, and you the old and unbelieving one. However, does a woman keep a promise, not to marry, but to enter on an engagement to marry at some time? Now you know women better than I--tell me." "I am afeard you honour my understanding too much. However, she may keep such a promise, if it is made with an honest meaning to repair a wrong." "It has not gone far yet, but I think it will soon--yes, I know it will," he said, in an impulsive whisper. "I have pressed her upon the subject, and she inclines to be kind to me, and to think of me as a husband at a long future time, and that's enough for me. How can I expect more? She has a notion that a woman should not marry within seven years of her husband's disappearance--that her own self shouldn't, I mean--because his body was not found. It may be merely this legal reason which influences her, or it may be a religious one, but she is reluctant to talk on the point. Yet she has promised--implied--that she will ratify an engagement to-night." "Seven years," murmured Oak. "No, no--it's no such thing!" he said, with impatience. "Five years, nine months, and a few days. Fifteen months nearly have passed since he vanished, and is there anything so wonderful in an engagement of little more than five years?" "It seems long in a forward view. Don't build too much upon such promises, sir. Remember, you have once be'n deceived. Her meaning may be good; but there--she's young yet." "Deceived? Never!" said Boldwood, vehemently. "She never promised me at that first time, and hence she did not break her promise! If she promises me, she'll marry me. Bathsheba is a woman to her word." Troy was sitting in a corner of The White Hart tavern at Casterbridge, smoking and drinking a steaming mixture from a glass. A knock was given at the door, and Pennyways entered. "Well, have you seen him?" Troy inquired, pointing to a chair. "Boldwood?" "No--Lawyer Long." "He wadn' at home. I went there first, too." "That's a nuisance." "'Tis rather, I suppose." "Yet I don't see that, because a man appears to be drowned and was not, he should be liable for anything. I shan't ask any lawyer--not I." "But that's not it, exactly. If a man changes his name and so forth, and takes steps to deceive the world and his own wife, he's a cheat, and that in the eye of the law is ayless a rogue, and that is ayless a lammocken vagabond; and that's a punishable situation." "Ha-ha! Well done, Pennyways," Troy had laughed, but it was with some anxiety that he said, "Now, what I want to know is this, do you think there's really anything going on between her and Boldwood? Upon my soul, I should never have believed it! How she must detest me! Have you found out whether she has encouraged him?" "I haen't been able to learn. There's a deal of feeling on his side seemingly, but I don't answer for her. I didn't know a word about any such thing till yesterday, and all I heard then was that she was gwine to the party at his house to-night. This is the first time she has ever gone there, they say. And they say that she've not so much as spoke to him since they were at Greenhill Fair: but what can folk believe o't? However, she's not fond of him--quite offish and quite careless, I know." "I'm not so sure of that.... She's a handsome woman, Pennyways, is she not? Own that you never saw a finer or more splendid creature in your life. Upon my honour, when I set eyes upon her that day I wondered what I could have been made of to be able to leave her by herself so long. And then I was hampered with that bothering show, which I'm free of at last, thank the stars." He smoked on awhile, and then added, "How did she look when you passed by yesterday?" "Oh, she took no great heed of me, ye may well fancy; but she looked well enough, far's I know. Just flashed her haughty eyes upon my poor scram body, and then let them go past me to what was yond, much as if I'd been no more than a leafless tree. She had just got off her mare to look at the last wring-down of cider for the year; she had been riding, and so her colours were up and her breath rather quick, so that her bosom plimmed and fell--plimmed and fell--every time plain to my eye. Ay, and there were the fellers round her wringing down the cheese and bustling about and saying, 'Ware o' the pommy, ma'am: 'twill spoil yer gown.' 'Never mind me,' says she. Then Gabe brought her some of the new cider, and she must needs go drinking it through a strawmote, and not in a nateral way at all. 'Liddy,' says she, 'bring indoors a few gallons, and I'll make some cider-wine.' Sergeant, I was no more to her than a morsel of scroff in the fuel-house!" "I must go and find her out at once--O yes, I see that--I must go. Oak is head man still, isn't he?" "Yes, 'a b'lieve. And at Little Weatherbury Farm too. He manages everything." "'Twill puzzle him to manage her, or any other man of his compass!" "I don't know about that. She can't do without him, and knowing it well he's pretty independent. And she've a few soft corners to her mind, though I've never been able to get into one, the devil's in't!" "Ah, baily, she's a notch above you, and you must own it: a higher class of animal--a finer tissue. However, stick to me, and neither this haughty goddess, dashing piece of womanhood, Juno-wife of mine (Juno was a goddess, you know), nor anybody else shall hurt you. But all this wants looking into, I perceive. What with one thing and another, I see that my work is well cut out for me." "How do I look to-night, Liddy?" said Bathsheba, giving a final adjustment to her dress before leaving the glass. "I never saw you look so well before. Yes--I'll tell you when you looked like it--that night, a year and a half ago, when you came in so wildlike, and scolded us for making remarks about you and Mr. Troy." "Everybody will think that I am setting myself to captivate Mr. Boldwood, I suppose," she murmured. "At least they'll say so. Can't my hair be brushed down a little flatter? I dread going--yet I dread the risk of wounding him by staying away." "Anyhow, ma'am, you can't well be dressed plainer than you are, unless you go in sackcloth at once. 'Tis your excitement is what makes you look so noticeable to-night." "I don't know what's the matter, I feel wretched at one time, and buoyant at another. I wish I could have continued quite alone as I have been for the last year or so, with no hopes and no fears, and no pleasure and no grief." "Now just suppose Mr. Boldwood should ask you--only just suppose it--to run away with him, what would you do, ma'am?" "Liddy--none of that," said Bathsheba, gravely. "Mind, I won't hear joking on any such matter. Do you hear?" "I beg pardon, ma'am. But knowing what rum things we women be, I just said--however, I won't speak of it again." "No marrying for me yet for many a year; if ever, 'twill be for reasons very, very different from those you think, or others will believe! Now get my cloak, for it is time to go." "Oak," said Boldwood, "before you go I want to mention what has been passing in my mind lately--that little arrangement we made about your share in the farm I mean. That share is small, too small, considering how little I attend to business now, and how much time and thought you give to it. Well, since the world is brightening for me, I want to show my sense of it by increasing your proportion in the partnership. I'll make a memorandum of the arrangement which struck me as likely to be convenient, for I haven't time to talk about it now; and then we'll discuss it at our leisure. My intention is ultimately to retire from the management altogether, and until you can take all the expenditure upon your shoulders, I'll be a sleeping partner in the stock. Then, if I marry her--and I hope--I feel I shall, why--" "Pray don't speak of it, sir," said Oak, hastily. "We don't know what may happen. So many upsets may befall 'ee. There's many a slip, as they say--and I would advise you--I know you'll pardon me this once--not to be TOO SURE." "I know, I know. But the feeling I have about increasing your share is on account of what I know of you. Oak, I have learnt a little about your secret: your interest in her is more than that of bailiff for an employer. But you have behaved like a man, and I, as a sort of successful rival--successful partly through your goodness of heart--should like definitely to show my sense of your friendship under what must have been a great pain to you." "O that's not necessary, thank 'ee," said Oak, hurriedly. "I must get used to such as that; other men have, and so shall I." Oak then left him. He was uneasy on Boldwood's account, for he saw anew that this constant passion of the farmer made him not the man he once had been. As Boldwood continued awhile in his room alone--ready and dressed to receive his company--the mood of anxiety about his appearance seemed to pass away, and to be succeeded by a deep solemnity. He looked out of the window, and regarded the dim outline of the trees upon the sky, and the twilight deepening to darkness. Then he went to a locked closet, and took from a locked drawer therein a small circular case the size of a pillbox, and was about to put it into his pocket. But he lingered to open the cover and take a momentary glance inside. It contained a woman's finger-ring, set all the way round with small diamonds, and from its appearance had evidently been recently purchased. Boldwood's eyes dwelt upon its many sparkles a long time, though that its material aspect concerned him little was plain from his manner and mien, which were those of a mind following out the presumed thread of that jewel's future history. The noise of wheels at the front of the house became audible. Boldwood closed the box, stowed it away carefully in his pocket, and went out upon the landing. The old man who was his indoor factotum came at the same moment to the foot of the stairs. "They be coming, sir--lots of 'em--a-foot and a-driving!" "I was coming down this moment. Those wheels I heard--is it Mrs. Troy?" "No, sir--'tis not she yet." A reserved and sombre expression had returned to Boldwood's face again, but it poorly cloaked his feelings when he pronounced Bathsheba's name; and his feverish anxiety continued to show its existence by a galloping motion of his fingers upon the side of his thigh as he went down the stairs. "How does this cover me?" said Troy to Pennyways. "Nobody would recognize me now, I'm sure." He was buttoning on a heavy grey overcoat of Noachian cut, with cape and high collar, the latter being erect and rigid, like a girdling wall, and nearly reaching to the verge of a travelling cap which was pulled down over his ears. Pennyways snuffed the candle, and then looked up and deliberately inspected Troy. "You've made up your mind to go then?" he said. "Made up my mind? Yes; of course I have." "Why not write to her? 'Tis a very queer corner that you have got into, sergeant. You see all these things will come to light if you go back, and they won't sound well at all. Faith, if I was you I'd even bide as you be--a single man of the name of Francis. A good wife is good, but the best wife is not so good as no wife at all. Now that's my outspoke mind, and I've been called a long-headed feller here and there." "All nonsense!" said Troy, angrily. "There she is with plenty of money, and a house and farm, and horses, and comfort, and here am I living from hand to mouth--a needy adventurer. Besides, it is no use talking now; it is too late, and I am glad of it; I've been seen and recognized here this very afternoon. I should have gone back to her the day after the fair, if it hadn't been for you talking about the law, and rubbish about getting a separation; and I don't put it off any longer. What the deuce put it into my head to run away at all, I can't think! Humbugging sentiment--that's what it was. But what man on earth was to know that his wife would be in such a hurry to get rid of his name!" "I should have known it. She's bad enough for anything." "Pennyways, mind who you are talking to." "Well, sergeant, all I say is this, that if I were you I'd go abroad again where I came from--'tisn't too late to do it now. I wouldn't stir up the business and get a bad name for the sake of living with her--for all that about your play-acting is sure to come out, you know, although you think otherwise. My eyes and limbs, there'll be a racket if you go back just now--in the middle of Boldwood's Christmasing!" "H'm, yes. I expect I shall not be a very welcome guest if he has her there," said the sergeant, with a slight laugh. "A sort of Alonzo the Brave; and when I go in the guests will sit in silence and fear, and all laughter and pleasure will be hushed, and the lights in the chamber burn blue, and the worms--Ugh, horrible!--Ring for some more brandy, Pennyways, I felt an awful shudder just then! Well, what is there besides? A stick--I must have a walking-stick." Pennyways now felt himself to be in something of a difficulty, for should Bathsheba and Troy become reconciled it would be necessary to regain her good opinion if he would secure the patronage of her husband. "I sometimes think she likes you yet, and is a good woman at bottom," he said, as a saving sentence. "But there's no telling to a certainty from a body's outside. Well, you'll do as you like about going, of course, sergeant, and as for me, I'll do as you tell me." "Now, let me see what the time is," said Troy, after emptying his glass in one draught as he stood. "Half-past six o'clock. I shall not hurry along the road, and shall be there then before nine."

Chapter 52

https://web.archive.org/web/20201219162644/https://www.shmoop.com/study-guides/literature/far-from-the-madding-crowd/summary/chapter-52

Soon enough, Christmas Eve is upon the people of Weatherbury. Everyone learns that Farmer Boldwood is going to give a huge party, which is strange because the guy has never been known to party hearty. Meanwhile, Bathsheba is getting ready to attend the party, full of dread. She knows that Boldwood is having the party so he can publicly announce their engagement, and she doesn't know if she has the power to refuse him. The narrator swoops us over the Boldwood's house. More than usual, he's been very particular about the suit his tailor is making for him. He wants everything to be perfect. When the tailor leaves Gabriel Oak walks into the room. Boldwood dances around the "promise" that he thinks a lady has made to him, and Oak knows exactly what he's talking about. Gabriel warns him about being deceived, though, which makes Boldwood a little annoyed with him. Next, we look in on Sergeant Troy, who is hanging out at a place called the White Hart tavern in the nearby town of Casterbridge. There's a knock at his door, and Pennyways struts in. Troy has sent Pennyways out to inquire about what legal repercussions Troy would face for returning to Weatherbury after pretending he was dead. It turns out that he'd have to receive some sort of punishment for what he's done. Next, Troy wants to know if Bathsheba really plans on marrying Boldwood, as many people have said. Pennyways suggests that all the affection seems to be coming from Boldwood. The two of them briefly discuss how Gabriel Oak has flourished in Pennyways' old role, but Troy says this is just because Pennyways is kind of an incompetence fool. Apparently, the Pennyways knows how to take an insult, because he doesn't punch Troy in the nose. Now we're back with Bathsheba and Liddy. Bathsheba wants to keep making herself plainer and plainer for Boldwood's party, but she can't really do it: she's just too pretty to uglify. Liddy makes a joke about Bathsheba marrying Boldwood, but Bathsheba scolds her. Cut back to Oak and Boldwood. Being in a very good mood, Boldwood tells Oak that he plans on giving Oak a very large stake in his farm. He also says that when he marries Bathsheba he'll be looking to retire, so Oak will take over for him. Finally, Boldwood admits that he knows about the affection Oak has always held for Bathsheba, and he wants to reward him for always behaving with so much dignity. He knows it can't be easy for Oak to stand around listening to someone else talk about marrying Bathsheba. After Oak has left, Boldwood goes to a cupboard and takes out a box with an engagement ring inside it. At this point, he hears his first guests arriving. Once more, we flash back to Sergeant Troy, who is getting himself into a disguise so he won't be recognized at Boldwood's party. Yup, the guy plans on going, even though Pennyways advises against it. Troy knows, though, that people around Casterbridge have already seen and recognized him, so it won't be long before word of his existence gets back to Weatherbury.

novelguide

all_chapterized_books/110-chapters/01.txt

finished_summaries/novelguide/Tess of the d'Urbervilles/section_1_part_1.txt

Tess of the d'Urbervilles.chapter i

chapter i

{"name": "Chapter I", "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20210213065711/https://www.novelguide.com/tess-of-the-durbervilles/summaries/phase1-chapter1-11", "summary": "Middle-aged Jack Durbeyfield walks home drunk to the village of Marlott one evening in May and meets Parson Tringham who is riding in the opposite direction. An antiquary, the old Parson calls Durbeyfield \"Sir John\" and Durbeyfield asks him why. The parson tells Durbeyfield that he is a descendent of an ancient Norman noble family and that if knighthoods were hereditary, he would most certainly be called Sir John today. When Durbeyfield inquires about the whereabouts of his noble family the parson answers: \"you don't live anywhere. You are extinct--as a county family\". The idea of royal blood running in his veins deeply delights Durbeyfield who orders a carriage to carry him home", "analysis": ""}

On an evening in the latter part of May a middle-aged man was walking homeward from Shaston to the village of Marlott, in the adjoining Vale of Blakemore, or Blackmoor. The pair of legs that carried him were rickety, and there was a bias in his gait which inclined him somewhat to the left of a straight line. He occasionally gave a smart nod, as if in confirmation of some opinion, though he was not thinking of anything in particular. An empty egg-basket was slung upon his arm, the nap of his hat was ruffled, a patch being quite worn away at its brim where his thumb came in taking it off. Presently he was met by an elderly parson astride on a gray mare, who, as he rode, hummed a wandering tune. "Good night t'ee," said the man with the basket. "Good night, Sir John," said the parson. The pedestrian, after another pace or two, halted, and turned round. "Now, sir, begging your pardon; we met last market-day on this road about this time, and I said 'Good night,' and you made reply '_Good night, Sir John_,' as now." "I did," said the parson. "And once before that--near a month ago." "I may have." "Then what might your meaning be in calling me 'Sir John' these different times, when I be plain Jack Durbeyfield, the haggler?" The parson rode a step or two nearer. "It was only my whim," he said; and, after a moment's hesitation: "It was on account of a discovery I made some little time ago, whilst I was hunting up pedigrees for the new county history. I am Parson Tringham, the antiquary, of Stagfoot Lane. Don't you really know, Durbeyfield, that you are the lineal representative of the ancient and knightly family of the d'Urbervilles, who derive their descent from Sir Pagan d'Urberville, that renowned knight who came from Normandy with William the Conqueror, as appears by Battle Abbey Roll?" "Never heard it before, sir!" "Well it's true. Throw up your chin a moment, so that I may catch the profile of your face better. Yes, that's the d'Urberville nose and chin--a little debased. Your ancestor was one of the twelve knights who assisted the Lord of Estremavilla in Normandy in his conquest of Glamorganshire. Branches of your family held manors over all this part of England; their names appear in the Pipe Rolls in the time of King Stephen. In the reign of King John one of them was rich enough to give a manor to the Knights Hospitallers; and in Edward the Second's time your forefather Brian was summoned to Westminster to attend the great Council there. You declined a little in Oliver Cromwell's time, but to no serious extent, and in Charles the Second's reign you were made Knights of the Royal Oak for your loyalty. Aye, there have been generations of Sir Johns among you, and if knighthood were hereditary, like a baronetcy, as it practically was in old times, when men were knighted from father to son, you would be Sir John now." "Ye don't say so!" "In short," concluded the parson, decisively smacking his leg with his switch, "there's hardly such another family in England." "Daze my eyes, and isn't there?" said Durbeyfield. "And here have I been knocking about, year after year, from pillar to post, as if I was no more than the commonest feller in the parish... And how long hev this news about me been knowed, Pa'son Tringham?" The clergyman explained that, as far as he was aware, it had quite died out of knowledge, and could hardly be said to be known at all. His own investigations had begun on a day in the preceding spring when, having been engaged in tracing the vicissitudes of the d'Urberville family, he had observed Durbeyfield's name on his waggon, and had thereupon been led to make inquiries about his father and grandfather till he had no doubt on the subject. "At first I resolved not to disturb you with such a useless piece of information," said he. "However, our impulses are too strong for our judgement sometimes. I thought you might perhaps know something of it all the while." "Well, I have heard once or twice, 'tis true, that my family had seen better days afore they came to Blackmoor. But I took no notice o't, thinking it to mean that we had once kept two horses where we now keep only one. I've got a wold silver spoon, and a wold graven seal at home, too; but, Lord, what's a spoon and seal? ... And to think that I and these noble d'Urbervilles were one flesh all the time. 'Twas said that my gr't-granfer had secrets, and didn't care to talk of where he came from... And where do we raise our smoke, now, parson, if I may make so bold; I mean, where do we d'Urbervilles live?" "You don't live anywhere. You are extinct--as a county family." "That's bad." "Yes--what the mendacious family chronicles call extinct in the male line--that is, gone down--gone under." "Then where do we lie?" "At Kingsbere-sub-Greenhill: rows and rows of you in your vaults, with your effigies under Purbeck-marble canopies." "And where be our family mansions and estates?" "You haven't any." "Oh? No lands neither?" "None; though you once had 'em in abundance, as I said, for you family consisted of numerous branches. In this county there was a seat of yours at Kingsbere, and another at Sherton, and another in Millpond, and another at Lullstead, and another at Wellbridge." "And shall we ever come into our own again?" "Ah--that I can't tell!" "And what had I better do about it, sir?" asked Durbeyfield, after a pause. "Oh--nothing, nothing; except chasten yourself with the thought of 'how are the mighty fallen.' It is a fact of some interest to the local historian and genealogist, nothing more. There are several families among the cottagers of this county of almost equal lustre. Good night." "But you'll turn back and have a quart of beer wi' me on the strength o't, Pa'son Tringham? There's a very pretty brew in tap at The Pure Drop--though, to be sure, not so good as at Rolliver's." "No, thank you--not this evening, Durbeyfield. You've had enough already." Concluding thus, the parson rode on his way, with doubts as to his discretion in retailing this curious bit of lore. When he was gone, Durbeyfield walked a few steps in a profound reverie, and then sat down upon the grassy bank by the roadside, depositing his basket before him. In a few minutes a youth appeared in the distance, walking in the same direction as that which had been pursued by Durbeyfield. The latter, on seeing him, held up his hand, and the lad quickened his pace and came near. "Boy, take up that basket! I want 'ee to go on an errand for me." The lath-like stripling frowned. "Who be you, then, John Durbeyfield, to order me about and call me 'boy'? You know my name as well as I know yours!" "Do you, do you? That's the secret--that's the secret! Now obey my orders, and take the message I'm going to charge 'ee wi'... Well, Fred, I don't mind telling you that the secret is that I'm one of a noble race--it has been just found out by me this present afternoon, P.M." And as he made the announcement, Durbeyfield, declining from his sitting position, luxuriously stretched himself out upon the bank among the daisies. The lad stood before Durbeyfield, and contemplated his length from crown to toe. "Sir John d'Urberville--that's who I am," continued the prostrate man. "That is if knights were baronets--which they be. 'Tis recorded in history all about me. Dost know of such a place, lad, as Kingsbere-sub-Greenhill?" "Ees. I've been there to Greenhill Fair." "Well, under the church of that city there lie--" "'Tisn't a city, the place I mean; leastwise 'twaddn' when I was there--'twas a little one-eyed, blinking sort o' place." "Never you mind the place, boy, that's not the question before us. Under the church of that there parish lie my ancestors--hundreds of 'em--in coats of mail and jewels, in gr't lead coffins weighing tons and tons. There's not a man in the county o' South-Wessex that's got grander and nobler skillentons in his family than I." "Oh?" "Now take up that basket, and goo on to Marlott, and when you've come to The Pure Drop Inn, tell 'em to send a horse and carriage to me immed'ately, to carry me hwome. And in the bottom o' the carriage they be to put a noggin o' rum in a small bottle, and chalk it up to my account. And when you've done that goo on to my house with the basket, and tell my wife to put away that washing, because she needn't finish it, and wait till I come hwome, as I've news to tell her." As the lad stood in a dubious attitude, Durbeyfield put his hand in his pocket, and produced a shilling, one of the chronically few that he possessed. "Here's for your labour, lad." This made a difference in the young man's estimate of the position. "Yes, Sir John. Thank 'ee. Anything else I can do for 'ee, Sir John?" "Tell 'em at hwome that I should like for supper,--well, lamb's fry if they can get it; and if they can't, black-pot; and if they can't get that, well chitterlings will do." "Yes, Sir John." The boy took up the basket, and as he set out the notes of a brass band were heard from the direction of the village. "What's that?" said Durbeyfield. "Not on account o' I?" "'Tis the women's club-walking, Sir John. Why, your da'ter is one o' the members." "To be sure--I'd quite forgot it in my thoughts of greater things! Well, vamp on to Marlott, will ye, and order that carriage, and maybe I'll drive round and inspect the club." The lad departed, and Durbeyfield lay waiting on the grass and daisies in the evening sun. Not a soul passed that way for a long while, and the faint notes of the band were the only human sounds audible within the rim of blue hills.

Chapter I

https://web.archive.org/web/20210213065711/https://www.novelguide.com/tess-of-the-durbervilles/summaries/phase1-chapter1-11

Middle-aged Jack Durbeyfield walks home drunk to the village of Marlott one evening in May and meets Parson Tringham who is riding in the opposite direction. An antiquary, the old Parson calls Durbeyfield "Sir John" and Durbeyfield asks him why. The parson tells Durbeyfield that he is a descendent of an ancient Norman noble family and that if knighthoods were hereditary, he would most certainly be called Sir John today. When Durbeyfield inquires about the whereabouts of his noble family the parson answers: "you don't live anywhere. You are extinct--as a county family". The idea of royal blood running in his veins deeply delights Durbeyfield who orders a carriage to carry him home

shmoop

all_chapterized_books/5658-chapters/02.txt

finished_summaries/shmoop/Lord Jim/section_1_part_0.txt

Lord Jim.chapter 2

chapter 2

{"name": "Chapter 2", "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20210118112654/https://www.shmoop.com/study-guides/literature/lord-jim/summary/chapter-2", "summary": "A few years later we catch up with Jim who is now serving as a mate aboard a nice ship. During rough weather, Jim gets whacked by a falling spear. Ouch. The injured Jim has to go to the hospital and gets left behind by his ship. Not cool, mates. After his stint at the hospital, Jim takes an easier job aboard the Patna, \" a local steamer as old as the hills, lean like a greyhound, and eaten up with rust worse than a condemned water-tank.\" . Sounds charming. Appearances aside, life on the Patna is pretty easy for Jim. The crew is an international hodgepodge of dudes who don't care to work all that hard, so there's no need to impress. The Patna is ferrying a large group of Muslim pilgrims to Mecca, in nice, warm weather. All is well.", "analysis": ""}

After two years of training he went to sea, and entering the regions so well known to his imagination, found them strangely barren of adventure. He made many voyages. He knew the magic monotony of existence between sky and water: he had to bear the criticism of men, the exactions of the sea, and the prosaic severity of the daily task that gives bread--but whose only reward is in the perfect love of the work. This reward eluded him. Yet he could not go back, because there is nothing more enticing, disenchanting, and enslaving than the life at sea. Besides, his prospects were good. He was gentlemanly, steady, tractable, with a thorough knowledge of his duties; and in time, when yet very young, he became chief mate of a fine ship, without ever having been tested by those events of the sea that show in the light of day the inner worth of a man, the edge of his temper, and the fibre of his stuff; that reveal the quality of his resistance and the secret truth of his pretences, not only to others but also to himself. Only once in all that time he had again a glimpse of the earnestness in the anger of the sea. That truth is not so often made apparent as people might think. There are many shades in the danger of adventures and gales, and it is only now and then that there appears on the face of facts a sinister violence of intention--that indefinable something which forces it upon the mind and the heart of a man, that this complication of accidents or these elemental furies are coming at him with a purpose of malice, with a strength beyond control, with an unbridled cruelty that means to tear out of him his hope and his fear, the pain of his fatigue and his longing for rest: which means to smash, to destroy, to annihilate all he has seen, known, loved, enjoyed, or hated; all that is priceless and necessary--the sunshine, the memories, the future; which means to sweep the whole precious world utterly away from his sight by the simple and appalling act of taking his life. Jim, disabled by a falling spar at the beginning of a week of which his Scottish captain used to say afterwards, 'Man! it's a pairfect meeracle to me how she lived through it!' spent many days stretched on his back, dazed, battered, hopeless, and tormented as if at the bottom of an abyss of unrest. He did not care what the end would be, and in his lucid moments overvalued his indifference. The danger, when not seen, has the imperfect vagueness of human thought. The fear grows shadowy; and Imagination, the enemy of men, the father of all terrors, unstimulated, sinks to rest in the dullness of exhausted emotion. Jim saw nothing but the disorder of his tossed cabin. He lay there battened down in the midst of a small devastation, and felt secretly glad he had not to go on deck. But now and again an uncontrollable rush of anguish would grip him bodily, make him gasp and writhe under the blankets, and then the unintelligent brutality of an existence liable to the agony of such sensations filled him with a despairing desire to escape at any cost. Then fine weather returned, and he thought no more about It. His lameness, however, persisted, and when the ship arrived at an Eastern port he had to go to the hospital. His recovery was slow, and he was left behind. There were only two other patients in the white men's ward: the purser of a gunboat, who had broken his leg falling down a hatchway; and a kind of railway contractor from a neighbouring province, afflicted by some mysterious tropical disease, who held the doctor for an ass, and indulged in secret debaucheries of patent medicine which his Tamil servant used to smuggle in with unwearied devotion. They told each other the story of their lives, played cards a little, or, yawning and in pyjamas, lounged through the day in easy-chairs without saying a word. The hospital stood on a hill, and a gentle breeze entering through the windows, always flung wide open, brought into the bare room the softness of the sky, the languor of the earth, the bewitching breath of the Eastern waters. There were perfumes in it, suggestions of infinite repose, the gift of endless dreams. Jim looked every day over the thickets of gardens, beyond the roofs of the town, over the fronds of palms growing on the shore, at that roadstead which is a thoroughfare to the East,--at the roadstead dotted by garlanded islets, lighted by festal sunshine, its ships like toys, its brilliant activity resembling a holiday pageant, with the eternal serenity of the Eastern sky overhead and the smiling peace of the Eastern seas possessing the space as far as the horizon. Directly he could walk without a stick, he descended into the town to look for some opportunity to get home. Nothing offered just then, and, while waiting, he associated naturally with the men of his calling in the port. These were of two kinds. Some, very few and seen there but seldom, led mysterious lives, had preserved an undefaced energy with the temper of buccaneers and the eyes of dreamers. They appeared to live in a crazy maze of plans, hopes, dangers, enterprises, ahead of civilisation, in the dark places of the sea; and their death was the only event of their fantastic existence that seemed to have a reasonable certitude of achievement. The majority were men who, like himself, thrown there by some accident, had remained as officers of country ships. They had now a horror of the home service, with its harder conditions, severer view of duty, and the hazard of stormy oceans. They were attuned to the eternal peace of Eastern sky and sea. They loved short passages, good deck-chairs, large native crews, and the distinction of being white. They shuddered at the thought of hard work, and led precariously easy lives, always on the verge of dismissal, always on the verge of engagement, serving Chinamen, Arabs, half-castes--would have served the devil himself had he made it easy enough. They talked everlastingly of turns of luck: how So-and-so got charge of a boat on the coast of China--a soft thing; how this one had an easy billet in Japan somewhere, and that one was doing well in the Siamese navy; and in all they said--in their actions, in their looks, in their persons--could be detected the soft spot, the place of decay, the determination to lounge safely through existence. To Jim that gossiping crowd, viewed as seamen, seemed at first more unsubstantial than so many shadows. But at length he found a fascination in the sight of those men, in their appearance of doing so well on such a small allowance of danger and toil. In time, beside the original disdain there grew up slowly another sentiment; and suddenly, giving up the idea of going home, he took a berth as chief mate of the Patna. The Patna was a local steamer as old as the hills, lean like a greyhound, and eaten up with rust worse than a condemned water-tank. She was owned by a Chinaman, chartered by an Arab, and commanded by a sort of renegade New South Wales German, very anxious to curse publicly his native country, but who, apparently on the strength of Bismarck's victorious policy, brutalised all those he was not afraid of, and wore a 'blood-and-iron' air,' combined with a purple nose and a red moustache. After she had been painted outside and whitewashed inside, eight hundred pilgrims (more or less) were driven on board of her as she lay with steam up alongside a wooden jetty. They streamed aboard over three gangways, they streamed in urged by faith and the hope of paradise, they streamed in with a continuous tramp and shuffle of bare feet, without a word, a murmur, or a look back; and when clear of confining rails spread on all sides over the deck, flowed forward and aft, overflowed down the yawning hatchways, filled the inner recesses of the ship--like water filling a cistern, like water flowing into crevices and crannies, like water rising silently even with the rim. Eight hundred men and women with faith and hopes, with affections and memories, they had collected there, coming from north and south and from the outskirts of the East, after treading the jungle paths, descending the rivers, coasting in praus along the shallows, crossing in small canoes from island to island, passing through suffering, meeting strange sights, beset by strange fears, upheld by one desire. They came from solitary huts in the wilderness, from populous campongs, from villages by the sea. At the call of an idea they had left their forests, their clearings, the protection of their rulers, their prosperity, their poverty, the surroundings of their youth and the graves of their fathers. They came covered with dust, with sweat, with grime, with rags--the strong men at the head of family parties, the lean old men pressing forward without hope of return; young boys with fearless eyes glancing curiously, shy little girls with tumbled long hair; the timid women muffled up and clasping to their breasts, wrapped in loose ends of soiled head-cloths, their sleeping babies, the unconscious pilgrims of an exacting belief. 'Look at dese cattle,' said the German skipper to his new chief mate. An Arab, the leader of that pious voyage, came last. He walked slowly aboard, handsome and grave in his white gown and large turban. A string of servants followed, loaded with his luggage; the Patna cast off and backed away from the wharf. She was headed between two small islets, crossed obliquely the anchoring-ground of sailing-ships, swung through half a circle in the shadow of a hill, then ranged close to a ledge of foaming reefs. The Arab, standing up aft, recited aloud the prayer of travellers by sea. He invoked the favour of the Most High upon that journey, implored His blessing on men's toil and on the secret purposes of their hearts; the steamer pounded in the dusk the calm water of the Strait; and far astern of the pilgrim ship a screw-pile lighthouse, planted by unbelievers on a treacherous shoal, seemed to wink at her its eye of flame, as if in derision of her errand of faith. She cleared the Strait, crossed the bay, continued on her way through the 'One-degree' passage. She held on straight for the Red Sea under a serene sky, under a sky scorching and unclouded, enveloped in a fulgor of sunshine that killed all thought, oppressed the heart, withered all impulses of strength and energy. And under the sinister splendour of that sky the sea, blue and profound, remained still, without a stir, without a ripple, without a wrinkle--viscous, stagnant, dead. The Patna, with a slight hiss, passed over that plain, luminous and smooth, unrolled a black ribbon of smoke across the sky, left behind her on the water a white ribbon of foam that vanished at once, like the phantom of a track drawn upon a lifeless sea by the phantom of a steamer. Every morning the sun, as if keeping pace in his revolutions with the progress of the pilgrimage, emerged with a silent burst of light exactly at the same distance astern of the ship, caught up with her at noon, pouring the concentrated fire of his rays on the pious purposes of the men, glided past on his descent, and sank mysteriously into the sea evening after evening, preserving the same distance ahead of her advancing bows. The five whites on board lived amidships, isolated from the human cargo. The awnings covered the deck with a white roof from stem to stern, and a faint hum, a low murmur of sad voices, alone revealed the presence of a crowd of people upon the great blaze of the ocean. Such were the days, still, hot, heavy, disappearing one by one into the past, as if falling into an abyss for ever open in the wake of the ship; and the ship, lonely under a wisp of smoke, held on her steadfast way black and smouldering in a luminous immensity, as if scorched by a flame flicked at her from a heaven without pity. The nights descended on her like a benediction.

Chapter 2

https://web.archive.org/web/20210118112654/https://www.shmoop.com/study-guides/literature/lord-jim/summary/chapter-2

A few years later we catch up with Jim who is now serving as a mate aboard a nice ship. During rough weather, Jim gets whacked by a falling spear. Ouch. The injured Jim has to go to the hospital and gets left behind by his ship. Not cool, mates. After his stint at the hospital, Jim takes an easier job aboard the Patna, " a local steamer as old as the hills, lean like a greyhound, and eaten up with rust worse than a condemned water-tank." . Sounds charming. Appearances aside, life on the Patna is pretty easy for Jim. The crew is an international hodgepodge of dudes who don't care to work all that hard, so there's no need to impress. The Patna is ferrying a large group of Muslim pilgrims to Mecca, in nice, warm weather. All is well.

shmoop

all_chapterized_books/28054-chapters/71.txt

finished_summaries/shmoop/The Brothers Karamazov/section_70_part_0.txt

The Brothers Karamazov.book 11.chapter 2

book 11, chapter 2

{"name": "Book 11, Chapter 2", "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20201023112808/https://www.shmoop.com/study-guides/literature/brothers-karamazov/summary/book-11-chapter-2", "summary": "When Alyosha arrives at Madame Khokhlakov's at Lise's urgent request, Madame Khokhlakov is a nervous wreck. She's been immobilized by swollen foot for the past three weeks, but that hasn't stopped her from getting all dressed up. Madame Khokhlakov's latest tizzy is over an anonymous article that's appeared in a newspaper called Rumors, which sounds a bit like a 19th-century version of PeopleUS Weekly. or Someone has written horrible things about events in their town - which the narrator finally names as Skotoprigonyevsk. This anonymous author has claimed that Dmitri has flirted with a certain unnamed society lady - i.e., Madame Khokhlakov - who has gone so far as to offer him 3,000 roubles two hours before the murder to run away with her. He spurned her, however, and it is implied that he preferred to kill his father rather than spend his life in Siberia with this unnamed society lady. Madame Khokhlakov is convinced that it's about her, and that it's by Rakitin. Rakitin is jealous because she rejected him and is pursuing a flirtation with Perkhotin, the young official to whom Dmitri pawned his pistols. Rakitin had written a silly little poem about her foot, and she and Perkhotin had laughed over it. Madame Khokhlakov also informs Alyosha, to his surprise, that Ivan has visited Lise. After Ivan's visit, Lise has been terribly upset. Their conversation is interrupted when Perkhotin enters, and Alyosha leaves for Lise's room.", "analysis": ""}

Chapter II. The Injured Foot The first of these things was at the house of Madame Hohlakov, and he hurried there to get it over as quickly as possible and not be too late for Mitya. Madame Hohlakov had been slightly ailing for the last three weeks: her foot had for some reason swollen up, and though she was not in bed, she lay all day half-reclining on the couch in her boudoir, in a fascinating but decorous _deshabille_. Alyosha had once noted with innocent amusement that, in spite of her illness, Madame Hohlakov had begun to be rather dressy--top-knots, ribbons, loose wrappers, had made their appearance, and he had an inkling of the reason, though he dismissed such ideas from his mind as frivolous. During the last two months the young official, Perhotin, had become a regular visitor at the house. Alyosha had not called for four days and he was in haste to go straight to Lise, as it was with her he had to speak, for Lise had sent a maid to him the previous day, specially asking him to come to her "about something very important," a request which, for certain reasons, had interest for Alyosha. But while the maid went to take his name in to Lise, Madame Hohlakov heard of his arrival from some one, and immediately sent to beg him to come to her "just for one minute." Alyosha reflected that it was better to accede to the mamma's request, or else she would be sending down to Lise's room every minute that he was there. Madame Hohlakov was lying on a couch. She was particularly smartly dressed and was evidently in a state of extreme nervous excitement. She greeted Alyosha with cries of rapture. "It's ages, ages, perfect ages since I've seen you! It's a whole week--only think of it! Ah, but you were here only four days ago, on Wednesday. You have come to see Lise. I'm sure you meant to slip into her room on tiptoe, without my hearing you. My dear, dear Alexey Fyodorovitch, if you only knew how worried I am about her! But of that later, though that's the most important thing, of that later. Dear Alexey Fyodorovitch, I trust you implicitly with my Lise. Since the death of Father Zossima--God rest his soul!" (she crossed herself)--"I look upon you as a monk, though you look charming in your new suit. Where did you find such a tailor in these parts? No, no, that's not the chief thing--of that later. Forgive me for sometimes calling you Alyosha; an old woman like me may take liberties," she smiled coquettishly; "but that will do later, too. The important thing is that I shouldn't forget what is important. Please remind me of it yourself. As soon as my tongue runs away with me, you just say 'the important thing?' Ach! how do I know now what is of most importance? Ever since Lise took back her promise--her childish promise, Alexey Fyodorovitch--to marry you, you've realized, of course, that it was only the playful fancy of a sick child who had been so long confined to her chair--thank God, she can walk now!... that new doctor Katya sent for from Moscow for your unhappy brother, who will to-morrow--But why speak of to- morrow? I am ready to die at the very thought of to-morrow. Ready to die of curiosity.... That doctor was with us yesterday and saw Lise.... I paid him fifty roubles for the visit. But that's not the point, that's not the point again. You see, I'm mixing everything up. I am in such a hurry. Why am I in a hurry? I don't understand. It's awful how I seem growing unable to understand anything. Everything seems mixed up in a sort of tangle. I am afraid you are so bored you will jump up and run away, and that will be all I shall see of you. Goodness! Why are we sitting here and no coffee? Yulia, Glafira, coffee!" Alyosha made haste to thank her, and said that he had only just had coffee. "Where?" "At Agrafena Alexandrovna's." "At ... at that woman's? Ah, it's she has brought ruin on every one. I know nothing about it though. They say she has become a saint, though it's rather late in the day. She had better have done it before. What use is it now? Hush, hush, Alexey Fyodorovitch, for I have so much to say to you that I am afraid I shall tell you nothing. This awful trial ... I shall certainly go, I am making arrangements. I shall be carried there in my chair; besides I can sit up. I shall have people with me. And, you know, I am a witness. How shall I speak, how shall I speak? I don't know what I shall say. One has to take an oath, hasn't one?" "Yes; but I don't think you will be able to go." "I can sit up. Ah, you put me out! Ah! this trial, this savage act, and then they are all going to Siberia, some are getting married, and all this so quickly, so quickly, everything's changing, and at last--nothing. All grow old and have death to look forward to. Well, so be it! I am weary. This Katya, _cette charmante personne_, has disappointed all my hopes. Now she is going to follow one of your brothers to Siberia, and your other brother is going to follow her, and will live in the nearest town, and they will all torment one another. It drives me out of my mind. Worst of all--the publicity. The story has been told a million times over in all the papers in Moscow and Petersburg. Ah! yes, would you believe it, there's a paragraph that I was 'a dear friend' of your brother's ----, I can't repeat the horrid word. Just fancy, just fancy!" "Impossible! Where was the paragraph? What did it say?" "I'll show you directly. I got the paper and read it yesterday. Here, in the Petersburg paper _Gossip_. The paper began coming out this year. I am awfully fond of gossip, and I take it in, and now it pays me out--this is what gossip comes to! Here it is, here, this passage. Read it." And she handed Alyosha a sheet of newspaper which had been under her pillow. It was not exactly that she was upset, she seemed overwhelmed and perhaps everything really was mixed up in a tangle in her head. The paragraph was very typical, and must have been a great shock to her, but, fortunately perhaps, she was unable to keep her mind fixed on any one subject at that moment, and so might race off in a minute to something else and quite forget the newspaper. Alyosha was well aware that the story of the terrible case had spread all over Russia. And, good heavens! what wild rumors about his brother, about the Karamazovs, and about himself he had read in the course of those two months, among other equally credible items! One paper had even stated that he had gone into a monastery and become a monk, in horror at his brother's crime. Another contradicted this, and stated that he and his elder, Father Zossima, had broken into the monastery chest and "made tracks from the monastery." The present paragraph in the paper _Gossip_ was under the heading, "The Karamazov Case at Skotoprigonyevsk." (That, alas! was the name of our little town. I had hitherto kept it concealed.) It was brief, and Madame Hohlakov was not directly mentioned in it. No names appeared, in fact. It was merely stated that the criminal, whose approaching trial was making such a sensation--retired army captain, an idle swaggerer, and reactionary bully--was continually involved in amorous intrigues, and particularly popular with certain ladies "who were pining in solitude." One such lady, a pining widow, who tried to seem young though she had a grown-up daughter, was so fascinated by him that only two hours before the crime she offered him three thousand roubles, on condition that he would elope with her to the gold mines. But the criminal, counting on escaping punishment, had preferred to murder his father to get the three thousand rather than go off to Siberia with the middle-aged charms of his pining lady. This playful paragraph finished, of course, with an outburst of generous indignation at the wickedness of parricide and at the lately abolished institution of serfdom. Reading it with curiosity, Alyosha folded up the paper and handed it back to Madame Hohlakov. "Well, that must be me," she hurried on again. "Of course I am meant. Scarcely more than an hour before, I suggested gold mines to him, and here they talk of 'middle-aged charms' as though that were my motive! He writes that out of spite! God Almighty forgive him for the middle-aged charms, as I forgive him! You know it's-- Do you know who it is? It's your friend Rakitin." "Perhaps," said Alyosha, "though I've heard nothing about it." "It's he, it's he! No 'perhaps' about it. You know I turned him out of the house.... You know all that story, don't you?" "I know that you asked him not to visit you for the future, but why it was, I haven't heard ... from you, at least." "Ah, then you've heard it from him! He abuses me, I suppose, abuses me dreadfully?" "Yes, he does; but then he abuses every one. But why you've given him up I haven't heard from him either. I meet him very seldom now, indeed. We are not friends." "Well, then, I'll tell you all about it. There's no help for it, I'll confess, for there is one point in which I was perhaps to blame. Only a little, little point, so little that perhaps it doesn't count. You see, my dear boy"--Madame Hohlakov suddenly looked arch and a charming, though enigmatic, smile played about her lips--"you see, I suspect ... You must forgive me, Alyosha. I am like a mother to you.... No, no; quite the contrary. I speak to you now as though you were my father--mother's quite out of place. Well, it's as though I were confessing to Father Zossima, that's just it. I called you a monk just now. Well, that poor young man, your friend, Rakitin (Mercy on us! I can't be angry with him. I feel cross, but not very), that frivolous young man, would you believe it, seems to have taken it into his head to fall in love with me. I only noticed it later. At first--a month ago--he only began to come oftener to see me, almost every day; though, of course, we were acquainted before. I knew nothing about it ... and suddenly it dawned upon me, and I began to notice things with surprise. You know, two months ago, that modest, charming, excellent young man, Pyotr Ilyitch Perhotin, who's in the service here, began to be a regular visitor at the house. You met him here ever so many times yourself. And he is an excellent, earnest young man, isn't he? He comes once every three days, not every day (though I should be glad to see him every day), and always so well dressed. Altogether, I love young people, Alyosha, talented, modest, like you, and he has almost the mind of a statesman, he talks so charmingly, and I shall certainly, certainly try and get promotion for him. He is a future diplomat. On that awful day he almost saved me from death by coming in the night. And your friend Rakitin comes in such boots, and always stretches them out on the carpet.... He began hinting at his feelings, in fact, and one day, as he was going, he squeezed my hand terribly hard. My foot began to swell directly after he pressed my hand like that. He had met Pyotr Ilyitch here before, and would you believe it, he is always gibing at him, growling at him, for some reason. I simply looked at the way they went on together and laughed inwardly. So I was sitting here alone--no, I was laid up then. Well, I was lying here alone and suddenly Rakitin comes in, and only fancy! brought me some verses of his own composition--a short poem, on my bad foot: that is, he described my foot in a poem. Wait a minute--how did it go? A captivating little foot. It began somehow like that. I can never remember poetry. I've got it here. I'll show it to you later. But it's a charming thing--charming; and, you know, it's not only about the foot, it had a good moral, too, a charming idea, only I've forgotten it; in fact, it was just the thing for an album. So, of course, I thanked him, and he was evidently flattered. I'd hardly had time to thank him when in comes Pyotr Ilyitch, and Rakitin suddenly looked as black as night. I could see that Pyotr Ilyitch was in the way, for Rakitin certainly wanted to say something after giving me the verses. I had a presentiment of it; but Pyotr Ilyitch came in. I showed Pyotr Ilyitch the verses and didn't say who was the author. But I am convinced that he guessed, though he won't own it to this day, and declares he had no idea. But he says that on purpose. Pyotr Ilyitch began to laugh at once, and fell to criticizing it. 'Wretched doggerel,' he said they were, 'some divinity student must have written them,' and with such vehemence, such vehemence! Then, instead of laughing, your friend flew into a rage. 'Good gracious!' I thought, 'they'll fly at each other.' 'It was I who wrote them,' said he. 'I wrote them as a joke,' he said, 'for I think it degrading to write verses.... But they are good poetry. They want to put a monument to your Pushkin for writing about women's feet, while I wrote with a moral purpose, and you,' said he, 'are an advocate of serfdom. You've no humane ideas,' said he. 'You have no modern enlightened feelings, you are uninfluenced by progress, you are a mere official,' he said, 'and you take bribes.' Then I began screaming and imploring them. And, you know, Pyotr Ilyitch is anything but a coward. He at once took up the most gentlemanly tone, looked at him sarcastically, listened, and apologized. 'I'd no idea,' said he. 'I shouldn't have said it, if I had known. I should have praised it. Poets are all so irritable,' he said. In short, he laughed at him under cover of the most gentlemanly tone. He explained to me afterwards that it was all sarcastic. I thought he was in earnest. Only as I lay there, just as before you now, I thought, 'Would it, or would it not, be the proper thing for me to turn Rakitin out for shouting so rudely at a visitor in my house?' And, would you believe it, I lay here, shut my eyes, and wondered, would it be the proper thing or not. I kept worrying and worrying, and my heart began to beat, and I couldn't make up my mind whether to make an outcry or not. One voice seemed to be telling me, 'Speak,' and the other 'No, don't speak.' And no sooner had the second voice said that than I cried out, and fainted. Of course, there was a fuss. I got up suddenly and said to Rakitin, 'It's painful for me to say it, but I don't wish to see you in my house again.' So I turned him out. Ah! Alexey Fyodorovitch, I know myself I did wrong. I was putting it on. I wasn't angry with him at all, really; but I suddenly fancied--that was what did it--that it would be such a fine scene.... And yet, believe me, it was quite natural, for I really shed tears and cried for several days afterwards, and then suddenly, one afternoon, I forgot all about it. So it's a fortnight since he's been here, and I kept wondering whether he would come again. I wondered even yesterday, then suddenly last night came this _Gossip_. I read it and gasped. Who could have written it? He must have written it. He went home, sat down, wrote it on the spot, sent it, and they put it in. It was a fortnight ago, you see. But, Alyosha, it's awful how I keep talking and don't say what I want to say. Ah! the words come of themselves!" "It's very important for me to be in time to see my brother to-day," Alyosha faltered. "To be sure, to be sure! You bring it all back to me. Listen, what is an aberration?" "What aberration?" asked Alyosha, wondering. "In the legal sense. An aberration in which everything is pardonable. Whatever you do, you will be acquitted at once." "What do you mean?" "I'll tell you. This Katya ... Ah! she is a charming, charming creature, only I never can make out who it is she is in love with. She was with me some time ago and I couldn't get anything out of her. Especially as she won't talk to me except on the surface now. She is always talking about my health and nothing else, and she takes up such a tone with me, too. I simply said to myself, 'Well, so be it. I don't care'... Oh, yes. I was talking of aberration. This doctor has come. You know a doctor has come? Of course, you know it--the one who discovers madmen. You wrote for him. No, it wasn't you, but Katya. It's all Katya's doing. Well, you see, a man may be sitting perfectly sane and suddenly have an aberration. He may be conscious and know what he is doing and yet be in a state of aberration. And there's no doubt that Dmitri Fyodorovitch was suffering from aberration. They found out about aberration as soon as the law courts were reformed. It's all the good effect of the reformed law courts. The doctor has been here and questioned me about that evening, about the gold mines. 'How did he seem then?' he asked me. He must have been in a state of aberration. He came in shouting, 'Money, money, three thousand! Give me three thousand!' and then went away and immediately did the murder. 'I don't want to murder him,' he said, and he suddenly went and murdered him. That's why they'll acquit him, because he struggled against it and yet he murdered him." "But he didn't murder him," Alyosha interrupted rather sharply. He felt more and more sick with anxiety and impatience. "Yes, I know it was that old man Grigory murdered him." "Grigory?" cried Alyosha. "Yes, yes; it was Grigory. He lay as Dmitri Fyodorovitch struck him down, and then got up, saw the door open, went in and killed Fyodor Pavlovitch." "But why, why?" "Suffering from aberration. When he recovered from the blow Dmitri Fyodorovitch gave him on the head, he was suffering from aberration; he went and committed the murder. As for his saying he didn't, he very likely doesn't remember. Only, you know, it'll be better, ever so much better, if Dmitri Fyodorovitch murdered him. And that's how it must have been, though I say it was Grigory. It certainly was Dmitri Fyodorovitch, and that's better, ever so much better! Oh! not better that a son should have killed his father, I don't defend that. Children ought to honor their parents, and yet it would be better if it were he, as you'd have nothing to cry over then, for he did it when he was unconscious or rather when he was conscious, but did not know what he was doing. Let them acquit him--that's so humane, and would show what a blessing reformed law courts are. I knew nothing about it, but they say they have been so a long time. And when I heard it yesterday, I was so struck by it that I wanted to send for you at once. And if he is acquitted, make him come straight from the law courts to dinner with me, and I'll have a party of friends, and we'll drink to the reformed law courts. I don't believe he'd be dangerous; besides, I'll invite a great many friends, so that he could always be led out if he did anything. And then he might be made a justice of the peace or something in another town, for those who have been in trouble themselves make the best judges. And, besides, who isn't suffering from aberration nowadays?--you, I, all of us are in a state of aberration, and there are ever so many examples of it: a man sits singing a song, suddenly something annoys him, he takes a pistol and shoots the first person he comes across, and no one blames him for it. I read that lately, and all the doctors confirm it. The doctors are always confirming; they confirm anything. Why, my Lise is in a state of aberration. She made me cry again yesterday, and the day before, too, and to-day I suddenly realized that it's all due to aberration. Oh, Lise grieves me so! I believe she's quite mad. Why did she send for you? Did she send for you or did you come of yourself?" "Yes, she sent for me, and I am just going to her." Alyosha got up resolutely. "Oh, my dear, dear Alexey Fyodorovitch, perhaps that's what's most important," Madame Hohlakov cried, suddenly bursting into tears. "God knows I trust Lise to you with all my heart, and it's no matter her sending for you on the sly, without telling her mother. But forgive me, I can't trust my daughter so easily to your brother Ivan Fyodorovitch, though I still consider him the most chivalrous young man. But only fancy, he's been to see Lise and I knew nothing about it!" "How? What? When?" Alyosha was exceedingly surprised. He had not sat down again and listened standing. "I will tell you; that's perhaps why I asked you to come, for I don't know now why I did ask you to come. Well, Ivan Fyodorovitch has been to see me twice, since he came back from Moscow. First time he came as a friend to call on me, and the second time Katya was here and he came because he heard she was here. I didn't, of course, expect him to come often, knowing what a lot he has to do as it is, _vous comprenez, cette affaire et la mort terrible de votre papa_. But I suddenly heard he'd been here again, not to see me but to see Lise. That's six days ago now. He came, stayed five minutes, and went away. And I didn't hear of it till three days afterwards, from Glafira, so it was a great shock to me. I sent for Lise directly. She laughed. 'He thought you were asleep,' she said, 'and came in to me to ask after your health.' Of course, that's how it happened. But Lise, Lise, mercy on us, how she distresses me! Would you believe it, one night, four days ago, just after you saw her last time, and had gone away, she suddenly had a fit, screaming, shrieking, hysterics! Why is it I never have hysterics? Then, next day another fit, and the same thing on the third, and yesterday too, and then yesterday that aberration. She suddenly screamed out, 'I hate Ivan Fyodorovitch. I insist on your never letting him come to the house again.' I was struck dumb at these amazing words, and answered, 'On what grounds could I refuse to see such an excellent young man, a young man of such learning too, and so unfortunate?'--for all this business is a misfortune, isn't it? She suddenly burst out laughing at my words, and so rudely, you know. Well, I was pleased; I thought I had amused her and the fits would pass off, especially as I wanted to refuse to see Ivan Fyodorovitch anyway on account of his strange visits without my knowledge, and meant to ask him for an explanation. But early this morning Lise waked up and flew into a passion with Yulia and, would you believe it, slapped her in the face. That's monstrous; I am always polite to my servants. And an hour later she was hugging Yulia's feet and kissing them. She sent a message to me that she wasn't coming to me at all, and would never come and see me again, and when I dragged myself down to her, she rushed to kiss me, crying, and as she kissed me, she pushed me out of the room without saying a word, so I couldn't find out what was the matter. Now, dear Alexey Fyodorovitch, I rest all my hopes on you, and, of course, my whole life is in your hands. I simply beg you to go to Lise and find out everything from her, as you alone can, and come back and tell me--me, her mother, for you understand it will be the death of me, simply the death of me, if this goes on, or else I shall run away. I can stand no more. I have patience; but I may lose patience, and then ... then something awful will happen. Ah, dear me! At last, Pyotr Ilyitch!" cried Madame Hohlakov, beaming all over as she saw Perhotin enter the room. "You are late, you are late! Well, sit down, speak, put us out of suspense. What does the counsel say. Where are you off to, Alexey Fyodorovitch?" "To Lise." "Oh, yes. You won't forget, you won't forget what I asked you? It's a question of life and death!" "Of course, I won't forget, if I can ... but I am so late," muttered Alyosha, beating a hasty retreat. "No, be sure, be sure to come in; don't say 'If you can.' I shall die if you don't," Madame Hohlakov called after him, but Alyosha had already left the room.

Book 11, Chapter 2

https://web.archive.org/web/20201023112808/https://www.shmoop.com/study-guides/literature/brothers-karamazov/summary/book-11-chapter-2

When Alyosha arrives at Madame Khokhlakov's at Lise's urgent request, Madame Khokhlakov is a nervous wreck. She's been immobilized by swollen foot for the past three weeks, but that hasn't stopped her from getting all dressed up. Madame Khokhlakov's latest tizzy is over an anonymous article that's appeared in a newspaper called Rumors, which sounds a bit like a 19th-century version of PeopleUS Weekly. or Someone has written horrible things about events in their town - which the narrator finally names as Skotoprigonyevsk. This anonymous author has claimed that Dmitri has flirted with a certain unnamed society lady - i.e., Madame Khokhlakov - who has gone so far as to offer him 3,000 roubles two hours before the murder to run away with her. He spurned her, however, and it is implied that he preferred to kill his father rather than spend his life in Siberia with this unnamed society lady. Madame Khokhlakov is convinced that it's about her, and that it's by Rakitin. Rakitin is jealous because she rejected him and is pursuing a flirtation with Perkhotin, the young official to whom Dmitri pawned his pistols. Rakitin had written a silly little poem about her foot, and she and Perkhotin had laughed over it. Madame Khokhlakov also informs Alyosha, to his surprise, that Ivan has visited Lise. After Ivan's visit, Lise has been terribly upset. Their conversation is interrupted when Perkhotin enters, and Alyosha leaves for Lise's room.

shmoop

all_chapterized_books/107-chapters/21.txt

finished_summaries/shmoop/Far From the Madding Crowd/section_20_part_0.txt

Far From the Madding Crowd.chapter 21

chapter 21

{"name": "Chapter 21", "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20201219162644/https://www.shmoop.com/study-guides/literature/far-from-the-madding-crowd/summary/chapter-21", "summary": "Twenty-four hours after Oak leaves the farm, it's crisis time. The workmen come running to Bathsheba's house and tell her that all her sheep have gotten into a clover patch and have eaten so much that their bellies are swelling with gas. Um, eww. There's only one way to save them , but the only person who knows how to perform the operation properly is... mmm hmm... Gabriel Oak. Bathsheba swears she'll never go running back to Oak for help; but eventually she gives up and sends for him. Losing face is better than having a flock full of gassy sheep. Oak shows up and totally saves the day. Not all of the sheep make it, but most do. When everything is over, Bathsheba walks up to Gabriel and offers him his job back. He coolly accepts.", "analysis": ""}

TROUBLES IN THE FOLD--A MESSAGE Gabriel Oak had ceased to feed the Weatherbury flock for about four-and-twenty hours, when on Sunday afternoon the elderly gentlemen Joseph Poorgrass, Matthew Moon, Fray, and half-a-dozen others, came running up to the house of the mistress of the Upper Farm. "Whatever IS the matter, men?" she said, meeting them at the door just as she was coming out on her way to church, and ceasing in a moment from the close compression of her two red lips, with which she had accompanied the exertion of pulling on a tight glove. "Sixty!" said Joseph Poorgrass. "Seventy!" said Moon. "Fifty-nine!" said Susan Tall's husband. "--Sheep have broke fence," said Fray. "--And got into a field of young clover," said Tall. "--Young clover!" said Moon. "--Clover!" said Joseph Poorgrass. "And they be getting blasted," said Henery Fray. "That they be," said Joseph. "And will all die as dead as nits, if they bain't got out and cured!" said Tall. Joseph's countenance was drawn into lines and puckers by his concern. Fray's forehead was wrinkled both perpendicularly and crosswise, after the pattern of a portcullis, expressive of a double despair. Laban Tall's lips were thin, and his face was rigid. Matthew's jaws sank, and his eyes turned whichever way the strongest muscle happened to pull them. "Yes," said Joseph, "and I was sitting at home, looking for Ephesians, and says I to myself, ''Tis nothing but Corinthians and Thessalonians in this danged Testament,' when who should come in but Henery there: 'Joseph,' he said, 'the sheep have blasted theirselves--'" With Bathsheba it was a moment when thought was speech and speech exclamation. Moreover, she had hardly recovered her equanimity since the disturbance which she had suffered from Oak's remarks. "That's enough--that's enough!--oh, you fools!" she cried, throwing the parasol and Prayer-book into the passage, and running out of doors in the direction signified. "To come to me, and not go and get them out directly! Oh, the stupid numskulls!" Her eyes were at their darkest and brightest now. Bathsheba's beauty belonging rather to the demonian than to the angelic school, she never looked so well as when she was angry--and particularly when the effect was heightened by a rather dashing velvet dress, carefully put on before a glass. All the ancient men ran in a jumbled throng after her to the clover-field, Joseph sinking down in the midst when about half-way, like an individual withering in a world which was more and more insupportable. Having once received the stimulus that her presence always gave them they went round among the sheep with a will. The majority of the afflicted animals were lying down, and could not be stirred. These were bodily lifted out, and the others driven into the adjoining field. Here, after the lapse of a few minutes, several more fell down, and lay helpless and livid as the rest. Bathsheba, with a sad, bursting heart, looked at these primest specimens of her prime flock as they rolled there-- Swoln with wind and the rank mist they drew. Many of them foamed at the mouth, their breathing being quick and short, whilst the bodies of all were fearfully distended. "Oh, what can I do, what can I do!" said Bathsheba, helplessly. "Sheep are such unfortunate animals!--there's always something happening to them! I never knew a flock pass a year without getting into some scrape or other." "There's only one way of saving them," said Tall. "What way? Tell me quick!" "They must be pierced in the side with a thing made on purpose." "Can you do it? Can I?" "No, ma'am. We can't, nor you neither. It must be done in a particular spot. If ye go to the right or left but an inch you stab the ewe and kill her. Not even a shepherd can do it, as a rule." "Then they must die," she said, in a resigned tone. "Only one man in the neighbourhood knows the way," said Joseph, now just come up. "He could cure 'em all if he were here." "Who is he? Let's get him!" "Shepherd Oak," said Matthew. "Ah, he's a clever man in talents!" "Ah, that he is so!" said Joseph Poorgrass. "True--he's the man," said Laban Tall. "How dare you name that man in my presence!" she said excitedly. "I told you never to allude to him, nor shall you if you stay with me. Ah!" she added, brightening, "Farmer Boldwood knows!" "O no, ma'am" said Matthew. "Two of his store ewes got into some vetches t'other day, and were just like these. He sent a man on horseback here post-haste for Gable, and Gable went and saved 'em. Farmer Boldwood hev got the thing they do it with. 'Tis a holler pipe, with a sharp pricker inside. Isn't it, Joseph?" "Ay--a holler pipe," echoed Joseph. "That's what 'tis." "Ay, sure--that's the machine," chimed in Henery Fray, reflectively, with an Oriental indifference to the flight of time. "Well," burst out Bathsheba, "don't stand there with your 'ayes' and your 'sures' talking at me! Get somebody to cure the sheep instantly!" All then stalked off in consternation, to get somebody as directed, without any idea of who it was to be. In a minute they had vanished through the gate, and she stood alone with the dying flock. "Never will I send for him--never!" she said firmly. One of the ewes here contracted its muscles horribly, extended itself, and jumped high into the air. The leap was an astonishing one. The ewe fell heavily, and lay still. Bathsheba went up to it. The sheep was dead. "Oh, what shall I do--what shall I do!" she again exclaimed, wringing her hands. "I won't send for him. No, I won't!" The most vigorous expression of a resolution does not always coincide with the greatest vigour of the resolution itself. It is often flung out as a sort of prop to support a decaying conviction which, whilst strong, required no enunciation to prove it so. The "No, I won't" of Bathsheba meant virtually, "I think I must." She followed her assistants through the gate, and lifted her hand to one of them. Laban answered to her signal. "Where is Oak staying?" "Across the valley at Nest Cottage!" "Jump on the bay mare, and ride across, and say he must return instantly--that I say so." Tall scrambled off to the field, and in two minutes was on Poll, the bay, bare-backed, and with only a halter by way of rein. He diminished down the hill. Bathsheba watched. So did all the rest. Tall cantered along the bridle-path through Sixteen Acres, Sheeplands, Middle Field, The Flats, Cappel's Piece, shrank almost to a point, crossed the bridge, and ascended from the valley through Springmead and Whitepits on the other side. The cottage to which Gabriel had retired before taking his final departure from the locality was visible as a white spot on the opposite hill, backed by blue firs. Bathsheba walked up and down. The men entered the field and endeavoured to ease the anguish of the dumb creatures by rubbing them. Nothing availed. Bathsheba continued walking. The horse was seen descending the hill, and the wearisome series had to be repeated in reverse order: Whitepits, Springmead, Cappel's Piece, The Flats, Middle Field, Sheeplands, Sixteen Acres. She hoped Tall had had presence of mind enough to give the mare up to Gabriel, and return himself on foot. The rider neared them. It was Tall. "Oh, what folly!" said Bathsheba. Gabriel was not visible anywhere. "Perhaps he is already gone!" she said. Tall came into the inclosure, and leapt off, his face tragic as Morton's after the battle of Shrewsbury. "Well?" said Bathsheba, unwilling to believe that her verbal _lettre-de-cachet_ could possibly have miscarried. "He says BEGGARS MUSTN'T BE CHOOSERS," replied Laban. "What!" said the young farmer, opening her eyes and drawing in her breath for an outburst. Joseph Poorgrass retired a few steps behind a hurdle. "He says he shall not come onless you request en to come civilly and in a proper manner, as becomes any 'ooman begging a favour." "Oh, oh, that's his answer! Where does he get his airs? Who am I, then, to be treated like that? Shall I beg to a man who has begged to me?" Another of the flock sprang into the air, and fell dead. The men looked grave, as if they suppressed opinion. Bathsheba turned aside, her eyes full of tears. The strait she was in through pride and shrewishness could not be disguised longer: she burst out crying bitterly; they all saw it; and she attempted no further concealment. "I wouldn't cry about it, miss," said William Smallbury, compassionately. "Why not ask him softer like? I'm sure he'd come then. Gable is a true man in that way." Bathsheba checked her grief and wiped her eyes. "Oh, it is a wicked cruelty to me--it is--it is!" she murmured. "And he drives me to do what I wouldn't; yes, he does!--Tall, come indoors." After this collapse, not very dignified for the head of an establishment, she went into the house, Tall at her heels. Here she sat down and hastily scribbled a note between the small convulsive sobs of convalescence which follow a fit of crying as a ground-swell follows a storm. The note was none the less polite for being written in a hurry. She held it at a distance, was about to fold it, then added these words at the bottom:-- "DO NOT DESERT ME, GABRIEL!" She looked a little redder in refolding it, and closed her lips, as if thereby to suspend till too late the action of conscience in examining whether such strategy were justifiable. The note was despatched as the message had been, and Bathsheba waited indoors for the result. It was an anxious quarter of an hour that intervened between the messenger's departure and the sound of the horse's tramp again outside. She could not watch this time, but, leaning over the old bureau at which she had written the letter, closed her eyes, as if to keep out both hope and fear. The case, however, was a promising one. Gabriel was not angry: he was simply neutral, although her first command had been so haughty. Such imperiousness would have damned a little less beauty; and on the other hand, such beauty would have redeemed a little less imperiousness. She went out when the horse was heard, and looked up. A mounted figure passed between her and the sky, and drew on towards the field of sheep, the rider turning his face in receding. Gabriel looked at her. It was a moment when a woman's eyes and tongue tell distinctly opposite tales. Bathsheba looked full of gratitude, and she said:-- "Oh, Gabriel, how could you serve me so unkindly!" Such a tenderly-shaped reproach for his previous delay was the one speech in the language that he could pardon for not being commendation of his readiness now. Gabriel murmured a confused reply, and hastened on. She knew from the look which sentence in her note had brought him. Bathsheba followed to the field. Gabriel was already among the turgid, prostrate forms. He had flung off his coat, rolled up his shirt-sleeves, and taken from his pocket the instrument of salvation. It was a small tube or trochar, with a lance passing down the inside; and Gabriel began to use it with a dexterity that would have graced a hospital surgeon. Passing his hand over the sheep's left flank, and selecting the proper point, he punctured the skin and rumen with the lance as it stood in the tube; then he suddenly withdrew the lance, retaining the tube in its place. A current of air rushed up the tube, forcible enough to have extinguished a candle held at the orifice. It has been said that mere ease after torment is delight for a time; and the countenances of these poor creatures expressed it now. Forty-nine operations were successfully performed. Owing to the great hurry necessitated by the far-gone state of some of the flock, Gabriel missed his aim in one case, and in one only--striking wide of the mark, and inflicting a mortal blow at once upon the suffering ewe. Four had died; three recovered without an operation. The total number of sheep which had thus strayed and injured themselves so dangerously was fifty-seven. When the love-led man had ceased from his labours, Bathsheba came and looked him in the face. "Gabriel, will you stay on with me?" she said, smiling winningly, and not troubling to bring her lips quite together again at the end, because there was going to be another smile soon. "I will," said Gabriel. And she smiled on him again.

Chapter 21

https://web.archive.org/web/20201219162644/https://www.shmoop.com/study-guides/literature/far-from-the-madding-crowd/summary/chapter-21

Twenty-four hours after Oak leaves the farm, it's crisis time. The workmen come running to Bathsheba's house and tell her that all her sheep have gotten into a clover patch and have eaten so much that their bellies are swelling with gas. Um, eww. There's only one way to save them , but the only person who knows how to perform the operation properly is... mmm hmm... Gabriel Oak. Bathsheba swears she'll never go running back to Oak for help; but eventually she gives up and sends for him. Losing face is better than having a flock full of gassy sheep. Oak shows up and totally saves the day. Not all of the sheep make it, but most do. When everything is over, Bathsheba walks up to Gabriel and offers him his job back. He coolly accepts.

shmoop

all_chapterized_books/44747-chapters/63.txt

finished_summaries/shmoop/The Red and the Black/section_62_part_0.txt

The Red and the Black.part 2.chapter 33

part 2, chapter 33

{"name": "Part 2, Chapter 33", "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20200920104425/https://www.shmoop.com/study-guides/literature/red-and-the-black/summary/part-2-chapter-33", "summary": "The Marquis de La Mole showers Julien with every insult he can think of. Julien tries to smooth things out, but it isn't easy. Julien goes to his old mentor, Father Pirard, the next day and tells him what has happened. Pirard isn't surprised, though he's disappointed in Julien. Back in Paris, Mathilde reads a letter that Julien has given to the marquis. It suggests that Julien might be going off to commit suicide. When Julien comes back safe and sound, Mathilde tells him to ride off to a nearby village called Villequier and wait for her there. While Julien is gone, Mathilde convinces her father that the only way forward is for her to marry Julien. She won't consent to any sort of secret birth. She needs to be with him. The marquis reflects on all the big plans he used to have for Mathilde's future. But now they've all gone up in smoke.", "analysis": ""}

CHAPTER LXIII THE HELL OF WEAKNESS A clumsy lapidary, in cutting this diamond, deprived it of some of its most brilliant facets. In the middle ages, nay, even under Richelieu, the Frenchman had _force of will_.--_Mirabeau_. Julien found the marquis furious. For perhaps the first time in his life this nobleman showed bad form. He loaded Julien with all the insults that came to his lips. Our hero was astonished, and his patience was tried, but his gratitude remained unshaken. "The poor man now sees the annihilation, in a single minute, of all the fine plans which he has long cherished in his heart. But I owe it to him to answer. My silence tends to increase his anger." The part of Tartuffe supplied the answer; "I am not an angel.... I served you well; you paid me generously.... I was grateful, but I am twenty-two.... Only you and that charming person understood my thoughts in this household." "Monster," exclaimed the marquis. "Charming! Charming, to be sure! The day when you found her charming you ought to have fled." "I tried to. It was then that I asked permission to leave for Languedoc." Tired of stampeding about and overcome by his grief, the marquis threw himself into an arm-chair. Julien heard him whispering to himself, "No, no, he is not a wicked man." "No, I am not, towards you," exclaimed Julien, falling on his knees. But he felt extremely ashamed of this manifestation, and very quickly got up again. The marquis was really transported. When he saw this movement, he began again to load him with abominable insults, which were worthy of the driver of a fiacre. The novelty of these oaths perhaps acted as a distraction. "What! is my daughter to go by the name of madame Sorel? What! is my daughter not to be a duchess?" Each time that these two ideas presented themselves in all their clearness M. de la Mole was a prey to torture, and lost all power over the movements of his mind. Julien was afraid of being beaten. In his lucid intervals, when he was beginning to get accustomed to his unhappiness, the marquis addressed to Julien reproaches which were reasonable enough. "You should have fled, sir," he said to him. "Your duty was to flee. You are the lowest of men." Julien approached the table and wrote: "I have found my life unbearable for a long time; I am putting an end to it. I request monsieur the marquis to accept my apologies (together with the expression of my infinite gratitude) for any embarrassment that may be occasioned by my death in his hotel." "Kindly run your eye over this paper, M. the marquis," said Julien. "Kill me, or have me killed by your valet. It is one o'clock in the morning. I will go and walk in the garden in the direction of the wall at the bottom." "Go to the devil," cried the marquis, as he went away. "I understand," thought Julien. "He would not be sorry if I were to spare his valet the trouble of killing me.... "Let him kill me, if he likes; it is a satisfaction which I offer him.... But, by heaven, I love life. I owe it to my son." This idea, which had not previously presented itself with so much definiteness to his imagination, completely engrossed him during his walk after the first few minutes which he had spent thinking about his danger. This novel interest turned him into a prudent man. "I need advice as to how to behave towards this infuriated man.... He is devoid of reason; he is capable of everything. Fouque is too far away; besides, he would not understand the emotions of a heart like the marquis's." "Count Altamira ... am I certain of eternal silence? My request for advice must not be a fresh step which will raise still further complications. Alas! I have no one left but the gloomy abbe Pirard. His mind is crabbed by Jansenism.... A damned Jesuit would know the world, and would be more in my line. M. Pirard is capable of beating me at the very mention of my crime." The genius of Tartuffe came to Julien's help. "Well, I will go and confess to him." This was his final resolution after having walked about in the garden for two good hours. He no longer thought about being surprised by a gun shot. He was feeling sleepy. Very early the next day, Julien was several leagues away from Paris and knocked at the door of the severe Jansenist. He found to his great astonishment that he was not unduly surprised at his confidence. "I ought perhaps to reproach myself," said the abbe, who seemed more anxious than irritated. "I thought I guessed that love. My affection for you, my unhappy boy, prevented me from warning the father." "What will he do?" said Julien keenly. At that moment he loved the abbe, and would have found a scene between them very painful. "I see three alternatives," continued Julien. "M. de la Mole can have me put to death," and he mentioned the suicide letter which he had left with the Marquis; (2) "He can get Count Norbert to challenge me to a duel, and shoot at me point blank." "You would accept?" said the abbe furiously as he got up. "You do not let me finish. I should certainly never fire upon my benefactor's son. (3) He can send me away. If he says go to Edinburgh or New York, I will obey him. They can then conceal mademoiselle de la Mole's condition, but I will never allow them to suppress my son." "Have no doubt about it, that will be the first thought of that depraved man." At Paris, Mathilde was in despair. She had seen her father about seven o'clock. He had shown her Julien's letter. She feared that he might have considered it noble to put an end to his life; "and without my permission?" she said to herself with a pain due solely to her anger. "If he dies I shall die," she said to her father. "It will be you who will be the cause of his death.... Perhaps you will rejoice at it but I swear by his shades that I shall at once go into mourning, and shall publicly appear as _Madame the widow Sorel_, I shall send out my invitations, you can count on it.... You will find me neither pusillanimous nor cowardly." Her love went to the point of madness. M. de la Mole was flabbergasted in his turn. He began to regard what had happened with a certain amount of logic. Mathilde did not appear at breakfast. The marquis felt an immense weight off his mind, and was particularly flattered when he noticed that she had said nothing to her mother. Julien was dismounting from his horse. Mathilde had him called and threw herself into his arms almost beneath the very eyes of her chambermaid. Julien was not very appreciative of this transport. He had come away from his long consultation with the abbe Pirard in a very diplomatic and calculating mood. The calculation of possibilities had killed his imagination. Mathilde told him, with tears in her eyes, that she had read his suicide letter. "My father may change his mind; do me the favour of leaving for Villequier this very minute. Mount your horse again, and leave the hotel before they get up from table." When Julien's coldness and astonishment showed no sign of abatement, she burst into tears. "Let me manage our affairs," she exclaimed ecstatically, as she clasped him in her arms. "You know, dear, it is not of my own free will that I separate from you. Write under cover to my maid. Address it in a strange hand-writing, I will write volumes to you. Adieu, flee." This last word wounded Julien, but he none the less obeyed. "It will be fatal," he thought "if, in their most gracious moments these aristocrats manage to shock me." Mathilde firmly opposed all her father's prudent plans. She would not open negotiations on any other basis except this. She was to be Madame Sorel, and was either to live with her husband in poverty in Switzerland, or with her father in Paris. She rejected absolutely the suggestion of a secret accouchement. "In that case I should begin to be confronted with a prospect of calumny and dishonour. I shall go travelling with my husband two months after the marriage, and it will be easy to pretend that my son was born at a proper time." This firmness though at first received with violent fits of anger, eventually made the marquis hesitate. "Here," he said to his daughter in a moment of emotion, "is a gift of ten thousand francs a year. Send it to your Julien, and let him quickly make it impossible for me to retract it." In order to obey Mathilde, whose imperious temper he well knew, Julien had travelled forty useless leagues; he was superintending the accounts of the farmers at Villequier. This act of benevolence on the part of the marquis occasioned his return. He went and asked asylum of the abbe Pirard, who had become Mathilde's most useful ally during his absence. Every time that he was questioned by the marquis, he would prove to him that any other course except public marriage would be a crime in the eyes of God. "And happily," added the abbe, "worldly wisdom is in this instance in agreement with religion. Could one, in view of Mdlle. de la Mole's passionate character, rely for a minute on her keeping any secret which she did not herself wish to preserve? If one does not reconcile oneself to the frankness of a public marriage, society will concern itself much longer with this strange mesalliance__. Everything must be said all at once without either the appearance or the reality of the slightest mystery." "It is true," said the marquis pensively. Two or three friends of M. de la Mole were of the same opinion as the abbe Pirard. The great obstacle in their view was Mathilde's decided character. But in spite of all these fine arguments the marquis's soul could not reconcile itself to giving up all hopes of a coronet for his daughter. He ransacked his memory and his imagination for all the variations of knavery and duplicity which had been feasible in his youth. Yielding to necessity and having fear of the law seemed absurd and humiliating for a man in his position. He was paying dearly now for the luxury of those enchanting dreams concerning the future of his cherished daughter in which he had indulged for the last ten years. "Who could have anticipated it?" he said to himself. "A girl of so proud a character, of so lofty a disposition, who is even prouder than I am of the name she bears? A girl whose hand has already been asked for by all the cream of the nobility of France." "We must give up all faith in prudence. This age is made to confound everything. We are marching towards chaos."

Part 2, Chapter 33

https://web.archive.org/web/20200920104425/https://www.shmoop.com/study-guides/literature/red-and-the-black/summary/part-2-chapter-33

The Marquis de La Mole showers Julien with every insult he can think of. Julien tries to smooth things out, but it isn't easy. Julien goes to his old mentor, Father Pirard, the next day and tells him what has happened. Pirard isn't surprised, though he's disappointed in Julien. Back in Paris, Mathilde reads a letter that Julien has given to the marquis. It suggests that Julien might be going off to commit suicide. When Julien comes back safe and sound, Mathilde tells him to ride off to a nearby village called Villequier and wait for her there. While Julien is gone, Mathilde convinces her father that the only way forward is for her to marry Julien. She won't consent to any sort of secret birth. She needs to be with him. The marquis reflects on all the big plans he used to have for Mathilde's future. But now they've all gone up in smoke.

cliffnotes

all_chapterized_books/110-chapters/chapters_31_to_34.txt

finished_summaries/cliffnotes/Tess of the d'Urbervilles/section_7_part_0.txt

Tess of the d'Urbervilles.chapters 31-34

chapters 31-34

{"name": "Chapters 31-34", "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20201219151046/https://www.cliffsnotes.com/literature/t/tess-of-the-durbervilles/summary-and-analysis/phase-the-fourth-the-consequence-chapters-3134", "summary": "Tess writes to her mother and receives a response by the end of the week. Joan Durbeyfield tells Tess not to tell of her past. Joan also mentions that a barrel of alcoholic cider will be sent for a wedding present. Tess decides not to tell Angel of her history. Everyone at the dairy seems to know that Tess will someday marry Angel. Even when the maids feel some jealousy toward Tess at the possibility of marriage, they cannot bear her any ill will. Tess tells the young maids, \"You are all better than I.\" Tess cannot bear to keep silent on the matter of her past, and she vows to tell Angel all of her history, despite her mother's advice not to. Tess sets the date of their wedding as December 31. The time for Tess' services at the dairy are at an end. Angel is also finished with the apprenticeship at the dairy and seeks a new aspect of farming for study. He settles on the flourmill at Wellbridge to learn about milling flour. He then proposes a tour of other farms during the first of the year, stopping to visit his parents in March or April. Tess' bridal gown arrives, a simple dress, and the wedding arrangements are completed. Angel and Tess travel to the nearby town, Vale of Blackmoor, on Christmas Eve to do some last minute shopping. There Tess sees two Trantridge men who know of her past and speak of it loud enough for all to hear. Angel confronts the men, who admit their possible mistake of confusing Tess with another woman. The incident disconcerts Tess, who asks Angel if the wedding can be postponed. He asks her to forget the incident. Tess writes a four-page note to Angel that explains her history and slips it under his door. However, the note becomes lodged under the carpet, and he never reads it; Tess later finds the note and destroys it. The pair remain as guests at Talbothays until the day of their wedding. No one from the Durbeyfield or Clare families attends the ceremony; instead, the Cricks and all the workers at Talbothays attend the services. After they leave the wedding ceremony, Tess tries to confess her past sins, but Angel will not hear of it. When Tess says that the carriage they are riding in seems familiar to her, Angel recalls the legend of the d'Urberville Coach: During the sixteenth or seventeenth century, a d'Urberville supposedly committed a \"dreadful crime\" in the family coach and that, since that time, only the d'Urberville family members can hear the coach, whose appearance foretells a tragic or bad event. Upon leaving Talbothays, an old white rooster crows in mid-afternoon -- in the world of the farm an omen for bad fortune. The house the newlyweds take in Wellbridge is an old d'Urberville home, complete with old d'Urberville portraits on panels in the walls. The luggage from Talbothays is late, but Tess receives a package from the Clare family of heirloom jewels, which Tess immediately puts on. The luggage arrives via Jonathan Kail, a Talbothays dairyman, who tells the new couple that Retty had tried to commit suicide, Marian gets \"dead drunk,\" and Izz is moping around the house depressed. Tess feels guilty that she had some hand in the incidents that happened to her friends. Then Tess and Angel confess their sins, first Angel, then Tess.", "analysis": "Hardy uses several omens to warn the readers that something is about to happen to the characters. Consider, for example, Tess' serendipitous meeting with Angel in Chapter 1, which foreshadowed their later meeting. That both Tess and Angel recall that meeting in this chapter brings a poignancy to their current situation. The reader knows, as Tess does, what happened between her first meeting with Angel and her second. Angel does not share this knowledge and simply regrets having not danced with Tess or staying in Marlott, saying \"If I had only known!\" -- a sentiment, no doubt, that Tess surely feels and with greater reason. Hardy increases the sense of foreboding with Tess' failed attempts at revealing her secret. She volunteers time and again to tell Angel of her past only to be rebuffed each time. Beyond this, Hardy piles up the signs, each one sharpening the readers' sense of doom for the pair: The settling on the last day of the year, December 31, to be married; the misdirected note , the kisses that Angel bestows on each of the dairymaids. Further heightening the sense of foreboding are the omens that Hardy specifically points out as being portents: the d'Urberville Coach legend and the rooster crowing at noon. In combination, all the omens from these chapters prefigure events to come in the next phase of the novel. Although hopeful readers may want to see the events at Talbothays Dairy following Tess and Angel's departure as the events that the omens prefigured , Hardy's choice of title for the next part -- Phase the Fifth: The Woman Pays -- undermines what little glimmer of hope he may have tried to offer. Again, in these chapters, Hardy's view of fate and the role it plays in our lives come to the forefront of the story. Essentially, his point seems to be that things just happen, for good or bad , and that these things have significant impact on the courses our lives take. Consider, for example, Tess' happening to meet Alec d'Urberville upon her initial journey to The Slopes. She could have met anyone, but chance decreed that she meet and draw the attention of a man who was not only not worthy of her but capable of -- willing to -- destroy her for his own pleasure. The reader can imagine how differently Tess' life would have been had she met Angel before Alec, but it was the culmination of small, inconsequential things -- a missed dance, a chance meeting, for example -- that send Tess' life in the direction toward ruin. Combine this with the fact that Tess is a decent person, that she is undeserving of such a life and such a fate. She did not willingly attract Alec; she does not deliberately deceive Angel; and yet she must suffer the consequences as though she had. In short, Tess is a decent person for whom things just don't work out -- a seemingly innocuous statement that leads to tragedy, especially when we consider that everything could have happened some other way, and that if only one thing had happened differently, perhaps Tess' life would have been altered for the better. Glossary hogshead a large barrel or cask holding from 63 to 140 gallons \"less Byronic than Shelleyan\" less passionate than spiritual in inclination. Champaigns plains; level open country. \"those who are true...\" list of virtues comes from Paul; Philippians 4:8. springe a snare consisting of a noose attached to something under tension, as a bent tree branch. capricious subject to caprices; tending to change abruptly and without apparent reason; erratic; flighty. baily in England, a steward or manager of a farm or estate. penitential expressing penitence for having sinned or done other wrong and willing to atone. banns the proclamation, generally made in church on three successive Sundays, of an intended marriage. license written permission from a bishop in place of a banns. \"her mother's ballad of the mystic robe\" from \"The Boy and the Mantle,\" in which a robe betrays Queen Guenever, the wife of King Arthur. ostler hosteler. Felloes rims of a spoked wheel, or segments of the rim. Partie carree party of four, from French. cumbrous cumbersome. Friar Lawrence from Romeo and Juliet . Skein a quantity of thread or yarn wound in a coil; something like this, as a coil of hair. summut somewhat. Withy-bed stand of willows. night-rail a loose dressing-jacket or dressing gown. trencher-woman a woman who eats much and heartily Aldebaran or Sirius two of the brightest stars in the sky. Integer Vitae phrase from Roman poet Horace is in an ode translated in the lines quoted as \"upright life.\""}

Tess wrote a most touching and urgent letter to her mother the very next day, and by the end of the week a response to her communication arrived in Joan Durbeyfield's wandering last-century hand. DEAR TESS,-- J write these few lines Hoping they will find you well, as they leave me at Present, thank God for it. Dear Tess, we are all glad to Hear that you are going really to be married soon. But with respect to your question, Tess, J say between ourselves, quite private but very strong, that on no account do you say a word of your Bygone Trouble to him. J did not tell everything to your Father, he being so Proud on account of his Respectability, which, perhaps, your Intended is the same. Many a woman--some of the Highest in the Land--have had a Trouble in their time; and why should you Trumpet yours when others don't Trumpet theirs? No girl would be such a Fool, specially as it is so long ago, and not your Fault at all. J shall answer the same if you ask me fifty times. Besides, you must bear in mind that, knowing it to be your Childish Nature to tell all that's in your heart--so simple!--J made you promise me never to let it out by Word or Deed, having your Welfare in my Mind; and you most solemnly did promise it going from this Door. J have not named either that Question or your coming marriage to your Father, as he would blab it everywhere, poor Simple Man. Dear Tess, keep up your Spirits, and we mean to send you a Hogshead of Cyder for you Wedding, knowing there is not much in your parts, and thin Sour Stuff what there is. So no more at present, and with kind love to your Young Man.--From your affectte. Mother, J. DURBEYFIELD "O mother, mother!" murmured Tess. She was recognizing how light was the touch of events the most oppressive upon Mrs Durbeyfield's elastic spirit. Her mother did not see life as Tess saw it. That haunting episode of bygone days was to her mother but a passing accident. But perhaps her mother was right as to the course to be followed, whatever she might be in her reasons. Silence seemed, on the face of it, best for her adored one's happiness: silence it should be. Thus steadied by a command from the only person in the world who had any shadow of right to control her action, Tess grew calmer. The responsibility was shifted, and her heart was lighter than it had been for weeks. The days of declining autumn which followed her assent, beginning with the month of October, formed a season through which she lived in spiritual altitudes more nearly approaching ecstasy than any other period of her life. There was hardly a touch of earth in her love for Clare. To her sublime trustfulness he was all that goodness could be--knew all that a guide, philosopher, and friend should know. She thought every line in the contour of his person the perfection of masculine beauty, his soul the soul of a saint, his intellect that of a seer. The wisdom of her love for him, as love, sustained her dignity; she seemed to be wearing a crown. The compassion of his love for her, as she saw it, made her lift up her heart to him in devotion. He would sometimes catch her large, worshipful eyes, that had no bottom to them looking at him from their depths, as if she saw something immortal before her. She dismissed the past--trod upon it and put it out, as one treads on a coal that is smouldering and dangerous. She had not known that men could be so disinterested, chivalrous, protective, in their love for women as he. Angel Clare was far from all that she thought him in this respect; absurdly far, indeed; but he was, in truth, more spiritual than animal; he had himself well in hand, and was singularly free from grossness. Though not cold-natured, he was rather bright than hot--less Byronic than Shelleyan; could love desperately, but with a love more especially inclined to the imaginative and ethereal; it was a fastidious emotion which could jealously guard the loved one against his very self. This amazed and enraptured Tess, whose slight experiences had been so infelicitous till now; and in her reaction from indignation against the male sex she swerved to excess of honour for Clare. They unaffectedly sought each other's company; in her honest faith she did not disguise her desire to be with him. The sum of her instincts on this matter, if clearly stated, would have been that the elusive quality of her sex which attracts men in general might be distasteful to so perfect a man after an avowal of love, since it must in its very nature carry with it a suspicion of art. The country custom of unreserved comradeship out of doors during betrothal was the only custom she knew, and to her it had no strangeness; though it seemed oddly anticipative to Clare till he saw how normal a thing she, in common with all the other dairy-folk, regarded it. Thus, during this October month of wonderful afternoons they roved along the meads by creeping paths which followed the brinks of trickling tributary brooks, hopping across by little wooden bridges to the other side, and back again. They were never out of the sound of some purling weir, whose buzz accompanied their own murmuring, while the beams of the sun, almost as horizontal as the mead itself, formed a pollen of radiance over the landscape. They saw tiny blue fogs in the shadows of trees and hedges, all the time that there was bright sunshine elsewhere. The sun was so near the ground, and the sward so flat, that the shadows of Clare and Tess would stretch a quarter of a mile ahead of them, like two long fingers pointing afar to where the green alluvial reaches abutted against the sloping sides of the vale. Men were at work here and there--for it was the season for "taking up" the meadows, or digging the little waterways clear for the winter irrigation, and mending their banks where trodden down by the cows. The shovelfuls of loam, black as jet, brought there by the river when it was as wide as the whole valley, were an essence of soils, pounded champaigns of the past, steeped, refined, and subtilized to extraordinary richness, out of which came all the fertility of the mead, and of the cattle grazing there. Clare hardily kept his arm round her waist in sight of these watermen, with the air of a man who was accustomed to public dalliance, though actually as shy as she who, with lips parted and eyes askance on the labourers, wore the look of a wary animal the while. "You are not ashamed of owning me as yours before them!" she said gladly. "O no!" "But if it should reach the ears of your friends at Emminster that you are walking about like this with me, a milkmaid--" "The most bewitching milkmaid ever seen." "They might feel it a hurt to their dignity." "My dear girl--a d'Urberville hurt the dignity of a Clare! It is a grand card to play--that of your belonging to such a family, and I am reserving it for a grand effect when we are married, and have the proofs of your descent from Parson Tringham. Apart from that, my future is to be totally foreign to my family--it will not affect even the surface of their lives. We shall leave this part of England--perhaps England itself--and what does it matter how people regard us here? You will like going, will you not?" She could answer no more than a bare affirmative, so great was the emotion aroused in her at the thought of going through the world with him as his own familiar friend. Her feelings almost filled her ears like a babble of waves, and surged up to her eyes. She put her hand in his, and thus they went on, to a place where the reflected sun glared up from the river, under a bridge, with a molten-metallic glow that dazzled their eyes, though the sun itself was hidden by the bridge. They stood still, whereupon little furred and feathered heads popped up from the smooth surface of the water; but, finding that the disturbing presences had paused, and not passed by, they disappeared again. Upon this river-brink they lingered till the fog began to close round them--which was very early in the evening at this time of the year--settling on the lashes of her eyes, where it rested like crystals, and on his brows and hair. They walked later on Sundays, when it was quite dark. Some of the dairy-people, who were also out of doors on the first Sunday evening after their engagement, heard her impulsive speeches, ecstasized to fragments, though they were too far off to hear the words discoursed; noted the spasmodic catch in her remarks, broken into syllables by the leapings of her heart, as she walked leaning on his arm; her contented pauses, the occasional little laugh upon which her soul seemed to ride--the laugh of a woman in company with the man she loves and has won from all other women--unlike anything else in nature. They marked the buoyancy of her tread, like the skim of a bird which has not quite alighted. Her affection for him was now the breath and life of Tess's being; it enveloped her as a photosphere, irradiated her into forgetfulness of her past sorrows, keeping back the gloomy spectres that would persist in their attempts to touch her--doubt, fear, moodiness, care, shame. She knew that they were waiting like wolves just outside the circumscribing light, but she had long spells of power to keep them in hungry subjection there. A spiritual forgetfulness co-existed with an intellectual remembrance. She walked in brightness, but she knew that in the background those shapes of darkness were always spread. They might be receding, or they might be approaching, one or the other, a little every day. One evening Tess and Clare were obliged to sit indoors keeping house, all the other occupants of the domicile being away. As they talked she looked thoughtfully up at him, and met his two appreciative eyes. "I am not worthy of you--no, I am not!" she burst out, jumping up from her low stool as though appalled at his homage, and the fulness of her own joy thereat. Clare, deeming the whole basis of her excitement to be that which was only the smaller part of it, said-- "I won't have you speak like it, dear Tess! Distinction does not consist in the facile use of a contemptible set of conventions, but in being numbered among those who are true, and honest, and just, and pure, and lovely, and of good report--as you are, my Tess." She struggled with the sob in her throat. How often had that string of excellences made her young heart ache in church of late years, and how strange that he should have cited them now. "Why didn't you stay and love me when I--was sixteen; living with my little sisters and brothers, and you danced on the green? O, why didn't you, why didn't you!" she said, impetuously clasping her hands. Angel began to comfort and reassure her, thinking to himself, truly enough, what a creature of moods she was, and how careful he would have to be of her when she depended for her happiness entirely on him. "Ah--why didn't I stay!" he said. "That is just what I feel. If I had only known! But you must not be so bitter in your regret--why should you be?" With the woman's instinct to hide she diverged hastily-- "I should have had four years more of your heart than I can ever have now. Then I should not have wasted my time as I have done--I should have had so much longer happiness!" It was no mature woman with a long dark vista of intrigue behind her who was tormented thus, but a girl of simple life, not yet one-and twenty, who had been caught during her days of immaturity like a bird in a springe. To calm herself the more completely, she rose from her little stool and left the room, overturning the stool with her skirts as she went. He sat on by the cheerful firelight thrown from a bundle of green ash-sticks laid across the dogs; the sticks snapped pleasantly, and hissed out bubbles of sap from their ends. When she came back she was herself again. "Do you not think you are just a wee bit capricious, fitful, Tess?" he said, good-humouredly, as he spread a cushion for her on the stool, and seated himself in the settle beside her. "I wanted to ask you something, and just then you ran away." "Yes, perhaps I am capricious," she murmured. She suddenly approached him, and put a hand upon each of his arms. "No, Angel, I am not really so--by nature, I mean!" The more particularly to assure him that she was not, she placed herself close to him in the settle, and allowed her head to find a resting-place against Clare's shoulder. "What did you want to ask me--I am sure I will answer it," she continued humbly. "Well, you love me, and have agreed to marry me, and hence there follows a thirdly, 'When shall the day be?'" "I like living like this." "But I must think of starting in business on my own hook with the new year, or a little later. And before I get involved in the multifarious details of my new position, I should like to have secured my partner." "But," she timidly answered, "to talk quite practically, wouldn't it be best not to marry till after all that?--Though I can't bear the thought o' your going away and leaving me here!" "Of course you cannot--and it is not best in this case. I want you to help me in many ways in making my start. When shall it be? Why not a fortnight from now?" "No," she said, becoming grave: "I have so many things to think of first." "But--" He drew her gently nearer to him. The reality of marriage was startling when it loomed so near. Before discussion of the question had proceeded further there walked round the corner of the settle into the full firelight of the apartment Mr Dairyman Crick, Mrs Crick, and two of the milkmaids. Tess sprang like an elastic ball from his side to her feet, while her face flushed and her eyes shone in the firelight. "I knew how it would be if I sat so close to him!" she cried, with vexation. "I said to myself, they are sure to come and catch us! But I wasn't really sitting on his knee, though it might ha' seemed as if I was almost!" "Well--if so be you hadn't told us, I am sure we shouldn't ha' noticed that ye had been sitting anywhere at all in this light," replied the dairyman. He continued to his wife, with the stolid mien of a man who understood nothing of the emotions relating to matrimony--"Now, Christianer, that shows that folks should never fancy other folks be supposing things when they bain't. O no, I should never ha' thought a word of where she was a sitting to, if she hadn't told me--not I." "We are going to be married soon," said Clare, with improvised phlegm. "Ah--and be ye! Well, I am truly glad to hear it, sir. I've thought you mid do such a thing for some time. She's too good for a dairymaid--I said so the very first day I zid her--and a prize for any man; and what's more, a wonderful woman for a gentleman-farmer's wife; he won't be at the mercy of his baily wi' her at his side." Somehow Tess disappeared. She had been even more struck with the look of the girls who followed Crick than abashed by Crick's blunt praise. After supper, when she reached her bedroom, they were all present. A light was burning, and each damsel was sitting up whitely in her bed, awaiting Tess, the whole like a row of avenging ghosts. But she saw in a few moments that there was no malice in their mood. They could scarcely feel as a loss what they had never expected to have. Their condition was objective, contemplative. "He's going to marry her!" murmured Retty, never taking eyes off Tess. "How her face do show it!" "You BE going to marry him?" asked Marian. "Yes," said Tess. "When?" "Some day." They thought that this was evasiveness only. "YES--going to MARRY him--a gentleman!" repeated Izz Huett. And by a sort of fascination the three girls, one after another, crept out of their beds, and came and stood barefooted round Tess. Retty put her hands upon Tess's shoulders, as if to realize her friend's corporeality after such a miracle, and the other two laid their arms round her waist, all looking into her face. "How it do seem! Almost more than I can think of!" said Izz Huett. Marian kissed Tess. "Yes," she murmured as she withdrew her lips. "Was that because of love for her, or because other lips have touched there by now?" continued Izz drily to Marian. "I wasn't thinking o' that," said Marian simply. "I was on'y feeling all the strangeness o't--that she is to be his wife, and nobody else. I don't say nay to it, nor either of us, because we did not think of it--only loved him. Still, nobody else is to marry'n in the world--no fine lady, nobody in silks and satins; but she who do live like we." "Are you sure you don't dislike me for it?" said Tess in a low voice. They hung about her in their white nightgowns before replying, as if they considered their answer might lie in her look. "I don't know--I don't know," murmured Retty Priddle. "I want to hate 'ee; but I cannot!" "That's how I feel," echoed Izz and Marian. "I can't hate her. Somehow she hinders me!" "He ought to marry one of you," murmured Tess. "Why?" "You are all better than I." "We better than you?" said the girls in a low, slow whisper. "No, no, dear Tess!" "You are!" she contradicted impetuously. And suddenly tearing away from their clinging arms she burst into a hysterical fit of tears, bowing herself on the chest of drawers and repeating incessantly, "O yes, yes, yes!" Having once given way she could not stop her weeping. "He ought to have had one of you!" she cried. "I think I ought to make him even now! You would be better for him than--I don't know what I'm saying! O! O!" They went up to her and clasped her round, but still her sobs tore her. "Get some water," said Marian, "She's upset by us, poor thing, poor thing!" They gently led her back to the side of her bed, where they kissed her warmly. "You are best for'n," said Marian. "More ladylike, and a better scholar than we, especially since he had taught 'ee so much. But even you ought to be proud. You BE proud, I'm sure!" "Yes, I am," she said; "and I am ashamed at so breaking down." When they were all in bed, and the light was out, Marian whispered across to her-- "You will think of us when you be his wife, Tess, and of how we told 'ee that we loved him, and how we tried not to hate you, and did not hate you, and could not hate you, because you were his choice, and we never hoped to be chose by him." They were not aware that, at these words, salt, stinging tears trickled down upon Tess's pillow anew, and how she resolved, with a bursting heart, to tell all her history to Angel Clare, despite her mother's command--to let him for whom she lived and breathed despise her if he would, and her mother regard her as a fool, rather then preserve a silence which might be deemed a treachery to him, and which somehow seemed a wrong to these. This penitential mood kept her from naming the wedding-day. The beginning of November found its date still in abeyance, though he asked her at the most tempting times. But Tess's desire seemed to be for a perpetual betrothal in which everything should remain as it was then. The meads were changing now; but it was still warm enough in early afternoons before milking to idle there awhile, and the state of dairy-work at this time of year allowed a spare hour for idling. Looking over the damp sod in the direction of the sun, a glistening ripple of gossamer webs was visible to their eyes under the luminary, like the track of moonlight on the sea. Gnats, knowing nothing of their brief glorification, wandered across the shimmer of this pathway, irradiated as if they bore fire within them, then passed out of its line, and were quite extinct. In the presence of these things he would remind her that the date was still the question. Or he would ask her at night, when he accompanied her on some mission invented by Mrs Crick to give him the opportunity. This was mostly a journey to the farmhouse on the slopes above the vale, to inquire how the advanced cows were getting on in the straw-barton to which they were relegated. For it was a time of the year that brought great changes to the world of kine. Batches of the animals were sent away daily to this lying-in hospital, where they lived on straw till their calves were born, after which event, and as soon as the calf could walk, mother and offspring were driven back to the dairy. In the interval which elapsed before the calves were sold there was, of course, little milking to be done, but as soon as the calf had been taken away the milkmaids would have to set to work as usual. Returning from one of these dark walks they reached a great gravel-cliff immediately over the levels, where they stood still and listened. The water was now high in the streams, squirting through the weirs, and tinkling under culverts; the smallest gullies were all full; there was no taking short cuts anywhere, and foot-passengers were compelled to follow the permanent ways. From the whole extent of the invisible vale came a multitudinous intonation; it forced upon their fancy that a great city lay below them, and that the murmur was the vociferation of its populace. "It seems like tens of thousands of them," said Tess; "holding public-meetings in their market-places, arguing, preaching, quarrelling, sobbing, groaning, praying, and cursing." Clare was not particularly heeding. "Did Crick speak to you to-day, dear, about his not wanting much assistance during the winter months?" "No." "The cows are going dry rapidly." "Yes. Six or seven went to the straw-barton yesterday, and three the day before, making nearly twenty in the straw already. Ah--is it that the farmer don't want my help for the calving? O, I am not wanted here any more! And I have tried so hard to--" "Crick didn't exactly say that he would no longer require you. But, knowing what our relations were, he said in the most good-natured and respectful manner possible that he supposed on my leaving at Christmas I should take you with me, and on my asking what he would do without you he merely observed that, as a matter of fact, it was a time of year when he could do with a very little female help. I am afraid I was sinner enough to feel rather glad that he was in this way forcing your hand." "I don't think you ought to have felt glad, Angel. Because 'tis always mournful not to be wanted, even if at the same time 'tis convenient." "Well, it is convenient--you have admitted that." He put his finger upon her cheek. "Ah!" he said. "What?" "I feel the red rising up at her having been caught! But why should I trifle so! We will not trifle--life is too serious." "It is. Perhaps I saw that before you did." She was seeing it then. To decline to marry him after all--in obedience to her emotion of last night--and leave the dairy, meant to go to some strange place, not a dairy; for milkmaids were not in request now calving-time was coming on; to go to some arable farm where no divine being like Angel Clare was. She hated the thought, and she hated more the thought of going home. "So that, seriously, dearest Tess," he continued, "since you will probably have to leave at Christmas, it is in every way desirable and convenient that I should carry you off then as my property. Besides, if you were not the most uncalculating girl in the world you would know that we could not go on like this for ever." "I wish we could. That it would always be summer and autumn, and you always courting me, and always thinking as much of me as you have done through the past summer-time!" "I always shall." "O, I know you will!" she cried, with a sudden fervour of faith in him. "Angel, I will fix the day when I will become yours for always!" Thus at last it was arranged between them, during that dark walk home, amid the myriads of liquid voices on the right and left. When they reached the dairy Mr and Mrs Crick were promptly told--with injunctions of secrecy; for each of the lovers was desirous that the marriage should be kept as private as possible. The dairyman, though he had thought of dismissing her soon, now made a great concern about losing her. What should he do about his skimming? Who would make the ornamental butter-pats for the Anglebury and Sandbourne ladies? Mrs Crick congratulated Tess on the shilly-shallying having at last come to an end, and said that directly she set eyes on Tess she divined that she was to be the chosen one of somebody who was no common outdoor man; Tess had looked so superior as she walked across the barton on that afternoon of her arrival; that she was of a good family she could have sworn. In point of fact Mrs Crick did remember thinking that Tess was graceful and good-looking as she approached; but the superiority might have been a growth of the imagination aided by subsequent knowledge. Tess was now carried along upon the wings of the hours, without the sense of a will. The word had been given; the number of the day written down. Her naturally bright intelligence had begun to admit the fatalistic convictions common to field-folk and those who associate more extensively with natural phenomena than with their fellow-creatures; and she accordingly drifted into that passive responsiveness to all things her lover suggested, characteristic of the frame of mind. But she wrote anew to her mother, ostensibly to notify the wedding-day; really to again implore her advice. It was a gentleman who had chosen her, which perhaps her mother had not sufficiently considered. A post-nuptial explanation, which might be accepted with a light heart by a rougher man, might not be received with the same feeling by him. But this communication brought no reply from Mrs Durbeyfield. Despite Angel Clare's plausible representation to himself and to Tess of the practical need for their immediate marriage, there was in truth an element of precipitancy in the step, as became apparent at a later date. He loved her dearly, though perhaps rather ideally and fancifully than with the impassioned thoroughness of her feeling for him. He had entertained no notion, when doomed as he had thought to an unintellectual bucolic life, that such charms as he beheld in this idyllic creature would be found behind the scenes. Unsophistication was a thing to talk of; but he had not known how it really struck one until he came here. Yet he was very far from seeing his future track clearly, and it might be a year or two before he would be able to consider himself fairly started in life. The secret lay in the tinge of recklessness imparted to his career and character by the sense that he had been made to miss his true destiny through the prejudices of his family. "Don't you think 'twould have been better for us to wait till you were quite settled in your midland farm?" she once asked timidly. (A midland farm was the idea just then.) "To tell the truth, my Tess, I don't like you to be left anywhere away from my protection and sympathy." The reason was a good one, so far as it went. His influence over her had been so marked that she had caught his manner and habits, his speech and phrases, his likings and his aversions. And to leave her in farmland would be to let her slip back again out of accord with him. He wished to have her under his charge for another reason. His parents had naturally desired to see her once at least before he carried her off to a distant settlement, English or colonial; and as no opinion of theirs was to be allowed to change his intention, he judged that a couple of months' life with him in lodgings whilst seeking for an advantageous opening would be of some social assistance to her at what she might feel to be a trying ordeal--her presentation to his mother at the Vicarage. Next, he wished to see a little of the working of a flour-mill, having an idea that he might combine the use of one with corn-growing. The proprietor of a large old water-mill at Wellbridge--once the mill of an Abbey--had offered him the inspection of his time-honoured mode of procedure, and a hand in the operations for a few days, whenever he should choose to come. Clare paid a visit to the place, some few miles distant, one day at this time, to inquire particulars, and returned to Talbothays in the evening. She found him determined to spend a short time at the Wellbridge flour-mills. And what had determined him? Less the opportunity of an insight into grinding and bolting than the casual fact that lodgings were to be obtained in that very farmhouse which, before its mutilation, had been the mansion of a branch of the d'Urberville family. This was always how Clare settled practical questions; by a sentiment which had nothing to do with them. They decided to go immediately after the wedding, and remain for a fortnight, instead of journeying to towns and inns. "Then we will start off to examine some farms on the other side of London that I have heard of," he said, "and by March or April we will pay a visit to my father and mother." Questions of procedure such as these arose and passed, and the day, the incredible day, on which she was to become his, loomed large in the near future. The thirty-first of December, New Year's Eve, was the date. His wife, she said to herself. Could it ever be? Their two selves together, nothing to divide them, every incident shared by them; why not? And yet why? One Sunday morning Izz Huett returned from church, and spoke privately to Tess. "You was not called home this morning." "What?" "It should ha' been the first time of asking to-day," she answered, looking quietly at Tess. "You meant to be married New Year's Eve, deary?" The other returned a quick affirmative. "And there must be three times of asking. And now there be only two Sundays left between." Tess felt her cheek paling; Izz was right; of course there must be three. Perhaps he had forgotten! If so, there must be a week's postponement, and that was unlucky. How could she remind her lover? She who had been so backward was suddenly fired with impatience and alarm lest she should lose her dear prize. A natural incident relieved her anxiety. Izz mentioned the omission of the banns to Mrs Crick, and Mrs Crick assumed a matron's privilege of speaking to Angel on the point. "Have ye forgot 'em, Mr Clare? The banns, I mean." "No, I have not forgot 'em," says Clare. As soon as he caught Tess alone he assured her: "Don't let them tease you about the banns. A licence will be quieter for us, and I have decided on a licence without consulting you. So if you go to church on Sunday morning you will not hear your own name, if you wished to." "I didn't wish to hear it, dearest," she said proudly. But to know that things were in train was an immense relief to Tess notwithstanding, who had well-nigh feared that somebody would stand up and forbid the banns on the ground of her history. How events were favouring her! "I don't quite feel easy," she said to herself. "All this good fortune may be scourged out of me afterwards by a lot of ill. That's how Heaven mostly does. I wish I could have had common banns!" But everything went smoothly. She wondered whether he would like her to be married in her present best white frock, or if she ought to buy a new one. The question was set at rest by his forethought, disclosed by the arrival of some large packages addressed to her. Inside them she found a whole stock of clothing, from bonnet to shoes, including a perfect morning costume, such as would well suit the simple wedding they planned. He entered the house shortly after the arrival of the packages, and heard her upstairs undoing them. A minute later she came down with a flush on her face and tears in her eyes. "How thoughtful you've been!" she murmured, her cheek upon his shoulder. "Even to the gloves and handkerchief! My own love--how good, how kind!" "No, no, Tess; just an order to a tradeswoman in London--nothing more." And to divert her from thinking too highly of him, he told her to go upstairs, and take her time, and see if it all fitted; and, if not, to get the village sempstress to make a few alterations. She did return upstairs, and put on the gown. Alone, she stood for a moment before the glass looking at the effect of her silk attire; and then there came into her head her mother's ballad of the mystic robe-- That never would become that wife That had once done amiss, which Mrs Durbeyfield had used to sing to her as a child, so blithely and so archly, her foot on the cradle, which she rocked to the tune. Suppose this robe should betray her by changing colour, as her robe had betrayed Queen Guinevere. Since she had been at the dairy she had not once thought of the lines till now. Angel felt that he would like to spend a day with her before the wedding, somewhere away from the dairy, as a last jaunt in her company while there were yet mere lover and mistress; a romantic day, in circumstances that would never be repeated; with that other and greater day beaming close ahead of them. During the preceding week, therefore, he suggested making a few purchases in the nearest town, and they started together. Clare's life at the dairy had been that of a recluse in respect the world of his own class. For months he had never gone near a town, and, requiring no vehicle, had never kept one, hiring the dairyman's cob or gig if he rode or drove. They went in the gig that day. And then for the first time in their lives they shopped as partners in one concern. It was Christmas Eve, with its loads a holly and mistletoe, and the town was very full of strangers who had come in from all parts of the country on account of the day. Tess paid the penalty of walking about with happiness superadded to beauty on her countenance by being much stared at as she moved amid them on his arm. In the evening they returned to the inn at which they had put up, and Tess waited in the entry while Angel went to see the horse and gig brought to the door. The general sitting-room was full of guests, who were continually going in and out. As the door opened and shut each time for the passage of these, the light within the parlour fell full upon Tess's face. Two men came out and passed by her among the rest. One of them had stared her up and down in surprise, and she fancied he was a Trantridge man, though that village lay so many miles off that Trantridge folk were rarities here. "A comely maid that," said the other. "True, comely enough. But unless I make a great mistake--" And he negatived the remainder of the definition forthwith. Clare had just returned from the stable-yard, and, confronting the man on the threshold, heard the words, and saw the shrinking of Tess. The insult to her stung him to the quick, and before he had considered anything at all he struck the man on the chin with the full force of his fist, sending him staggering backwards into the passage. The man recovered himself, and seemed inclined to come on, and Clare, stepping outside the door, put himself in a posture of defence. But his opponent began to think better of the matter. He looked anew at Tess as he passed her, and said to Clare-- "I beg pardon, sir; 'twas a complete mistake. I thought she was another woman, forty miles from here." Clare, feeling then that he had been too hasty, and that he was, moreover, to blame for leaving her standing in an inn-passage, did what he usually did in such cases, gave the man five shillings to plaster the blow; and thus they parted, bidding each other a pacific good night. As soon as Clare had taken the reins from the ostler, and the young couple had driven off, the two men went in the other direction. "And was it a mistake?" said the second one. "Not a bit of it. But I didn't want to hurt the gentleman's feelings--not I." In the meantime the lovers were driving onward. "Could we put off our wedding till a little later?" Tess asked in a dry dull voice. "I mean if we wished?" "No, my love. Calm yourself. Do you mean that the fellow may have time to summon me for assault?" he asked good-humouredly. "No--I only meant--if it should have to be put off." What she meant was not very clear, and he directed her to dismiss such fancies from her mind, which she obediently did as well as she could. But she was grave, very grave, all the way home; till she thought, "We shall go away, a very long distance, hundreds of miles from these parts, and such as this can never happen again, and no ghost of the past reach there." They parted tenderly that night on the landing, and Clare ascended to his attic. Tess sat up getting on with some little requisites, lest the few remaining days should not afford sufficient time. While she sat she heard a noise in Angel's room overhead, a sound of thumping and struggling. Everybody else in the house was asleep, and in her anxiety lest Clare should be ill she ran up and knocked at his door, and asked him what was the matter. "Oh, nothing, dear," he said from within. "I am so sorry I disturbed you! But the reason is rather an amusing one: I fell asleep and dreamt that I was fighting that fellow again who insulted you, and the noise you heard was my pummelling away with my fists at my portmanteau, which I pulled out to-day for packing. I am occasionally liable to these freaks in my sleep. Go to bed and think of it no more." This was the last drachm required to turn the scale of her indecision. Declare the past to him by word of mouth she could not; but there was another way. She sat down and wrote on the four pages of a note-sheet a succinct narrative of those events of three or four years ago, put it into an envelope, and directed it to Clare. Then, lest the flesh should again be weak, she crept upstairs without any shoes and slipped the note under his door. Her night was a broken one, as it well might be, and she listened for the first faint noise overhead. It came, as usual; he descended, as usual. She descended. He met her at the bottom of the stairs and kissed her. Surely it was as warmly as ever! He looked a little disturbed and worn, she thought. But he said not a word to her about her revelation, even when they were alone. Could he have had it? Unless he began the subject she felt that she could say nothing. So the day passed, and it was evident that whatever he thought he meant to keep to himself. Yet he was frank and affectionate as before. Could it be that her doubts were childish? that he forgave her; that he loved her for what she was, just as she was, and smiled at her disquiet as at a foolish nightmare? Had he really received her note? She glanced into his room, and could see nothing of it. It might be that he forgave her. But even if he had not received it she had a sudden enthusiastic trust that he surely would forgive her. Every morning and night he was the same, and thus New Year's Eve broke--the wedding day. The lovers did not rise at milking-time, having through the whole of this last week of their sojourn at the dairy been accorded something of the position of guests, Tess being honoured with a room of her own. When they arrived downstairs at breakfast-time they were surprised to see what effects had been produced in the large kitchen for their glory since they had last beheld it. At some unnatural hour of the morning the dairyman had caused the yawning chimney-corner to be whitened, and the brick hearth reddened, and a blazing yellow damask blower to be hung across the arch in place of the old grimy blue cotton one with a black sprig pattern which had formerly done duty there. This renovated aspect of what was the focus indeed of the room on a full winter morning threw a smiling demeanour over the whole apartment. "I was determined to do summat in honour o't", said the dairyman. "And as you wouldn't hear of my gieing a rattling good randy wi' fiddles and bass-viols complete, as we should ha' done in old times, this was all I could think o' as a noiseless thing." Tess's friends lived so far off that none could conveniently have been present at the ceremony, even had any been asked; but as a fact nobody was invited from Marlott. As for Angel's family, he had written and duly informed them of the time, and assured them that he would be glad to see one at least of them there for the day if he would like to come. His brothers had not replied at all, seeming to be indignant with him; while his father and mother had written a rather sad letter, deploring his precipitancy in rushing into marriage, but making the best of the matter by saying that, though a dairywoman was the last daughter-in-law they could have expected, their son had arrived at an age which he might be supposed to be the best judge. This coolness in his relations distressed Clare less than it would have done had he been without the grand card with which he meant to surprise them ere long. To produce Tess, fresh from the dairy, as a d'Urberville and a lady, he had felt to be temerarious and risky; hence he had concealed her lineage till such time as, familiarized with worldly ways by a few months' travel and reading with him, he could take her on a visit to his parents and impart the knowledge while triumphantly producing her as worthy of such an ancient line. It was a pretty lover's dream, if no more. Perhaps Tess's lineage had more value for himself than for anybody in the world beside. Her perception that Angel's bearing towards her still remained in no whit altered by her own communication rendered Tess guiltily doubtful if he could have received it. She rose from breakfast before he had finished, and hastened upstairs. It had occurred to her to look once more into the queer gaunt room which had been Clare's den, or rather eyrie, for so long, and climbing the ladder she stood at the open door of the apartment, regarding and pondering. She stooped to the threshold of the doorway, where she had pushed in the note two or three days earlier in such excitement. The carpet reached close to the sill, and under the edge of the carpet she discerned the faint white margin of the envelope containing her letter to him, which he obviously had never seen, owing to her having in her haste thrust it beneath the carpet as well as beneath the door. With a feeling of faintness she withdrew the letter. There it was--sealed up, just as it had left her hands. The mountain had not yet been removed. She could not let him read it now, the house being in full bustle of preparation; and descending to her own room she destroyed the letter there. She was so pale when he saw her again that he felt quite anxious. The incident of the misplaced letter she had jumped at as if it prevented a confession; but she knew in her conscience that it need not; there was still time. Yet everything was in a stir; there was coming and going; all had to dress, the dairyman and Mrs Crick having been asked to accompany them as witnesses; and reflection or deliberate talk was well-nigh impossible. The only minute Tess could get to be alone with Clare was when they met upon the landing. "I am so anxious to talk to you--I want to confess all my faults and blunders!" she said with attempted lightness. "No, no--we can't have faults talked of--you must be deemed perfect to-day at least, my Sweet!" he cried. "We shall have plenty of time, hereafter, I hope, to talk over our failings. I will confess mine at the same time." "But it would be better for me to do it now, I think, so that you could not say--" "Well, my quixotic one, you shall tell me anything--say, as soon as we are settled in our lodging; not now. I, too, will tell you my faults then. But do not let us spoil the day with them; they will be excellent matter for a dull time." "Then you don't wish me to, dearest?" "I do not, Tessy, really." The hurry of dressing and starting left no time for more than this. Those words of his seemed to reassure her on further reflection. She was whirled onward through the next couple of critical hours by the mastering tide of her devotion to him, which closed up further meditation. Her one desire, so long resisted, to make herself his, to call him her lord, her own--then, if necessary, to die--had at last lifted her up from her plodding reflective pathway. In dressing, she moved about in a mental cloud of many-coloured idealities, which eclipsed all sinister contingencies by its brightness. The church was a long way off, and they were obliged to drive, particularly as it was winter. A closed carriage was ordered from a roadside inn, a vehicle which had been kept there ever since the old days of post-chaise travelling. It had stout wheel-spokes, and heavy felloes a great curved bed, immense straps and springs, and a pole like a battering-ram. The postilion was a venerable "boy" of sixty--a martyr to rheumatic gout, the result of excessive exposure in youth, counter-acted by strong liquors--who had stood at inn-doors doing nothing for the whole five-and-twenty years that had elapsed since he had no longer been required to ride professionally, as if expecting the old times to come back again. He had a permanent running wound on the outside of his right leg, originated by the constant bruisings of aristocratic carriage-poles during the many years that he had been in regular employ at the King's Arms, Casterbridge. Inside this cumbrous and creaking structure, and behind this decayed conductor, the _partie carree_ took their seats--the bride and bridegroom and Mr and Mrs Crick. Angel would have liked one at least of his brothers to be present as groomsman, but their silence after his gentle hint to that effect by letter had signified that they did not care to come. They disapproved of the marriage, and could not be expected to countenance it. Perhaps it was as well that they could not be present. They were not worldly young fellows, but fraternizing with dairy-folk would have struck unpleasantly upon their biased niceness, apart from their views of the match. Upheld by the momentum of the time, Tess knew nothing of this, did not see anything, did not know the road they were taking to the church. She knew that Angel was close to her; all the rest was a luminous mist. She was a sort of celestial person, who owed her being to poetry--one of those classical divinities Clare was accustomed to talk to her about when they took their walks together. The marriage being by licence there were only a dozen or so of people in the church; had there been a thousand they would have produced no more effect upon her. They were at stellar distances from her present world. In the ecstatic solemnity with which she swore her faith to him the ordinary sensibilities of sex seemed a flippancy. At a pause in the service, while they were kneeling together, she unconsciously inclined herself towards him, so that her shoulder touched his arm; she had been frightened by a passing thought, and the movement had been automatic, to assure herself that he was really there, and to fortify her belief that his fidelity would be proof against all things. Clare knew that she loved him--every curve of her form showed that-- but he did not know at that time the full depth of her devotion, its single-mindedness, its meekness; what long-suffering it guaranteed, what honesty, what endurance, what good faith. As they came out of church the ringers swung the bells off their rests, and a modest peal of three notes broke forth--that limited amount of expression having been deemed sufficient by the church builders for the joys of such a small parish. Passing by the tower with her husband on the path to the gate she could feel the vibrant air humming round them from the louvred belfry in the circle of sound, and it matched the highly-charged mental atmosphere in which she was living. This condition of mind, wherein she felt glorified by an irradiation not her own, like the angel whom St John saw in the sun, lasted till the sound of the church bells had died away, and the emotions of the wedding-service had calmed down. Her eyes could dwell upon details more clearly now, and Mr and Mrs Crick having directed their own gig to be sent for them, to leave the carriage to the young couple, she observed the build and character of that conveyance for the first time. Sitting in silence she regarded it long. "I fancy you seem oppressed, Tessy," said Clare. "Yes," she answered, putting her hand to her brow. "I tremble at many things. It is all so serious, Angel. Among other things I seem to have seen this carriage before, to be very well acquainted with it. It is very odd--I must have seen it in a dream." "Oh--you have heard the legend of the d'Urberville Coach--that well-known superstition of this county about your family when they were very popular here; and this lumbering old thing reminds you of it." "I have never heard of it to my knowledge," said she. "What is the legend--may I know it?" "Well--I would rather not tell it in detail just now. A certain d'Urberville of the sixteenth or seventeenth century committed a dreadful crime in his family coach; and since that time members of the family see or hear the old coach whenever--But I'll tell you another day--it is rather gloomy. Evidently some dim knowledge of it has been brought back to your mind by the sight of this venerable caravan." "I don't remember hearing it before," she murmured. "Is it when we are going to die, Angel, that members of my family see it, or is it when we have committed a crime?" "Now, Tess!" He silenced her by a kiss. By the time they reached home she was contrite and spiritless. She was Mrs Angel Clare, indeed, but had she any moral right to the name? Was she not more truly Mrs Alexander d'Urberville? Could intensity of love justify what might be considered in upright souls as culpable reticence? She knew not what was expected of women in such cases; and she had no counsellor. However, when she found herself alone in her room for a few minutes--the last day this on which she was ever to enter it--she knelt down and prayed. She tried to pray to God, but it was her husband who really had her supplication. Her idolatry of this man was such that she herself almost feared it to be ill-omened. She was conscious of the notion expressed by Friar Laurence: "These violent delights have violent ends." It might be too desperate for human conditions--too rank, to wild, too deadly. "O my love, why do I love you so!" she whispered there alone; "for she you love is not my real self, but one in my image; the one I might have been!" Afternoon came, and with it the hour for departure. They had decided to fulfil the plan of going for a few days to the lodgings in the old farmhouse near Wellbridge Mill, at which he meant to reside during his investigation of flour processes. At two o'clock there was nothing left to do but to start. All the servantry of the dairy were standing in the red-brick entry to see them go out, the dairyman and his wife following to the door. Tess saw her three chamber-mates in a row against the wall, pensively inclining their heads. She had much questioned if they would appear at the parting moment; but there they were, stoical and staunch to the last. She knew why the delicate Retty looked so fragile, and Izz so tragically sorrowful, and Marian so blank; and she forgot her own dogging shadow for a moment in contemplating theirs. She impulsively whispered to him-- "Will you kiss 'em all, once, poor things, for the first and last time?" Clare had not the least objection to such a farewell formality--which was all that it was to him--and as he passed them he kissed them in succession where they stood, saying "Goodbye" to each as he did so. When they reached the door Tess femininely glanced back to discern the effect of that kiss of charity; there was no triumph in her glance, as there might have been. If there had it would have disappeared when she saw how moved the girls all were. The kiss had obviously done harm by awakening feelings they were trying to subdue. Of all this Clare was unconscious. Passing on to the wicket-gate he shook hands with the dairyman and his wife, and expressed his last thanks to them for their attentions; after which there was a moment of silence before they had moved off. It was interrupted by the crowing of a cock. The white one with the rose comb had come and settled on the palings in front of the house, within a few yards of them, and his notes thrilled their ears through, dwindling away like echoes down a valley of rocks. "Oh?" said Mrs Crick. "An afternoon crow!" Two men were standing by the yard gate, holding it open. "That's bad," one murmured to the other, not thinking that the words could be heard by the group at the door-wicket. The cock crew again--straight towards Clare. "Well!" said the dairyman. "I don't like to hear him!" said Tess to her husband. "Tell the man to drive on. Goodbye, goodbye!" The cock crew again. "Hoosh! Just you be off, sir, or I'll twist your neck!" said the dairyman with some irritation, turning to the bird and driving him away. And to his wife as they went indoors: "Now, to think o' that just to-day! I've not heard his crow of an afternoon all the year afore." "It only means a change in the weather," said she; "not what you think: 'tis impossible!" They drove by the level road along the valley to a distance of a few miles, and, reaching Wellbridge, turned away from the village to the left, and over the great Elizabethan bridge which gives the place half its name. Immediately behind it stood the house wherein they had engaged lodgings, whose exterior features are so well known to all travellers through the Froom Valley; once portion of a fine manorial residence, and the property and seat of a d'Urberville, but since its partial demolition a farmhouse. "Welcome to one of your ancestral mansions!" said Clare as he handed her down. But he regretted the pleasantry; it was too near a satire. On entering they found that, though they had only engaged a couple of rooms, the farmer had taken advantage of their proposed presence during the coming days to pay a New Year's visit to some friends, leaving a woman from a neighbouring cottage to minister to their few wants. The absoluteness of possession pleased them, and they realized it as the first moment of their experience under their own exclusive roof-tree. But he found that the mouldy old habitation somewhat depressed his bride. When the carriage was gone they ascended the stairs to wash their hands, the charwoman showing the way. On the landing Tess stopped and started. "What's the matter?" said he. "Those horrid women!" she answered with a smile. "How they frightened me." He looked up, and perceived two life-size portraits on panels built into the masonry. As all visitors to the mansion are aware, these paintings represent women of middle age, of a date some two hundred years ago, whose lineaments once seen can never be forgotten. The long pointed features, narrow eye, and smirk of the one, so suggestive of merciless treachery; the bill-hook nose, large teeth, and bold eye of the other suggesting arrogance to the point of ferocity, haunt the beholder afterwards in his dreams. "Whose portraits are those?" asked Clare of the charwoman. "I have been told by old folk that they were ladies of the d'Urberville family, the ancient lords of this manor," she said, "Owing to their being builded into the wall they can't be moved away." The unpleasantness of the matter was that, in addition to their effect upon Tess, her fine features were unquestionably traceable in these exaggerated forms. He said nothing of this, however, and, regretting that he had gone out of his way to choose the house for their bridal time, went on into the adjoining room. The place having been rather hastily prepared for them, they washed their hands in one basin. Clare touched hers under the water. "Which are my fingers and which are yours?" he said, looking up. "They are very much mixed." "They are all yours," said she, very prettily, and endeavoured to be gayer than she was. He had not been displeased with her thoughtfulness on such an occasion; it was what every sensible woman would show: but Tess knew that she had been thoughtful to excess, and struggled against it. The sun was so low on that short last afternoon of the year that it shone in through a small opening and formed a golden staff which stretched across to her skirt, where it made a spot like a paint-mark set upon her. They went into the ancient parlour to tea, and here they shared their first common meal alone. Such was their childishness, or rather his, that he found it interesting to use the same bread-and-butter plate as herself, and to brush crumbs from her lips with his own. He wondered a little that she did not enter into these frivolities with his own zest. Looking at her silently for a long time; "She is a dear dear Tess," he thought to himself, as one deciding on the true construction of a difficult passage. "Do I realize solemnly enough how utterly and irretrievably this little womanly thing is the creature of my good or bad faith and fortune? I think not. I think I could not, unless I were a woman myself. What I am in worldly estate, she is. What I become, she must become. What I cannot be, she cannot be. And shall I ever neglect her, or hurt her, or even forget to consider her? God forbid such a crime!" They sat on over the tea-table waiting for their luggage, which the dairyman had promised to send before it grew dark. But evening began to close in, and the luggage did not arrive, and they had brought nothing more than they stood in. With the departure of the sun the calm mood of the winter day changed. Out of doors there began noises as of silk smartly rubbed; the restful dead leaves of the preceding autumn were stirred to irritated resurrection, and whirled about unwillingly, and tapped against the shutters. It soon began to rain. "That cock knew the weather was going to change," said Clare. The woman who had attended upon them had gone home for the night, but she had placed candles upon the table, and now they lit them. Each candle-flame drew towards the fireplace. "These old houses are so draughty," continued Angel, looking at the flames, and at the grease guttering down the sides. "I wonder where that luggage is. We haven't even a brush and comb." "I don't know," she answered, absent-minded. "Tess, you are not a bit cheerful this evening--not at all as you used to be. Those harridans on the panels upstairs have unsettled you. I am sorry I brought you here. I wonder if you really love me, after all?" He knew that she did, and the words had no serious intent; but she was surcharged with emotion, and winced like a wounded animal. Though she tried not to shed tears, she could not help showing one or two. "I did not mean it!" said he, sorry. "You are worried at not having your things, I know. I cannot think why old Jonathan has not come with them. Why, it is seven o'clock? Ah, there he is!" A knock had come to the door, and, there being nobody else to answer it, Clare went out. He returned to the room with a small package in his hand. "It is not Jonathan, after all," he said. "How vexing!" said Tess. The packet had been brought by a special messenger, who had arrived at Talbothays from Emminster Vicarage immediately after the departure of the married couple, and had followed them hither, being under injunction to deliver it into nobody's hands but theirs. Clare brought it to the light. It was less than a foot long, sewed up in canvas, sealed in red wax with his father's seal, and directed in his father's hand to "Mrs Angel Clare." "It is a little wedding-present for you, Tess," said he, handing it to her. "How thoughtful they are!" Tess looked a little flustered as she took it. "I think I would rather have you open it, dearest," said she, turning over the parcel. "I don't like to break those great seals; they look so serious. Please open it for me!" He undid the parcel. Inside was a case of morocco leather, on the top of which lay a note and a key. The note was for Clare, in the following words: MY DEAR SON-- Possibly you have forgotten that on the death of your godmother, Mrs Pitney, when you were a lad, she--vain, kind woman that she was--left to me a portion of the contents of her jewel-case in trust for your wife, if you should ever have one, as a mark of her affection for you and whomsoever you should choose. This trust I have fulfilled, and the diamonds have been locked up at my banker's ever since. Though I feel it to be a somewhat incongruous act in the circumstances, I am, as you will see, bound to hand over the articles to the woman to whom the use of them for her lifetime will now rightly belong, and they are therefore promptly sent. They become, I believe, heirlooms, strictly speaking, according to the terms of your godmother's will. The precise words of the clause that refers to this matter are enclosed. "I do remember," said Clare; "but I had quite forgotten." Unlocking the case, they found it to contain a necklace, with pendant, bracelets, and ear-rings; and also some other small ornaments. Tess seemed afraid to touch them at first, but her eyes sparkled for a moment as much as the stones when Clare spread out the set. "Are they mine?" she asked incredulously. "They are, certainly," said he. He looked into the fire. He remembered how, when he was a lad of fifteen, his godmother, the Squire's wife--the only rich person with whom he had ever come in contact--had pinned her faith to his success; had prophesied a wondrous career for him. There had seemed nothing at all out of keeping with such a conjectured career in the storing up of these showy ornaments for his wife and the wives of her descendants. They gleamed somewhat ironically now. "Yet why?" he asked himself. It was but a question of vanity throughout; and if that were admitted into one side of the equation it should be admitted into the other. His wife was a d'Urberville: whom could they become better than her? Suddenly he said with enthusiasm-- "Tess, put them on--put them on!" And he turned from the fire to help her. But as if by magic she had already donned them--necklace, ear-rings, bracelets, and all. "But the gown isn't right, Tess," said Clare. "It ought to be a low one for a set of brilliants like that." "Ought it?" said Tess. "Yes," said he. He suggested to her how to tuck in the upper edge of her bodice, so as to make it roughly approximate to the cut for evening wear; and when she had done this, and the pendant to the necklace hung isolated amid the whiteness of her throat, as it was designed to do, he stepped back to survey her. "My heavens," said Clare, "how beautiful you are!" As everybody knows, fine feathers make fine birds; a peasant girl but very moderately prepossessing to the casual observer in her simple condition and attire will bloom as an amazing beauty if clothed as a woman of fashion with the aids that Art can render; while the beauty of the midnight crush would often cut but a sorry figure if placed inside the field-woman's wrapper upon a monotonous acreage of turnips on a dull day. He had never till now estimated the artistic excellence of Tess's limbs and features. "If you were only to appear in a ball-room!" he said. "But no--no, dearest; I think I love you best in the wing-bonnet and cotton-frock--yes, better than in this, well as you support these dignities." Tess's sense of her striking appearance had given her a flush of excitement, which was yet not happiness. "I'll take them off," she said, "in case Jonathan should see me. They are not fit for me, are they? They must be sold, I suppose?" "Let them stay a few minutes longer. Sell them? Never. It would be a breach of faith." Influenced by a second thought she readily obeyed. She had something to tell, and there might be help in these. She sat down with the jewels upon her; and they again indulged in conjectures as to where Jonathan could possibly be with their baggage. The ale they had poured out for his consumption when he came had gone flat with long standing. Shortly after this they began supper, which was already laid on a side-table. Ere they had finished there was a jerk in the fire-smoke, the rising skein of which bulged out into the room, as if some giant had laid his hand on the chimney-top for a moment. It had been caused by the opening of the outer door. A heavy step was now heard in the passage, and Angel went out. "I couldn' make nobody hear at all by knocking," apologized Jonathan Kail, for it was he at last; "and as't was raining out I opened the door. I've brought the things, sir." "I am very glad to see them. But you are very late." "Well, yes, sir." There was something subdued in Jonathan Kail's tone which had not been there in the day, and lines of concern were ploughed upon his forehead in addition to the lines of years. He continued-- "We've all been gallied at the dairy at what might ha' been a most terrible affliction since you and your Mis'ess--so to name her now--left us this a'ternoon. Perhaps you ha'nt forgot the cock's afternoon crow?" "Dear me;--what--" "Well, some says it do mane one thing, and some another; but what's happened is that poor little Retty Priddle hev tried to drown herself." "No! Really! Why, she bade us goodbye with the rest--" "Yes. Well, sir, when you and your Mis'ess--so to name what she lawful is--when you two drove away, as I say, Retty and Marian put on their bonnets and went out; and as there is not much doing now, being New Year's Eve, and folks mops and brooms from what's inside 'em, nobody took much notice. They went on to Lew-Everard, where they had summut to drink, and then on they vamped to Dree-armed Cross, and there they seemed to have parted, Retty striking across the water-meads as if for home, and Marian going on to the next village, where there's another public-house. Nothing more was zeed or heard o' Retty till the waterman, on his way home, noticed something by the Great Pool; 'twas her bonnet and shawl packed up. In the water he found her. He and another man brought her home, thinking a' was dead; but she fetched round by degrees." Angel, suddenly recollecting that Tess was overhearing this gloomy tale, went to shut the door between the passage and the ante-room to the inner parlour where she was; but his wife, flinging a shawl round her, had come to the outer room and was listening to the man's narrative, her eyes resting absently on the luggage and the drops of rain glistening upon it. "And, more than this, there's Marian; she's been found dead drunk by the withy-bed--a girl who hev never been known to touch anything before except shilling ale; though, to be sure, 'a was always a good trencher-woman, as her face showed. It seems as if the maids had all gone out o' their minds!" "And Izz?" asked Tess. "Izz is about house as usual; but 'a do say 'a can guess how it happened; and she seems to be very low in mind about it, poor maid, as well she mid be. And so you see, sir, as all this happened just when we was packing your few traps and your Mis'ess's night-rail and dressing things into the cart, why, it belated me." "Yes. Well, Jonathan, will you get the trunks upstairs, and drink a cup of ale, and hasten back as soon as you can, in case you should be wanted?" Tess had gone back to the inner parlour, and sat down by the fire, looking wistfully into it. She heard Jonathan Kail's heavy footsteps up and down the stairs till he had done placing the luggage, and heard him express his thanks for the ale her husband took out to him, and for the gratuity he received. Jonathan's footsteps then died from the door, and his cart creaked away. Angel slid forward the massive oak bar which secured the door, and coming in to where she sat over the hearth, pressed her cheeks between his hands from behind. He expected her to jump up gaily and unpack the toilet-gear that she had been so anxious about, but as she did not rise he sat down with her in the firelight, the candles on the supper-table being too thin and glimmering to interfere with its glow. "I am so sorry you should have heard this sad story about the girls," he said. "Still, don't let it depress you. Retty was naturally morbid, you know." "Without the least cause," said Tess. "While they who have cause to be, hide it, and pretend they are not." This incident had turned the scale for her. They were simple and innocent girls on whom the unhappiness of unrequited love had fallen; they had deserved better at the hands of Fate. She had deserved worse--yet she was the chosen one. It was wicked of her to take all without paying. She would pay to the uttermost farthing; she would tell, there and then. This final determination she came to when she looked into the fire, he holding her hand. A steady glare from the now flameless embers painted the sides and back of the fireplace with its colour, and the well-polished andirons, and the old brass tongs that would not meet. The underside of the mantel-shelf was flushed with the high-coloured light, and the legs of the table nearest the fire. Tess's face and neck reflected the same warmth, which each gem turned into an Aldebaran or a Sirius--a constellation of white, red, and green flashes, that interchanged their hues with her every pulsation. "Do you remember what we said to each other this morning about telling our faults?" he asked abruptly, finding that she still remained immovable. "We spoke lightly perhaps, and you may well have done so. But for me it was no light promise. I want to make a confession to you, Love." This, from him, so unexpectedly apposite, had the effect upon her of a Providential interposition. "You have to confess something?" she said quickly, and even with gladness and relief. "You did not expect it? Ah--you thought too highly of me. Now listen. Put your head there, because I want you to forgive me, and not to be indignant with me for not telling you before, as perhaps I ought to have done." How strange it was! He seemed to be her double. She did not speak, and Clare went on-- "I did not mention it because I was afraid of endangering my chance of you, darling, the great prize of my life--my Fellowship I call you. My brother's Fellowship was won at his college, mine at Talbothays Dairy. Well, I would not risk it. I was going to tell you a month ago--at the time you agreed to be mine, but I could not; I thought it might frighten you away from me. I put it off; then I thought I would tell you yesterday, to give you a chance at least of escaping me. But I did not. And I did not this morning, when you proposed our confessing our faults on the landing--the sinner that I was! But I must, now I see you sitting there so solemnly. I wonder if you will forgive me?" "O yes! I am sure that--" "Well, I hope so. But wait a minute. You don't know. To begin at the beginning. Though I imagine my poor father fears that I am one of the eternally lost for my doctrines, I am of course, a believer in good morals, Tess, as much as you. I used to wish to be a teacher of men, and it was a great disappointment to me when I found I could not enter the Church. I admired spotlessness, even though I could lay no claim to it, and hated impurity, as I hope I do now. Whatever one may think of plenary inspiration, one must heartily subscribe to these words of Paul: 'Be thou an example--in word, in conversation, in charity, in spirit, in faith, in purity.' It is the only safeguard for us poor human beings. '_Integer vitae_,' says a Roman poet, who is strange company for St Paul-- "The man of upright life, from frailties free, Stands not in need of Moorish spear or bow. "Well, a certain place is paved with good intentions, and having felt all that so strongly, you will see what a terrible remorse it bred in me when, in the midst of my fine aims for other people, I myself fell." He then told her of that time of his life to which allusion has been made when, tossed about by doubts and difficulties in London, like a cork on the waves, he plunged into eight-and-forty hours' dissipation with a stranger. "Happily I awoke almost immediately to a sense of my folly," he continued. "I would have no more to say to her, and I came home. I have never repeated the offence. But I felt I should like to treat you with perfect frankness and honour, and I could not do so without telling this. Do you forgive me?" She pressed his hand tightly for an answer. "Then we will dismiss it at once and for ever!--too painful as it is for the occasion--and talk of something lighter." "O, Angel--I am almost glad--because now YOU can forgive ME! I have not made my confession. I have a confession, too--remember, I said so." "Ah, to be sure! Now then for it, wicked little one." "Perhaps, although you smile, it is as serious as yours, or more so." "It can hardly be more serious, dearest." "It cannot--O no, it cannot!" She jumped up joyfully at the hope. "No, it cannot be more serious, certainly," she cried, "because 'tis just the same! I will tell you now." She sat down again. Their hands were still joined. The ashes under the grate were lit by the fire vertically, like a torrid waste. Imagination might have beheld a Last Day luridness in this red-coaled glow, which fell on his face and hand, and on hers, peering into the loose hair about her brow, and firing the delicate skin underneath. A large shadow of her shape rose upon the wall and ceiling. She bent forward, at which each diamond on her neck gave a sinister wink like a toad's; and pressing her forehead against his temple she entered on her story of her acquaintance with Alec d'Urberville and its results, murmuring the words without flinching, and with her eyelids drooping down. END OF PHASE THE FOURTH Phase the Fifth: The Woman Pays

Chapters 31-34

https://web.archive.org/web/20201219151046/https://www.cliffsnotes.com/literature/t/tess-of-the-durbervilles/summary-and-analysis/phase-the-fourth-the-consequence-chapters-3134

Tess writes to her mother and receives a response by the end of the week. Joan Durbeyfield tells Tess not to tell of her past. Joan also mentions that a barrel of alcoholic cider will be sent for a wedding present. Tess decides not to tell Angel of her history. Everyone at the dairy seems to know that Tess will someday marry Angel. Even when the maids feel some jealousy toward Tess at the possibility of marriage, they cannot bear her any ill will. Tess tells the young maids, "You are all better than I." Tess cannot bear to keep silent on the matter of her past, and she vows to tell Angel all of her history, despite her mother's advice not to. Tess sets the date of their wedding as December 31. The time for Tess' services at the dairy are at an end. Angel is also finished with the apprenticeship at the dairy and seeks a new aspect of farming for study. He settles on the flourmill at Wellbridge to learn about milling flour. He then proposes a tour of other farms during the first of the year, stopping to visit his parents in March or April. Tess' bridal gown arrives, a simple dress, and the wedding arrangements are completed. Angel and Tess travel to the nearby town, Vale of Blackmoor, on Christmas Eve to do some last minute shopping. There Tess sees two Trantridge men who know of her past and speak of it loud enough for all to hear. Angel confronts the men, who admit their possible mistake of confusing Tess with another woman. The incident disconcerts Tess, who asks Angel if the wedding can be postponed. He asks her to forget the incident. Tess writes a four-page note to Angel that explains her history and slips it under his door. However, the note becomes lodged under the carpet, and he never reads it; Tess later finds the note and destroys it. The pair remain as guests at Talbothays until the day of their wedding. No one from the Durbeyfield or Clare families attends the ceremony; instead, the Cricks and all the workers at Talbothays attend the services. After they leave the wedding ceremony, Tess tries to confess her past sins, but Angel will not hear of it. When Tess says that the carriage they are riding in seems familiar to her, Angel recalls the legend of the d'Urberville Coach: During the sixteenth or seventeenth century, a d'Urberville supposedly committed a "dreadful crime" in the family coach and that, since that time, only the d'Urberville family members can hear the coach, whose appearance foretells a tragic or bad event. Upon leaving Talbothays, an old white rooster crows in mid-afternoon -- in the world of the farm an omen for bad fortune. The house the newlyweds take in Wellbridge is an old d'Urberville home, complete with old d'Urberville portraits on panels in the walls. The luggage from Talbothays is late, but Tess receives a package from the Clare family of heirloom jewels, which Tess immediately puts on. The luggage arrives via Jonathan Kail, a Talbothays dairyman, who tells the new couple that Retty had tried to commit suicide, Marian gets "dead drunk," and Izz is moping around the house depressed. Tess feels guilty that she had some hand in the incidents that happened to her friends. Then Tess and Angel confess their sins, first Angel, then Tess.

Hardy uses several omens to warn the readers that something is about to happen to the characters. Consider, for example, Tess' serendipitous meeting with Angel in Chapter 1, which foreshadowed their later meeting. That both Tess and Angel recall that meeting in this chapter brings a poignancy to their current situation. The reader knows, as Tess does, what happened between her first meeting with Angel and her second. Angel does not share this knowledge and simply regrets having not danced with Tess or staying in Marlott, saying "If I had only known!" -- a sentiment, no doubt, that Tess surely feels and with greater reason. Hardy increases the sense of foreboding with Tess' failed attempts at revealing her secret. She volunteers time and again to tell Angel of her past only to be rebuffed each time. Beyond this, Hardy piles up the signs, each one sharpening the readers' sense of doom for the pair: The settling on the last day of the year, December 31, to be married; the misdirected note , the kisses that Angel bestows on each of the dairymaids. Further heightening the sense of foreboding are the omens that Hardy specifically points out as being portents: the d'Urberville Coach legend and the rooster crowing at noon. In combination, all the omens from these chapters prefigure events to come in the next phase of the novel. Although hopeful readers may want to see the events at Talbothays Dairy following Tess and Angel's departure as the events that the omens prefigured , Hardy's choice of title for the next part -- Phase the Fifth: The Woman Pays -- undermines what little glimmer of hope he may have tried to offer. Again, in these chapters, Hardy's view of fate and the role it plays in our lives come to the forefront of the story. Essentially, his point seems to be that things just happen, for good or bad , and that these things have significant impact on the courses our lives take. Consider, for example, Tess' happening to meet Alec d'Urberville upon her initial journey to The Slopes. She could have met anyone, but chance decreed that she meet and draw the attention of a man who was not only not worthy of her but capable of -- willing to -- destroy her for his own pleasure. The reader can imagine how differently Tess' life would have been had she met Angel before Alec, but it was the culmination of small, inconsequential things -- a missed dance, a chance meeting, for example -- that send Tess' life in the direction toward ruin. Combine this with the fact that Tess is a decent person, that she is undeserving of such a life and such a fate. She did not willingly attract Alec; she does not deliberately deceive Angel; and yet she must suffer the consequences as though she had. In short, Tess is a decent person for whom things just don't work out -- a seemingly innocuous statement that leads to tragedy, especially when we consider that everything could have happened some other way, and that if only one thing had happened differently, perhaps Tess' life would have been altered for the better. Glossary hogshead a large barrel or cask holding from 63 to 140 gallons "less Byronic than Shelleyan" less passionate than spiritual in inclination. Champaigns plains; level open country. "those who are true..." list of virtues comes from Paul; Philippians 4:8. springe a snare consisting of a noose attached to something under tension, as a bent tree branch. capricious subject to caprices; tending to change abruptly and without apparent reason; erratic; flighty. baily in England, a steward or manager of a farm or estate. penitential expressing penitence for having sinned or done other wrong and willing to atone. banns the proclamation, generally made in church on three successive Sundays, of an intended marriage. license written permission from a bishop in place of a banns. "her mother's ballad of the mystic robe" from "The Boy and the Mantle," in which a robe betrays Queen Guenever, the wife of King Arthur. ostler hosteler. Felloes rims of a spoked wheel, or segments of the rim. Partie carree party of four, from French. cumbrous cumbersome. Friar Lawrence from Romeo and Juliet . Skein a quantity of thread or yarn wound in a coil; something like this, as a coil of hair. summut somewhat. Withy-bed stand of willows. night-rail a loose dressing-jacket or dressing gown. trencher-woman a woman who eats much and heartily Aldebaran or Sirius two of the brightest stars in the sky. Integer Vitae phrase from Roman poet Horace is in an ode translated in the lines quoted as "upright life."

gradesaver

all_chapterized_books/1232-chapters/17.txt

finished_summaries/gradesaver/The Prince/section_5_part_3.txt

The Prince.chapter xvii

chapter xvii

{"name": "Chapter XVII", "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20210417004655/https://www.gradesaver.com/the-prince/study-guide/summary-section-6-chapters-xv-xix", "summary": "\"On Cruelty and Clemency: Whether It Is Better To Be Loved or Feared,\" posits the seemingly simple argument that, though it is ideally better to be merciful than cruel, clemency should be handled in moderation. Again, Machiavelli complicates the notion of good as purely subordinate to power, invoking utilitarian reasoning to argue that an excess of \"good\" can actually lead to harm. this case, too much clemency can lead to uprisings and civil war. Machiavelli cites the example of Florence, which was afraid to intervene with the required force in Pistoia and was in turn destroyed through civil conflict. If a prince needs to be cruel to keep his subjects united and loyal, so be it. Cruelty can serve the greater good. There are two ways of fighting, Machiavelli asserts in the following chapter, \"The Way Princes Should Keep Their Word\": with laws, and with force. The first is the human method, and the second belongs in theory to the beasts. That said, there are times when the first method does not suffice, in which case a prince needs to rely on force. Therefore, a prince should study the art of both laws and war, the methods of both man and beasts. When it comes to beasts, two models exist: the lion, which represents brute force and strength, and the fox, which represents wiliness. A prince needs both, for one without the other will lead only to ruin. Machiavelli, as might be expected, proceeds to focus on the fox: \"a prudent prince cannot and should not keep his word when to do so would go against his interest. To be crafty and to be able to deceive, the mythical hallmarks of the fox, are key skills for any ruler. You can break promises and treaties as long as you can hide your duplicity; you must therefore be \"a great liar and hypocrite. A prince need not possess all the virtues listed in Chapter XV. He need not be giving, merciful, faithful, spirited, humane, chaste, straightforward, gentle, but he needs to seem to possess these virtues. Admittedly, it is good to follow virtues both in appearance and in reality, but a prince must be able to switch to the contrary at a moment's notice if necessary, while maintaining a consistent front", "analysis": "If The Prince is often characterized as a treatise on unscrupulous politics and a manual of ruthless power games, Chapter XV, \"On the Reasons Why Men Are Praised or Blamed - Especially Princes,\" is a particularly crucial chapter. It is here that Machiavelli directly addresses the question that has been bubbling underneath the surface of his book thus far - namely, to what extent does being good matter? Machiavelli's answer: as long as it contributes to holding onto power. The key notion here is that good is a relative concept; surface virtuosity, of the kind often showcased by rulers, is often but a disguise, and the greatest good lies in the end - the all-inclusive goal of maintaining the state and securing the reins of power. In other words, good is good insofar as it is politically expedient. The categorical crumbles in the face of efficiency, for the latter is the only true barometer. The ends justify the means, and utilitarianism is the dominant mode of reasoning. If a prince needs to indulge a vice to save his state, so be it. \"For if you look at matters carefully,\" Machiavelli writes, \"you will see that something resembling virtue, if you follow it, may be your ruin, while something resembling vice will lead, if you follow it, to your security and well-being.\" One might compare this argument to the thrust of Chapter XIII, \"On Those Who Have Become Princes By Crime,\" which measures when and to what extent a prince's cruelty can be justified. Machiavelli is arguing something far more complex than a call to disregard morality. His example of the generous prince begins as a seemingly hard-lined argument and emerges as a humanist consideration of the faults of man. A prince should not be miserly just for the sake of it; miserliness, by resulting in the safeguarding of funds and greater financial security, winds up helping the people in quite direct ways. It is up to the prince to see beyond short-run desires and superficial appearances and to not give away money he cannot afford to spend just to put on a lovable face and to curry favor, but instead to weather the occasional criticism and plan for the future. It is all about the greater good. Machiavelli sublimates the individualistic treatment of the prince as solitary agent into a larger view of society as contingent on long-term planning and sacrifice. The Prince reads here as less a how-to for the aspiring prince than a social manifesto; Machiavelli puts faith in the people's judgment, arguing that they will come around to loving the miserly prince who saves money out of necessity. As in his earlier distinctions between the common people and the nobles, he emerges as more of a populist and democrat than popular conceptions of The Prince tend to allow for. That said, Chapter XVII, \"On Cruelty and Clemency,\" presents a thoroughly pessimistic view of humanity. Men are inherently \"rotten,\" Machiavelli argues, explaining that they are \"ungrateful, fickle, liars and deceivers, fearful of danger and greedy for gain.\" For this reason, it is safer for a prince to be feared than to be loved: \"love is link of obligation which men, because they are rotten, will break any time they think doing so serves their advantage.\" Fear, on the other hand, \"involves dread of punishment, from which they can never escape.\" As always, Machiavelli tempers what seems at first like a thoroughly cynical position, noting that moderation is the key, and that a prince should try to make himself feared in a way that does not make him hated. More specifically, he should only shed blood when he has good reason to, he should not confiscate property, and he should keep his hands off his subjects' women. Certain lines cannot be crossed. As Machiavelli writes a few pages later, a prince \"should be ready to enter on evil if he has to,\" but he must have to. In any case, virtues are often difficult to define; they are only virtuous insofar as they help people. Virtue for its own sake can be harmful, and for a prince to possess and exercise all virtues at all times is a mistake. Appearances are a different matter: the masses are impressed by the superficial appearance of things so long as the prince's ends are achieved. It matters little, therefore, who the prince really is. Machiavelli closes Chapter XVIII with a reference that deserves mention. \"A certain prince of our own time,\" he writes, \"whom it's just as well not to name, preaches nothing but peace and mutual trust, yet he is the determined enemy of both.\" This seems to be a condemnation, but Machiavelli continues: \"if on several different occasions he had observed either, he would have lost both his reputation and his throne.\" The prince in question is Ferdinand of Spain, and the passage is something of a swipe at him. The first line suggests untempered scorn, while the second modifies this position and recasts Ferdinand as an example of how hypocrisy can be useful. These last few words are perhaps the veil Machiavelli uses to hide a more acute criticism of Ferdinand, who secured his power through often bloodthirsty tactics, expelling the Muslims and Jews from Spain, waging war, and persecuting the masses. These repellent maneuvers, Machiavelli is forced to admit, did work. We can sense here the writer having reached a sort of theoretical impasse: how to both condemn and praise? How to reconcile a need for human goodness with the demands of power and the vicissitudes of international relations? Ferdinand provides a particularly difficult case, since Machiavelli, writing of him as a \"determined enemy\" of peace and trust, seems to disapprove of him, while his own writings provide a framework whereby Ferdinand's actions are thoroughly justifiable. What is perhaps most important is that Machiavelli faces Ferdinand head-on. Contradictions may abound as Machiavelli maps out his philosophy, but he seems to implicitly acknowledge this. The Prince is more than a simplistic argument for cold-heartedness in politics, and these chapters reflect Machiavelli's efforts to grapple with the various problems his more cynical positions engender."}

Coming now to the other qualities mentioned above, I say that every prince ought to desire to be considered clement and not cruel. Nevertheless he ought to take care not to misuse this clemency. Cesare Borgia was considered cruel; notwithstanding, his cruelty reconciled the Romagna, unified it, and restored it to peace and loyalty. And if this be rightly considered, he will be seen to have been much more merciful than the Florentine people, who, to avoid a reputation for cruelty, permitted Pistoia to be destroyed.(*) Therefore a prince, so long as he keeps his subjects united and loyal, ought not to mind the reproach of cruelty; because with a few examples he will be more merciful than those who, through too much mercy, allow disorders to arise, from which follow murders or robberies; for these are wont to injure the whole people, whilst those executions which originate with a prince offend the individual only. (*) During the rioting between the Cancellieri and Panciatichi factions in 1502 and 1503. And of all princes, it is impossible for the new prince to avoid the imputation of cruelty, owing to new states being full of dangers. Hence Virgil, through the mouth of Dido, excuses the inhumanity of her reign owing to its being new, saying: "Res dura, et regni novitas me talia cogunt Moliri, et late fines custode tueri."(*) Nevertheless he ought to be slow to believe and to act, nor should he himself show fear, but proceed in a temperate manner with prudence and humanity, so that too much confidence may not make him incautious and too much distrust render him intolerable. (*) . . . against my will, my fate A throne unsettled, and an infant state, Bid me defend my realms with all my pow'rs, And guard with these severities my shores. Christopher Pitt. Upon this a question arises: whether it be better to be loved than feared or feared than loved? It may be answered that one should wish to be both, but, because it is difficult to unite them in one person, it is much safer to be feared than loved, when, of the two, either must be dispensed with. Because this is to be asserted in general of men, that they are ungrateful, fickle, false, cowardly, covetous, and as long as you succeed they are yours entirely; they will offer you their blood, property, life, and children, as is said above, when the need is far distant; but when it approaches they turn against you. And that prince who, relying entirely on their promises, has neglected other precautions, is ruined; because friendships that are obtained by payments, and not by greatness or nobility of mind, may indeed be earned, but they are not secured, and in time of need cannot be relied upon; and men have less scruple in offending one who is beloved than one who is feared, for love is preserved by the link of obligation which, owing to the baseness of men, is broken at every opportunity for their advantage; but fear preserves you by a dread of punishment which never fails. Nevertheless a prince ought to inspire fear in such a way that, if he does not win love, he avoids hatred; because he can endure very well being feared whilst he is not hated, which will always be as long as he abstains from the property of his citizens and subjects and from their women. But when it is necessary for him to proceed against the life of someone, he must do it on proper justification and for manifest cause, but above all things he must keep his hands off the property of others, because men more quickly forget the death of their father than the loss of their patrimony. Besides, pretexts for taking away the property are never wanting; for he who has once begun to live by robbery will always find pretexts for seizing what belongs to others; but reasons for taking life, on the contrary, are more difficult to find and sooner lapse. But when a prince is with his army, and has under control a multitude of soldiers, then it is quite necessary for him to disregard the reputation of cruelty, for without it he would never hold his army united or disposed to its duties. Among the wonderful deeds of Hannibal this one is enumerated: that having led an enormous army, composed of many various races of men, to fight in foreign lands, no dissensions arose either among them or against the prince, whether in his bad or in his good fortune. This arose from nothing else than his inhuman cruelty, which, with his boundless valour, made him revered and terrible in the sight of his soldiers, but without that cruelty, his other virtues were not sufficient to produce this effect. And short-sighted writers admire his deeds from one point of view and from another condemn the principal cause of them. That it is true his other virtues would not have been sufficient for him may be proved by the case of Scipio, that most excellent man, not only of his own times but within the memory of man, against whom, nevertheless, his army rebelled in Spain; this arose from nothing but his too great forbearance, which gave his soldiers more license than is consistent with military discipline. For this he was upbraided in the Senate by Fabius Maximus, and called the corrupter of the Roman soldiery. The Locrians were laid waste by a legate of Scipio, yet they were not avenged by him, nor was the insolence of the legate punished, owing entirely to his easy nature. Insomuch that someone in the Senate, wishing to excuse him, said there were many men who knew much better how not to err than to correct the errors of others. This disposition, if he had been continued in the command, would have destroyed in time the fame and glory of Scipio; but, he being under the control of the Senate, this injurious characteristic not only concealed itself, but contributed to his glory. Returning to the question of being feared or loved, I come to the conclusion that, men loving according to their own will and fearing according to that of the prince, a wise prince should establish himself on that which is in his own control and not in that of others; he must endeavour only to avoid hatred, as is noted.

Chapter XVII

https://web.archive.org/web/20210417004655/https://www.gradesaver.com/the-prince/study-guide/summary-section-6-chapters-xv-xix

"On Cruelty and Clemency: Whether It Is Better To Be Loved or Feared," posits the seemingly simple argument that, though it is ideally better to be merciful than cruel, clemency should be handled in moderation. Again, Machiavelli complicates the notion of good as purely subordinate to power, invoking utilitarian reasoning to argue that an excess of "good" can actually lead to harm. this case, too much clemency can lead to uprisings and civil war. Machiavelli cites the example of Florence, which was afraid to intervene with the required force in Pistoia and was in turn destroyed through civil conflict. If a prince needs to be cruel to keep his subjects united and loyal, so be it. Cruelty can serve the greater good. There are two ways of fighting, Machiavelli asserts in the following chapter, "The Way Princes Should Keep Their Word": with laws, and with force. The first is the human method, and the second belongs in theory to the beasts. That said, there are times when the first method does not suffice, in which case a prince needs to rely on force. Therefore, a prince should study the art of both laws and war, the methods of both man and beasts. When it comes to beasts, two models exist: the lion, which represents brute force and strength, and the fox, which represents wiliness. A prince needs both, for one without the other will lead only to ruin. Machiavelli, as might be expected, proceeds to focus on the fox: "a prudent prince cannot and should not keep his word when to do so would go against his interest. To be crafty and to be able to deceive, the mythical hallmarks of the fox, are key skills for any ruler. You can break promises and treaties as long as you can hide your duplicity; you must therefore be "a great liar and hypocrite. A prince need not possess all the virtues listed in Chapter XV. He need not be giving, merciful, faithful, spirited, humane, chaste, straightforward, gentle, but he needs to seem to possess these virtues. Admittedly, it is good to follow virtues both in appearance and in reality, but a prince must be able to switch to the contrary at a moment's notice if necessary, while maintaining a consistent front

If The Prince is often characterized as a treatise on unscrupulous politics and a manual of ruthless power games, Chapter XV, "On the Reasons Why Men Are Praised or Blamed - Especially Princes," is a particularly crucial chapter. It is here that Machiavelli directly addresses the question that has been bubbling underneath the surface of his book thus far - namely, to what extent does being good matter? Machiavelli's answer: as long as it contributes to holding onto power. The key notion here is that good is a relative concept; surface virtuosity, of the kind often showcased by rulers, is often but a disguise, and the greatest good lies in the end - the all-inclusive goal of maintaining the state and securing the reins of power. In other words, good is good insofar as it is politically expedient. The categorical crumbles in the face of efficiency, for the latter is the only true barometer. The ends justify the means, and utilitarianism is the dominant mode of reasoning. If a prince needs to indulge a vice to save his state, so be it. "For if you look at matters carefully," Machiavelli writes, "you will see that something resembling virtue, if you follow it, may be your ruin, while something resembling vice will lead, if you follow it, to your security and well-being." One might compare this argument to the thrust of Chapter XIII, "On Those Who Have Become Princes By Crime," which measures when and to what extent a prince's cruelty can be justified. Machiavelli is arguing something far more complex than a call to disregard morality. His example of the generous prince begins as a seemingly hard-lined argument and emerges as a humanist consideration of the faults of man. A prince should not be miserly just for the sake of it; miserliness, by resulting in the safeguarding of funds and greater financial security, winds up helping the people in quite direct ways. It is up to the prince to see beyond short-run desires and superficial appearances and to not give away money he cannot afford to spend just to put on a lovable face and to curry favor, but instead to weather the occasional criticism and plan for the future. It is all about the greater good. Machiavelli sublimates the individualistic treatment of the prince as solitary agent into a larger view of society as contingent on long-term planning and sacrifice. The Prince reads here as less a how-to for the aspiring prince than a social manifesto; Machiavelli puts faith in the people's judgment, arguing that they will come around to loving the miserly prince who saves money out of necessity. As in his earlier distinctions between the common people and the nobles, he emerges as more of a populist and democrat than popular conceptions of The Prince tend to allow for. That said, Chapter XVII, "On Cruelty and Clemency," presents a thoroughly pessimistic view of humanity. Men are inherently "rotten," Machiavelli argues, explaining that they are "ungrateful, fickle, liars and deceivers, fearful of danger and greedy for gain." For this reason, it is safer for a prince to be feared than to be loved: "love is link of obligation which men, because they are rotten, will break any time they think doing so serves their advantage." Fear, on the other hand, "involves dread of punishment, from which they can never escape." As always, Machiavelli tempers what seems at first like a thoroughly cynical position, noting that moderation is the key, and that a prince should try to make himself feared in a way that does not make him hated. More specifically, he should only shed blood when he has good reason to, he should not confiscate property, and he should keep his hands off his subjects' women. Certain lines cannot be crossed. As Machiavelli writes a few pages later, a prince "should be ready to enter on evil if he has to," but he must have to. In any case, virtues are often difficult to define; they are only virtuous insofar as they help people. Virtue for its own sake can be harmful, and for a prince to possess and exercise all virtues at all times is a mistake. Appearances are a different matter: the masses are impressed by the superficial appearance of things so long as the prince's ends are achieved. It matters little, therefore, who the prince really is. Machiavelli closes Chapter XVIII with a reference that deserves mention. "A certain prince of our own time," he writes, "whom it's just as well not to name, preaches nothing but peace and mutual trust, yet he is the determined enemy of both." This seems to be a condemnation, but Machiavelli continues: "if on several different occasions he had observed either, he would have lost both his reputation and his throne." The prince in question is Ferdinand of Spain, and the passage is something of a swipe at him. The first line suggests untempered scorn, while the second modifies this position and recasts Ferdinand as an example of how hypocrisy can be useful. These last few words are perhaps the veil Machiavelli uses to hide a more acute criticism of Ferdinand, who secured his power through often bloodthirsty tactics, expelling the Muslims and Jews from Spain, waging war, and persecuting the masses. These repellent maneuvers, Machiavelli is forced to admit, did work. We can sense here the writer having reached a sort of theoretical impasse: how to both condemn and praise? How to reconcile a need for human goodness with the demands of power and the vicissitudes of international relations? Ferdinand provides a particularly difficult case, since Machiavelli, writing of him as a "determined enemy" of peace and trust, seems to disapprove of him, while his own writings provide a framework whereby Ferdinand's actions are thoroughly justifiable. What is perhaps most important is that Machiavelli faces Ferdinand head-on. Contradictions may abound as Machiavelli maps out his philosophy, but he seems to implicitly acknowledge this. The Prince is more than a simplistic argument for cold-heartedness in politics, and these chapters reflect Machiavelli's efforts to grapple with the various problems his more cynical positions engender.

pinkmonkey

all_chapterized_books/5658-chapters/19.txt

finished_summaries/pinkmonkey/Lord Jim/section_18_part_0.txt

Lord Jim.chapter 19

chapter 19

{"name": "Chapter 19", "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20180820051943/http://www.pinkmonkey.com/booknotes/monkeynotes/pmLordJim28.asp", "summary": "Jim continues to jump from place to place, as his secret shame chases him. It seems that everybody knows about the Patna, and as soon as it is mentioned, Jim bolts. Marlow refers to the young man as a \"rolling stone.\" Jim stays in Bangkok for some time, and Schomberg, the keeper of the hotel there, calls him a very nice fellow. Unfortunately, he gets into a brawl. He plays a game of billiards with a Danish lieutenant of the Royal Siamese Navy, who has too much to drink. The Dane makes an ugly comment about Jim's being on the Patna. Jim loses control, knocks the lieutenant out, and throws him into the river. At midnight after the brawl, Jim meets Marlow on board his ship. He says he is sorry that he had knocked the man out, but he had no other option. After this incident, everyone seems to turn against Jim, even Schomberg. Marlow could not bear to leave his friend in such a hostile atmosphere, so he takes Jim away from Bangkok on his ship. As they travel, Jim seems to recoil within himself, rarely speaking. Marlow realizes Jim's frustration and knows that he needs a challenge. One day while Marlow and Jim are standing alone, Marlow inquires if he would like to go to another part of the world. Jim smiles for the first time in many days; but he remarks that it would probably not make much difference. He knows he cannot run away from himself. Marlow realizes Jim needs to prove himself again. Marlow goes to consult Stein, a wealthy and respected merchant whose hobby is entomology and whose specialty is beetles and butterflies. Marlow knows he can depend on Stein, who will help if he can, for he is trustworthy, intelligent, kind, and good-natured. He discusses Jim and his problems with his friend, for Marlow is hoping that Stein will be able to offer Jim a worthy job, one that he can be proud of performing.", "analysis": "Notes Jim can find no peace. No matter where he goes, he hears about the Patna incident and his guilt and shame cause him to flee. Conrad tells of three different incidents that occur in three different settings, far apart, but there were obviously many more. In each one, Jim reveals that his tolerance is declining. At first he only runs away from people who talk about the Patna; then he begins to fight them. When Jim knocks out the Dane and throws him in the river, it is the only time in the novel that Jim is not acting like \"one of us.\" Conrad's skill in dramatizing Jim's story is seen clearly here. The chapter depicts Jim haunted by his past, the memory of his cowardice. Marlow sympathizes with his plight and is determined to help Jim. Stein, the wise man of the novel, is introduced in this chapter. Marlow goes to him, hoping he will give Jim a job that will challenge him and take his mind off his guilt. Stein understands Jim's problem and becomes instrumental in bringing about a change in Jim's life."}

'I have told you these two episodes at length to show his manner of dealing with himself under the new conditions of his life. There were many others of the sort, more than I could count on the fingers of my two hands. They were all equally tinged by a high-minded absurdity of intention which made their futility profound and touching. To fling away your daily bread so as to get your hands free for a grapple with a ghost may be an act of prosaic heroism. Men had done it before (though we who have lived know full well that it is not the haunted soul but the hungry body that makes an outcast), and men who had eaten and meant to eat every day had applauded the creditable folly. He was indeed unfortunate, for all his recklessness could not carry him out from under the shadow. There was always a doubt of his courage. The truth seems to be that it is impossible to lay the ghost of a fact. You can face it or shirk it--and I have come across a man or two who could wink at their familiar shades. Obviously Jim was not of the winking sort; but what I could never make up my mind about was whether his line of conduct amounted to shirking his ghost or to facing him out. 'I strained my mental eyesight only to discover that, as with the complexion of all our actions, the shade of difference was so delicate that it was impossible to say. It might have been flight and it might have been a mode of combat. To the common mind he became known as a rolling stone, because this was the funniest part: he did after a time become perfectly known, and even notorious, within the circle of his wanderings (which had a diameter of, say, three thousand miles), in the same way as an eccentric character is known to a whole countryside. For instance, in Bankok, where he found employment with Yucker Brothers, charterers and teak merchants, it was almost pathetic to see him go about in sunshine hugging his secret, which was known to the very up-country logs on the river. Schomberg, the keeper of the hotel where he boarded, a hirsute Alsatian of manly bearing and an irrepressible retailer of all the scandalous gossip of the place, would, with both elbows on the table, impart an adorned version of the story to any guest who cared to imbibe knowledge along with the more costly liquors. "And, mind you, the nicest fellow you could meet," would be his generous conclusion; "quite superior." It says a lot for the casual crowd that frequented Schomberg's establishment that Jim managed to hang out in Bankok for a whole six months. I remarked that people, perfect strangers, took to him as one takes to a nice child. His manner was reserved, but it was as though his personal appearance, his hair, his eyes, his smile, made friends for him wherever he went. And, of course, he was no fool. I heard Siegmund Yucker (native of Switzerland), a gentle creature ravaged by a cruel dyspepsia, and so frightfully lame that his head swung through a quarter of a circle at every step he took, declare appreciatively that for one so young he was "of great gabasidy," as though it had been a mere question of cubic contents. "Why not send him up country?" I suggested anxiously. (Yucker Brothers had concessions and teak forests in the interior.) "If he has capacity, as you say, he will soon get hold of the work. And physically he is very fit. His health is always excellent." "Ach! It's a great ting in dis goundry to be vree vrom tispep-shia," sighed poor Yucker enviously, casting a stealthy glance at the pit of his ruined stomach. I left him drumming pensively on his desk and muttering, "Es ist ein' Idee. Es ist ein' Idee." Unfortunately, that very evening an unpleasant affair took place in the hotel. 'I don't know that I blame Jim very much, but it was a truly regrettable incident. It belonged to the lamentable species of bar-room scuffles, and the other party to it was a cross-eyed Dane of sorts whose visiting-card recited, under his misbegotten name: first lieutenant in the Royal Siamese Navy. The fellow, of course, was utterly hopeless at billiards, but did not like to be beaten, I suppose. He had had enough to drink to turn nasty after the sixth game, and make some scornful remark at Jim's expense. Most of the people there didn't hear what was said, and those who had heard seemed to have had all precise recollection scared out of them by the appalling nature of the consequences that immediately ensued. It was very lucky for the Dane that he could swim, because the room opened on a verandah and the Menam flowed below very wide and black. A boat-load of Chinamen, bound, as likely as not, on some thieving expedition, fished out the officer of the King of Siam, and Jim turned up at about midnight on board my ship without a hat. "Everybody in the room seemed to know," he said, gasping yet from the contest, as it were. He was rather sorry, on general principles, for what had happened, though in this case there had been, he said, "no option." But what dismayed him was to find the nature of his burden as well known to everybody as though he had gone about all that time carrying it on his shoulders. Naturally after this he couldn't remain in the place. He was universally condemned for the brutal violence, so unbecoming a man in his delicate position; some maintained he had been disgracefully drunk at the time; others criticised his want of tact. Even Schomberg was very much annoyed. "He is a very nice young man," he said argumentatively to me, "but the lieutenant is a first-rate fellow too. He dines every night at my table d'hote, you know. And there's a billiard-cue broken. I can't allow that. First thing this morning I went over with my apologies to the lieutenant, and I think I've made it all right for myself; but only think, captain, if everybody started such games! Why, the man might have been drowned! And here I can't run out into the next street and buy a new cue. I've got to write to Europe for them. No, no! A temper like that won't do!" . . . He was extremely sore on the subject. 'This was the worst incident of all in his--his retreat. Nobody could deplore it more than myself; for if, as somebody said hearing him mentioned, "Oh yes! I know. He has knocked about a good deal out here," yet he had somehow avoided being battered and chipped in the process. This last affair, however, made me seriously uneasy, because if his exquisite sensibilities were to go the length of involving him in pot-house shindies, he would lose his name of an inoffensive, if aggravating, fool, and acquire that of a common loafer. For all my confidence in him I could not help reflecting that in such cases from the name to the thing itself is but a step. I suppose you will understand that by that time I could not think of washing my hands of him. I took him away from Bankok in my ship, and we had a longish passage. It was pitiful to see how he shrank within himself. A seaman, even if a mere passenger, takes an interest in a ship, and looks at the sea-life around him with the critical enjoyment of a painter, for instance, looking at another man's work. In every sense of the expression he is "on deck"; but my Jim, for the most part, skulked down below as though he had been a stowaway. He infected me so that I avoided speaking on professional matters, such as would suggest themselves naturally to two sailors during a passage. For whole days we did not exchange a word; I felt extremely unwilling to give orders to my officers in his presence. Often, when alone with him on deck or in the cabin, we didn't know what to do with our eyes. 'I placed him with De Jongh, as you know, glad enough to dispose of him in any way, yet persuaded that his position was now growing intolerable. He had lost some of that elasticity which had enabled him to rebound back into his uncompromising position after every overthrow. One day, coming ashore, I saw him standing on the quay; the water of the roadstead and the sea in the offing made one smooth ascending plane, and the outermost ships at anchor seemed to ride motionless in the sky. He was waiting for his boat, which was being loaded at our feet with packages of small stores for some vessel ready to leave. After exchanging greetings, we remained silent--side by side. "Jove!" he said suddenly, "this is killing work." 'He smiled at me; I must say he generally could manage a smile. I made no reply. I knew very well he was not alluding to his duties; he had an easy time of it with De Jongh. Nevertheless, as soon as he had spoken I became completely convinced that the work was killing. I did not even look at him. "Would you like," said I, "to leave this part of the world altogether; try California or the West Coast? I'll see what I can do . . ." He interrupted me a little scornfully. "What difference would it make?" . . . I felt at once convinced that he was right. It would make no difference; it was not relief he wanted; I seemed to perceive dimly that what he wanted, what he was, as it were, waiting for, was something not easy to define--something in the nature of an opportunity. I had given him many opportunities, but they had been merely opportunities to earn his bread. Yet what more could any man do? The position struck me as hopeless, and poor Brierly's saying recurred to me, "Let him creep twenty feet underground and stay there." Better that, I thought, than this waiting above ground for the impossible. Yet one could not be sure even of that. There and then, before his boat was three oars' lengths away from the quay, I had made up my mind to go and consult Stein in the evening. 'This Stein was a wealthy and respected merchant. His "house" (because it was a house, Stein & Co., and there was some sort of partner who, as Stein said, "looked after the Moluccas") had a large inter-island business, with a lot of trading posts established in the most out-of-the-way places for collecting the produce. His wealth and his respectability were not exactly the reasons why I was anxious to seek his advice. I desired to confide my difficulty to him because he was one of the most trustworthy men I had ever known. The gentle light of a simple, unwearied, as it were, and intelligent good-nature illumined his long hairless face. It had deep downward folds, and was pale as of a man who had always led a sedentary life--which was indeed very far from being the case. His hair was thin, and brushed back from a massive and lofty forehead. One fancied that at twenty he must have looked very much like what he was now at threescore. It was a student's face; only the eyebrows nearly all white, thick and bushy, together with the resolute searching glance that came from under them, were not in accord with his, I may say, learned appearance. He was tall and loose-jointed; his slight stoop, together with an innocent smile, made him appear benevolently ready to lend you his ear; his long arms with pale big hands had rare deliberate gestures of a pointing out, demonstrating kind. I speak of him at length, because under this exterior, and in conjunction with an upright and indulgent nature, this man possessed an intrepidity of spirit and a physical courage that could have been called reckless had it not been like a natural function of the body--say good digestion, for instance--completely unconscious of itself. It is sometimes said of a man that he carries his life in his hand. Such a saying would have been inadequate if applied to him; during the early part of his existence in the East he had been playing ball with it. All this was in the past, but I knew the story of his life and the origin of his fortune. He was also a naturalist of some distinction, or perhaps I should say a learned collector. Entomology was his special study. His collection of Buprestidae and Longicorns--beetles all--horrible miniature monsters, looking malevolent in death and immobility, and his cabinet of butterflies, beautiful and hovering under the glass of cases on lifeless wings, had spread his fame far over the earth. The name of this merchant, adventurer, sometime adviser of a Malay sultan (to whom he never alluded otherwise than as "my poor Mohammed Bonso"), had, on account of a few bushels of dead insects, become known to learned persons in Europe, who could have had no conception, and certainly would not have cared to know anything, of his life or character. I, who knew, considered him an eminently suitable person to receive my confidences about Jim's difficulties as well as my own.'

Chapter 19

https://web.archive.org/web/20180820051943/http://www.pinkmonkey.com/booknotes/monkeynotes/pmLordJim28.asp

Jim continues to jump from place to place, as his secret shame chases him. It seems that everybody knows about the Patna, and as soon as it is mentioned, Jim bolts. Marlow refers to the young man as a "rolling stone." Jim stays in Bangkok for some time, and Schomberg, the keeper of the hotel there, calls him a very nice fellow. Unfortunately, he gets into a brawl. He plays a game of billiards with a Danish lieutenant of the Royal Siamese Navy, who has too much to drink. The Dane makes an ugly comment about Jim's being on the Patna. Jim loses control, knocks the lieutenant out, and throws him into the river. At midnight after the brawl, Jim meets Marlow on board his ship. He says he is sorry that he had knocked the man out, but he had no other option. After this incident, everyone seems to turn against Jim, even Schomberg. Marlow could not bear to leave his friend in such a hostile atmosphere, so he takes Jim away from Bangkok on his ship. As they travel, Jim seems to recoil within himself, rarely speaking. Marlow realizes Jim's frustration and knows that he needs a challenge. One day while Marlow and Jim are standing alone, Marlow inquires if he would like to go to another part of the world. Jim smiles for the first time in many days; but he remarks that it would probably not make much difference. He knows he cannot run away from himself. Marlow realizes Jim needs to prove himself again. Marlow goes to consult Stein, a wealthy and respected merchant whose hobby is entomology and whose specialty is beetles and butterflies. Marlow knows he can depend on Stein, who will help if he can, for he is trustworthy, intelligent, kind, and good-natured. He discusses Jim and his problems with his friend, for Marlow is hoping that Stein will be able to offer Jim a worthy job, one that he can be proud of performing.

Notes Jim can find no peace. No matter where he goes, he hears about the Patna incident and his guilt and shame cause him to flee. Conrad tells of three different incidents that occur in three different settings, far apart, but there were obviously many more. In each one, Jim reveals that his tolerance is declining. At first he only runs away from people who talk about the Patna; then he begins to fight them. When Jim knocks out the Dane and throws him in the river, it is the only time in the novel that Jim is not acting like "one of us." Conrad's skill in dramatizing Jim's story is seen clearly here. The chapter depicts Jim haunted by his past, the memory of his cowardice. Marlow sympathizes with his plight and is determined to help Jim. Stein, the wise man of the novel, is introduced in this chapter. Marlow goes to him, hoping he will give Jim a job that will challenge him and take his mind off his guilt. Stein understands Jim's problem and becomes instrumental in bringing about a change in Jim's life.

shmoop

all_chapterized_books/44747-chapters/58.txt

finished_summaries/shmoop/The Red and the Black/section_57_part_0.txt

The Red and the Black.part 2.chapter 28

part 2, chapter 28

{"name": "Part 2, Chapter 28", "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20200920104425/https://www.shmoop.com/study-guides/literature/red-and-the-black/summary/part-2-chapter-28", "summary": "At this point, Julien is accompanying Madame Fervaques to the opera in her private box. They discuss things like music and novels together. Julien is pleased to find that Madame has a bit of an obscene vein in her. The next day, Julien is almost caught in a lie. In one of his letters to Fervaque, he forgot to change the names of certain places that Prince Korasoff used in his letters. He manages to lie his way out of it, though. Incidentally, it's the first time Madame has ever acknowledged the fact that she's read his letters. Mathilde responds to this apparent romance by paying more attention to Croisenois, the man who wants to marry her. This kills Julien, but he's not willing to back down until he's done everything Korasoff told him.", "analysis": ""}

CHAPTER LVIII MANON LESCAUT Accordingly once he was thoroughly convinced of the asinine stupidity of the prior, he would usually succeed well enough by calling white black, and black white. _Lichtenberg_. The Russian instructions peremptorily forbade the writer from ever contradicting in conversation the recipient of the letters. No pretext could excuse any deviation from the role of that most ecstatic admiration. The letters were always based on that hypothesis. One evening at the opera, when in madame de Fervaques' box, Julien spoke of the ballet of _Manon Lescaut_ in the most enthusiastic terms. His only reason for talking in that strain was the fact that he thought it insignificant. The marechale said that the ballet was very inferior to the abbe Prevost's novel. "The idea," thought Julien, both surprised and amused, "of so highly virtuous a person praising a novel! Madame de Fervaques used to profess two or three times a week the most absolute contempt for those writers, who, by means of their insipid works, try to corrupt a youth which is, alas! only too inclined to the errors of the senses." "_Manon Lescaut_" continued the marechale, "is said to be one of the best of this immoral and dangerous type of book. The weaknesses and the deserved anguish of a criminal heart are, they say, portrayed with a truth which is not lacking in depth; a fact which does not prevent your Bonaparte from stating at St. Helena that it is simply a novel written for lackeys." The word Bonaparte restored to Julien all the activity of his mind. "They have tried to ruin me with the marechale; they have told her of my enthusiasm for Napoleon. This fact has sufficiently piqued her to make her yield to the temptation to make me feel it." This discovery amused him all the evening, and rendered him amusing. As he took leave of the marechale in the vestibule of the opera, she said to him, "Remember, monsieur, one must not like Bonaparte if you like me; at the best he can only be accepted as a necessity imposed by Providence. Besides, the man did not have a sufficiently supple soul to appreciate masterpieces of art." "When you like me," Julien kept on repeating to himself, "that means nothing or means everything. Here we have mysteries of language which are beyond us poor provincials." And he thought a great deal about madame de Renal, as he copied out an immense letter destined for the marechale. "How is it," she said to him the following day, with an assumed indifference which he thought was clumsily assumed, "that you talk to me about London and Richmond in a letter which you wrote last night, I think, when you came back from the opera?" Julien was very embarrassed. He had copied line by line without thinking about what he was writing, and had apparently forgotten to substitute Paris and Saint Cloud for the words London and Richmond which occurred in the original. He commenced two or three sentences, but found it impossible to finish them. He felt on the point of succumbing to a fit of idiotic laughter. Finally by picking his words he succeeded in formulating this inspiration: "Exalted as I was by the discussion of the most sublime and greatest interests of the human soul, my own soul may have been somewhat absent in my letter to you." "I am making an impression," he said to himself, "so I can spare myself the boredom of the rest of the evening." He left the Hotel de Fervaques at a run. In the evening he had another look at the original of the letter which he had copied out on the previous night, and soon came to the fatal place where the young Russian made mention of London and of Richmond. Julien was very astonished to find this letter almost tender. It had been the contrast between the apparent lightness of his conversation, and the sublime and almost apocalyptic profundity of his letters which had marked him out for favour. The marechale was particularly pleased by the longness of the sentences; this was very far from being that sprightly style which that immoral man Voltaire had brought into fashion. Although our hero made every possible human effort to eliminate from his conversation any symptom of good sense, it still preserved a certain anti-monarchical and blasphemous tinge which did not escape madame de Fervaques. Surrounded as she was by persons who, though eminently moral, had very often not a single idea during a whole evening, this lady was profoundly struck by anything resembling a novelty, but at the same time she thought she owed it to herself to be offended by it. She called this defect: Keeping the imprint of the lightness of the age. But such salons are only worth observing when one has a favour to procure. The reader doubtless shares all the ennui of the colourless life which Julien was leading. This period represents the steppes of our journey. Mademoiselle de la Mole needed to exercise her self-control to avoid thinking of Julien during the whole period filled by the de Fervaques episode. Her soul was a prey to violent battles; sometimes she piqued herself on despising that melancholy young man, but his conversation captivated her in spite of herself. She was particularly astonished by his absolute falseness. He did not say a single word to the marechale which was not a lie, or at any rate, an abominable travesty of his own way of thinking, which Mathilde knew so perfectly in every phase. This Machiavellianism impressed her. "What subtlety," she said to herself. "What a difference between the bombastic coxcombs, or the common rascals like Tanbeau who talk in the same strain." Nevertheless Julien went through awful days. It was only to accomplish the most painful of duties that he put in a daily appearance in the marechale's salon. The strain of playing a part ended by depriving his mind of all its strength. As he crossed each night the immense courtyard of the Hotel de Fervaques, it was only through sheer force in character and logic that he succeeded in keeping a little above the level of despair. "I overcame despair at the seminary," he said, "yet what an awful prospect I had then. I was then either going to make my fortune or come to grief just as I am now. I found myself obliged to pass all my life in intimate association with the most contemptible and disgusting things in the whole world. The following spring, just eleven short months later, I was perhaps the happiest of all young people of my own age." But very often all this fine logic proved unavailing against the awful reality. He saw Mathilde every day at breakfast and at dinner. He knew from the numerous letters which de la Mole dictated to him that she was on the eve of marrying de Croisenois. This charming man already called twice a day at the Hotel de la Mole; the jealous eye of a jilted lover was alive to every one of his movements. When he thought he had noticed that mademoiselle de la Mole was beginning to encourage her intended, Julien could not help looking tenderly at his pistols as he went up to his room. "Ah," he said to himself, "would it not be much wiser to take the marks out of my linen and to go into some solitary forest twenty leagues from Paris to put an end to this atrocious life? I should be unknown in the district, my death would remain a secret for a fortnight, and who would bother about me after a fortnight?" This reasoning was very logical. But on the following day a glimpse of Mathilde's arm between the sleeve of her dress and her glove sufficed to plunge our young philosopher into memories which, though agonising, none the less gave him a hold on life. "Well," he said to himself, "I will follow this Russian plan to the end. How will it all finish?" "So far as the marechale is concerned, after I have copied out these fifty-three letters, I shall not write any others. "As for Mathilde, these six weeks of painful acting will either leave her anger unchanged, or will win me a moment of reconciliation. Great God! I should die of happiness." And he could not finish his train of thought. After a long reverie he succeeded in taking up the thread of his argument. "In that case," he said to himself, "I should win one day of happiness, and after that her cruelties which are based, alas, on my lack of ability to please her will recommence. I should have nothing left to do, I should be ruined and lost for ever. With such a character as hers what guarantee can she give me? Alas! My manners are no doubt lacking in elegance, and my style of speech is heavy and monotonous. Great God, why am I myself?"

Part 2, Chapter 28

https://web.archive.org/web/20200920104425/https://www.shmoop.com/study-guides/literature/red-and-the-black/summary/part-2-chapter-28

At this point, Julien is accompanying Madame Fervaques to the opera in her private box. They discuss things like music and novels together. Julien is pleased to find that Madame has a bit of an obscene vein in her. The next day, Julien is almost caught in a lie. In one of his letters to Fervaque, he forgot to change the names of certain places that Prince Korasoff used in his letters. He manages to lie his way out of it, though. Incidentally, it's the first time Madame has ever acknowledged the fact that she's read his letters. Mathilde responds to this apparent romance by paying more attention to Croisenois, the man who wants to marry her. This kills Julien, but he's not willing to back down until he's done everything Korasoff told him.

shmoop

all_chapterized_books/28054-chapters/57.txt

finished_summaries/shmoop/The Brothers Karamazov/section_56_part_0.txt

The Brothers Karamazov.book 9.chapter 4

book 9, chapter 4

{"name": "Book 9, Chapter 4", "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20201023112808/https://www.shmoop.com/study-guides/literature/brothers-karamazov/summary/book-9-chapter-4", "summary": "Parfenovich and Kirillovich continue their interrogation. Full of good intentions, Dmitri gives a long, rambling, detailed account of the events of the past two days, but the district attorney and the prosecutor aren't too impressed with his candor. They only seem interested in a few questions of fact: how much money he had, how much money he needed, and why he grabbed the brass pestle.", "analysis": ""}

Chapter IV. The Second Ordeal "You don't know how you encourage us, Dmitri Fyodorovitch, by your readiness to answer," said Nikolay Parfenovitch, with an animated air, and obvious satisfaction beaming in his very prominent, short-sighted, light gray eyes, from which he had removed his spectacles a moment before. "And you have made a very just remark about the mutual confidence, without which it is sometimes positively impossible to get on in cases of such importance, if the suspected party really hopes and desires to defend himself and is in a position to do so. We, on our side, will do everything in our power, and you can see for yourself how we are conducting the case. You approve, Ippolit Kirillovitch?" He turned to the prosecutor. "Oh, undoubtedly," replied the prosecutor. His tone was somewhat cold, compared with Nikolay Parfenovitch's impulsiveness. I will note once for all that Nikolay Parfenovitch, who had but lately arrived among us, had from the first felt marked respect for Ippolit Kirillovitch, our prosecutor, and had become almost his bosom friend. He was almost the only person who put implicit faith in Ippolit Kirillovitch's extraordinary talents as a psychologist and orator and in the justice of his grievance. He had heard of him in Petersburg. On the other hand, young Nikolay Parfenovitch was the only person in the whole world whom our "unappreciated" prosecutor genuinely liked. On their way to Mokroe they had time to come to an understanding about the present case. And now as they sat at the table, the sharp-witted junior caught and interpreted every indication on his senior colleague's face--half a word, a glance, or a wink. "Gentlemen, only let me tell my own story and don't interrupt me with trivial questions and I'll tell you everything in a moment," said Mitya excitedly. "Excellent! Thank you. But before we proceed to listen to your communication, will you allow me to inquire as to another little fact of great interest to us? I mean the ten roubles you borrowed yesterday at about five o'clock on the security of your pistols, from your friend, Pyotr Ilyitch Perhotin." "I pledged them, gentlemen. I pledged them for ten roubles. What more? That's all about it. As soon as I got back to town I pledged them." "You got back to town? Then you had been out of town?" "Yes, I went a journey of forty versts into the country. Didn't you know?" The prosecutor and Nikolay Parfenovitch exchanged glances. "Well, how would it be if you began your story with a systematic description of all you did yesterday, from the morning onwards? Allow us, for instance, to inquire why you were absent from the town, and just when you left and when you came back--all those facts." "You should have asked me like that from the beginning," cried Mitya, laughing aloud, "and, if you like, we won't begin from yesterday, but from the morning of the day before; then you'll understand how, why, and where I went. I went the day before yesterday, gentlemen, to a merchant of the town, called Samsonov, to borrow three thousand roubles from him on safe security. It was a pressing matter, gentlemen, it was a sudden necessity." "Allow me to interrupt you," the prosecutor put in politely. "Why were you in such pressing need for just that sum, three thousand?" "Oh, gentlemen, you needn't go into details, how, when and why, and why just so much money, and not so much, and all that rigmarole. Why, it'll run to three volumes, and then you'll want an epilogue!" Mitya said all this with the good-natured but impatient familiarity of a man who is anxious to tell the whole truth and is full of the best intentions. "Gentlemen!"--he corrected himself hurriedly--"don't be vexed with me for my restiveness, I beg you again. Believe me once more, I feel the greatest respect for you and understand the true position of affairs. Don't think I'm drunk. I'm quite sober now. And, besides, being drunk would be no hindrance. It's with me, you know, like the saying: 'When he is sober, he is a fool; when he is drunk, he is a wise man.' Ha ha! But I see, gentlemen, it's not the proper thing to make jokes to you, till we've had our explanation, I mean. And I've my own dignity to keep up, too. I quite understand the difference for the moment. I am, after all, in the position of a criminal, and so, far from being on equal terms with you. And it's your business to watch me. I can't expect you to pat me on the head for what I did to Grigory, for one can't break old men's heads with impunity. I suppose you'll put me away for him for six months, or a year perhaps, in a house of correction. I don't know what the punishment is--but it will be without loss of the rights of my rank, without loss of my rank, won't it? So you see, gentlemen, I understand the distinction between us.... But you must see that you could puzzle God Himself with such questions. 'How did you step? Where did you step? When did you step? And on what did you step?' I shall get mixed up, if you go on like this, and you will put it all down against me. And what will that lead to? To nothing! And even if it's nonsense I'm talking now, let me finish, and you, gentlemen, being men of honor and refinement, will forgive me! I'll finish by asking you, gentlemen, to drop that conventional method of questioning. I mean, beginning from some miserable trifle, how I got up, what I had for breakfast, how I spat, and where I spat, and so distracting the attention of the criminal, suddenly stun him with an overwhelming question, 'Whom did you murder? Whom did you rob?' Ha ha! That's your regulation method, that's where all your cunning comes in. You can put peasants off their guard like that, but not me. I know the tricks. I've been in the service, too. Ha ha ha! You're not angry, gentlemen? You forgive my impertinence?" he cried, looking at them with a good-nature that was almost surprising. "It's only Mitya Karamazov, you know, so you can overlook it. It would be inexcusable in a sensible man; but you can forgive it in Mitya. Ha ha!" Nikolay Parfenovitch listened, and laughed too. Though the prosecutor did not laugh, he kept his eyes fixed keenly on Mitya, as though anxious not to miss the least syllable, the slightest movement, the smallest twitch of any feature of his face. "That's how we have treated you from the beginning," said Nikolay Parfenovitch, still laughing. "We haven't tried to put you out by asking how you got up in the morning and what you had for breakfast. We began, indeed, with questions of the greatest importance." "I understand. I saw it and appreciated it, and I appreciate still more your present kindness to me, an unprecedented kindness, worthy of your noble hearts. We three here are gentlemen, and let everything be on the footing of mutual confidence between educated, well-bred people, who have the common bond of noble birth and honor. In any case, allow me to look upon you as my best friends at this moment of my life, at this moment when my honor is assailed. That's no offense to you, gentlemen, is it?" "On the contrary. You've expressed all that so well, Dmitri Fyodorovitch," Nikolay Parfenovitch answered with dignified approbation. "And enough of those trivial questions, gentlemen, all those tricky questions!" cried Mitya enthusiastically. "Or there's simply no knowing where we shall get to! Is there?" "I will follow your sensible advice entirely," the prosecutor interposed, addressing Mitya. "I don't withdraw my question, however. It is now vitally important for us to know exactly why you needed that sum, I mean precisely three thousand." "Why I needed it?... Oh, for one thing and another.... Well, it was to pay a debt." "A debt to whom?" "That I absolutely refuse to answer, gentlemen. Not because I couldn't, or because I shouldn't dare, or because it would be damaging, for it's all a paltry matter and absolutely trifling, but--I won't, because it's a matter of principle: that's my private life, and I won't allow any intrusion into my private life. That's my principle. Your question has no bearing on the case, and whatever has nothing to do with the case is my private affair. I wanted to pay a debt. I wanted to pay a debt of honor but to whom I won't say." "Allow me to make a note of that," said the prosecutor. "By all means. Write down that I won't say, that I won't. Write that I should think it dishonorable to say. Ech! you can write it; you've nothing else to do with your time." "Allow me to caution you, sir, and to remind you once more, if you are unaware of it," the prosecutor began, with a peculiar and stern impressiveness, "that you have a perfect right not to answer the questions put to you now, and we on our side have no right to extort an answer from you, if you decline to give it for one reason or another. That is entirely a matter for your personal decision. But it is our duty, on the other hand, in such cases as the present, to explain and set before you the degree of injury you will be doing yourself by refusing to give this or that piece of evidence. After which I will beg you to continue." "Gentlemen, I'm not angry ... I ..." Mitya muttered in a rather disconcerted tone. "Well, gentlemen, you see, that Samsonov to whom I went then ..." We will, of course, not reproduce his account of what is known to the reader already. Mitya was impatiently anxious not to omit the slightest detail. At the same time he was in a hurry to get it over. But as he gave his evidence it was written down, and therefore they had continually to pull him up. Mitya disliked this, but submitted; got angry, though still good-humoredly. He did, it is true, exclaim, from time to time, "Gentlemen, that's enough to make an angel out of patience!" Or, "Gentlemen, it's no good your irritating me." But even though he exclaimed he still preserved for a time his genially expansive mood. So he told them how Samsonov had made a fool of him two days before. (He had completely realized by now that he had been fooled.) The sale of his watch for six roubles to obtain money for the journey was something new to the lawyers. They were at once greatly interested, and even, to Mitya's intense indignation, thought it necessary to write the fact down as a secondary confirmation of the circumstance that he had hardly a farthing in his pocket at the time. Little by little Mitya began to grow surly. Then, after describing his journey to see Lyagavy, the night spent in the stifling hut, and so on, he came to his return to the town. Here he began, without being particularly urged, to give a minute account of the agonies of jealousy he endured on Grushenka's account. He was heard with silent attention. They inquired particularly into the circumstance of his having a place of ambush in Marya Kondratyevna's house at the back of Fyodor Pavlovitch's garden to keep watch on Grushenka, and of Smerdyakov's bringing him information. They laid particular stress on this, and noted it down. Of his jealousy he spoke warmly and at length, and though inwardly ashamed at exposing his most intimate feelings to "public ignominy," so to speak, he evidently overcame his shame in order to tell the truth. The frigid severity, with which the investigating lawyer, and still more the prosecutor, stared intently at him as he told his story, disconcerted him at last considerably. "That boy, Nikolay Parfenovitch, to whom I was talking nonsense about women only a few days ago, and that sickly prosecutor are not worth my telling this to," he reflected mournfully. "It's ignominious. 'Be patient, humble, hold thy peace.' " He wound up his reflections with that line. But he pulled himself together to go on again. When he came to telling of his visit to Madame Hohlakov, he regained his spirits and even wished to tell a little anecdote of that lady which had nothing to do with the case. But the investigating lawyer stopped him, and civilly suggested that he should pass on to "more essential matters." At last, when he described his despair and told them how, when he left Madame Hohlakov's, he thought that he'd "get three thousand if he had to murder some one to do it," they stopped him again and noted down that he had "meant to murder some one." Mitya let them write it without protest. At last he reached the point in his story when he learned that Grushenka had deceived him and had returned from Samsonov's as soon as he left her there, though she had said that she would stay there till midnight. "If I didn't kill Fenya then, gentlemen, it was only because I hadn't time," broke from him suddenly at that point in his story. That, too, was carefully written down. Mitya waited gloomily, and was beginning to tell how he ran into his father's garden when the investigating lawyer suddenly stopped him, and opening the big portfolio that lay on the sofa beside him he brought out the brass pestle. "Do you recognize this object?" he asked, showing it to Mitya. "Oh, yes," he laughed gloomily. "Of course I recognize it. Let me have a look at it.... Damn it, never mind!" "You have forgotten to mention it," observed the investigating lawyer. "Hang it all, I shouldn't have concealed it from you. Do you suppose I could have managed without it? It simply escaped my memory." "Be so good as to tell us precisely how you came to arm yourself with it." "Certainly I will be so good, gentlemen." And Mitya described how he took the pestle and ran. "But what object had you in view in arming yourself with such a weapon?" "What object? No object. I just picked it up and ran off." "What for, if you had no object?" Mitya's wrath flared up. He looked intently at "the boy" and smiled gloomily and malignantly. He was feeling more and more ashamed at having told "such people" the story of his jealousy so sincerely and spontaneously. "Bother the pestle!" broke from him suddenly. "But still--" "Oh, to keep off dogs.... Oh, because it was dark.... In case anything turned up." "But have you ever on previous occasions taken a weapon with you when you went out, since you're afraid of the dark?" "Ugh! damn it all, gentlemen! There's positively no talking to you!" cried Mitya, exasperated beyond endurance, and turning to the secretary, crimson with anger, he said quickly, with a note of fury in his voice: "Write down at once ... at once ... 'that I snatched up the pestle to go and kill my father ... Fyodor Pavlovitch ... by hitting him on the head with it!' Well, now are you satisfied, gentlemen? Are your minds relieved?" he said, glaring defiantly at the lawyers. "We quite understand that you made that statement just now through exasperation with us and the questions we put to you, which you consider trivial, though they are, in fact, essential," the prosecutor remarked dryly in reply. "Well, upon my word, gentlemen! Yes, I took the pestle.... What does one pick things up for at such moments? I don't know what for. I snatched it up and ran--that's all. For to me, gentlemen, _passons_, or I declare I won't tell you any more." He sat with his elbows on the table and his head in his hand. He sat sideways to them and gazed at the wall, struggling against a feeling of nausea. He had, in fact, an awful inclination to get up and declare that he wouldn't say another word, "not if you hang me for it." "You see, gentlemen," he said at last, with difficulty controlling himself, "you see. I listen to you and am haunted by a dream.... It's a dream I have sometimes, you know.... I often dream it--it's always the same ... that some one is hunting me, some one I'm awfully afraid of ... that he's hunting me in the dark, in the night ... tracking me, and I hide somewhere from him, behind a door or cupboard, hide in a degrading way, and the worst of it is, he always knows where I am, but he pretends not to know where I am on purpose, to prolong my agony, to enjoy my terror.... That's just what you're doing now. It's just like that!" "Is that the sort of thing you dream about?" inquired the prosecutor. "Yes, it is. Don't you want to write it down?" said Mitya, with a distorted smile. "No; no need to write it down. But still you do have curious dreams." "It's not a question of dreams now, gentlemen--this is realism, this is real life! I'm a wolf and you're the hunters. Well, hunt him down!" "You are wrong to make such comparisons ..." began Nikolay Parfenovitch, with extraordinary softness. "No, I'm not wrong, not at all!" Mitya flared up again, though his outburst of wrath had obviously relieved his heart. He grew more good- humored at every word. "You may not trust a criminal or a man on trial tortured by your questions, but an honorable man, the honorable impulses of the heart (I say that boldly!)--no! That you must believe you have no right indeed ... but-- Be silent, heart, Be patient, humble, hold thy peace. Well, shall I go on?" he broke off gloomily. "If you'll be so kind," answered Nikolay Parfenovitch.

Book 9, Chapter 4

https://web.archive.org/web/20201023112808/https://www.shmoop.com/study-guides/literature/brothers-karamazov/summary/book-9-chapter-4

Parfenovich and Kirillovich continue their interrogation. Full of good intentions, Dmitri gives a long, rambling, detailed account of the events of the past two days, but the district attorney and the prosecutor aren't too impressed with his candor. They only seem interested in a few questions of fact: how much money he had, how much money he needed, and why he grabbed the brass pestle.

shmoop

all_chapterized_books/5658-chapters/17.txt

finished_summaries/shmoop/Lord Jim/section_16_part_0.txt

Lord Jim.chapter 17

chapter 17

{"name": "Chapter 17", "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20210118112654/https://www.shmoop.com/study-guides/literature/lord-jim/summary/chapter-17", "summary": "After asking Jim to stay and chat, Marlow explains how he wants to help Jim. But Jim doesn't think this is a very good idea, so the two of them argue for a while. Marlow finally makes his case and says he wants to serve as a character reference for Jim and help him land a decent job. An overwhelmed Jim can't thank him enough. More awkwardness ensues, with Jim totally embarrassing Marlow with his gratitude, and then Jim takes off, leaving Marlow alone and pensive.", "analysis": ""}

'He came in at last; but I believe it was mostly the rain that did it; it was falling just then with a devastating violence which quieted down gradually while we talked. His manner was very sober and set; his bearing was that of a naturally taciturn man possessed by an idea. My talk was of the material aspect of his position; it had the sole aim of saving him from the degradation, ruin, and despair that out there close so swiftly upon a friendless, homeless man; I pleaded with him to accept my help; I argued reasonably: and every time I looked up at that absorbed smooth face, so grave and youthful, I had a disturbing sense of being no help but rather an obstacle to some mysterious, inexplicable, impalpable striving of his wounded spirit. '"I suppose you intend to eat and drink and to sleep under shelter in the usual way," I remember saying with irritation. "You say you won't touch the money that is due to you." . . . He came as near as his sort can to making a gesture of horror. (There were three weeks and five days' pay owing him as mate of the Patna.) "Well, that's too little to matter anyhow; but what will you do to-morrow? Where will you turn? You must live . . ." "That isn't the thing," was the comment that escaped him under his breath. I ignored it, and went on combating what I assumed to be the scruples of an exaggerated delicacy. "On every conceivable ground," I concluded, "you must let me help you." "You can't," he said very simply and gently, and holding fast to some deep idea which I could detect shimmering like a pool of water in the dark, but which I despaired of ever approaching near enough to fathom. I surveyed his well-proportioned bulk. "At any rate," I said, "I am able to help what I can see of you. I don't pretend to do more." He shook his head sceptically without looking at me. I got very warm. "But I can," I insisted. "I can do even more. I _am_ doing more. I am trusting you . . ." "The money . . ." he began. "Upon my word you deserve being told to go to the devil," I cried, forcing the note of indignation. He was startled, smiled, and I pressed my attack home. "It isn't a question of money at all. You are too superficial," I said (and at the same time I was thinking to myself: Well, here goes! And perhaps he is, after all). "Look at the letter I want you to take. I am writing to a man of whom I've never asked a favour, and I am writing about you in terms that one only ventures to use when speaking of an intimate friend. I make myself unreservedly responsible for you. That's what I am doing. And really if you will only reflect a little what that means . . ." 'He lifted his head. The rain had passed away; only the water-pipe went on shedding tears with an absurd drip, drip outside the window. It was very quiet in the room, whose shadows huddled together in corners, away from the still flame of the candle flaring upright in the shape of a dagger; his face after a while seemed suffused by a reflection of a soft light as if the dawn had broken already. '"Jove!" he gasped out. "It is noble of you!" 'Had he suddenly put out his tongue at me in derision, I could not have felt more humiliated. I thought to myself--Serve me right for a sneaking humbug. . . . His eyes shone straight into my face, but I perceived it was not a mocking brightness. All at once he sprang into jerky agitation, like one of those flat wooden figures that are worked by a string. His arms went up, then came down with a slap. He became another man altogether. "And I had never seen," he shouted; then suddenly bit his lip and frowned. "What a bally ass I've been," he said very slow in an awed tone. . . . "You are a brick!" he cried next in a muffled voice. He snatched my hand as though he had just then seen it for the first time, and dropped it at once. "Why! this is what I--you--I . . ." he stammered, and then with a return of his old stolid, I may say mulish, manner he began heavily, "I would be a brute now if I . . ." and then his voice seemed to break. "That's all right," I said. I was almost alarmed by this display of feeling, through which pierced a strange elation. I had pulled the string accidentally, as it were; I did not fully understand the working of the toy. "I must go now," he said. "Jove! You _have_ helped me. Can't sit still. The very thing . . ." He looked at me with puzzled admiration. "The very thing . . ." 'Of course it was the thing. It was ten to one that I had saved him from starvation--of that peculiar sort that is almost invariably associated with drink. This was all. I had not a single illusion on that score, but looking at him, I allowed myself to wonder at the nature of the one he had, within the last three minutes, so evidently taken into his bosom. I had forced into his hand the means to carry on decently the serious business of life, to get food, drink, and shelter of the customary kind while his wounded spirit, like a bird with a broken wing, might hop and flutter into some hole to die quietly of inanition there. This is what I had thrust upon him: a definitely small thing; and--behold!--by the manner of its reception it loomed in the dim light of the candle like a big, indistinct, perhaps a dangerous shadow. "You don't mind me not saying anything appropriate," he burst out. "There isn't anything one could say. Last night already you had done me no end of good. Listening to me--you know. I give you my word I've thought more than once the top of my head would fly off. . ." He darted--positively darted--here and there, rammed his hands into his pockets, jerked them out again, flung his cap on his head. I had no idea it was in him to be so airily brisk. I thought of a dry leaf imprisoned in an eddy of wind, while a mysterious apprehension, a load of indefinite doubt, weighed me down in my chair. He stood stock-still, as if struck motionless by a discovery. "You have given me confidence," he declared, soberly. "Oh! for God's sake, my dear fellow--don't!" I entreated, as though he had hurt me. "All right. I'll shut up now and henceforth. Can't prevent me thinking though. . . . Never mind! . . . I'll show yet . . ." He went to the door in a hurry, paused with his head down, and came back, stepping deliberately. "I always thought that if a fellow could begin with a clean slate . . . And now you . . . in a measure . . . yes . . . clean slate." I waved my hand, and he marched out without looking back; the sound of his footfalls died out gradually behind the closed door--the unhesitating tread of a man walking in broad daylight. 'But as to me, left alone with the solitary candle, I remained strangely unenlightened. I was no longer young enough to behold at every turn the magnificence that besets our insignificant footsteps in good and in evil. I smiled to think that, after all, it was yet he, of us two, who had the light. And I felt sad. A clean slate, did he say? As if the initial word of each our destiny were not graven in imperishable characters upon the face of a rock.'

Chapter 17

https://web.archive.org/web/20210118112654/https://www.shmoop.com/study-guides/literature/lord-jim/summary/chapter-17

After asking Jim to stay and chat, Marlow explains how he wants to help Jim. But Jim doesn't think this is a very good idea, so the two of them argue for a while. Marlow finally makes his case and says he wants to serve as a character reference for Jim and help him land a decent job. An overwhelmed Jim can't thank him enough. More awkwardness ensues, with Jim totally embarrassing Marlow with his gratitude, and then Jim takes off, leaving Marlow alone and pensive.

sparknotes

all_chapterized_books/28054-chapters/34.txt

finished_summaries/sparknotes/The Brothers Karamazov/section_5_part_4.txt

The Brothers Karamazov.book 5.chapter 3

book 5, chapter 3

{"name": "book 5, Chapter 3", "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20210305110438/https://www.sparknotes.com/lit/brothersk/section6/", "summary": "The Brothers Get Acquainted When Alyosha arrives at the restaurant, he finds Ivan sitting at a table alone. Ivan asks Alyosha to join him and says he has begun to admire him and would like to get to know him better. Alyosha is worried about what will happen to Fyodor Pavlovich and Dmitri if Ivan leaves for Moscow, but Ivan firmly declares that what happens to the others is not his responsibility. He says, in fact, that it was Fyodor Pavlovich's repulsiveness that caused him to come to this restaurant in the first place, simply to escape", "analysis": ""}

Chapter III. The Brothers Make Friends Ivan was not, however, in a separate room, but only in a place shut off by a screen, so that it was unseen by other people in the room. It was the first room from the entrance with a buffet along the wall. Waiters were continually darting to and fro in it. The only customer in the room was an old retired military man drinking tea in a corner. But there was the usual bustle going on in the other rooms of the tavern; there were shouts for the waiters, the sound of popping corks, the click of billiard balls, the drone of the organ. Alyosha knew that Ivan did not usually visit this tavern and disliked taverns in general. So he must have come here, he reflected, simply to meet Dmitri by arrangement. Yet Dmitri was not there. "Shall I order you fish, soup or anything. You don't live on tea alone, I suppose," cried Ivan, apparently delighted at having got hold of Alyosha. He had finished dinner and was drinking tea. "Let me have soup, and tea afterwards, I am hungry," said Alyosha gayly. "And cherry jam? They have it here. You remember how you used to love cherry jam when you were little?" "You remember that? Let me have jam too, I like it still." Ivan rang for the waiter and ordered soup, jam and tea. "I remember everything, Alyosha, I remember you till you were eleven, I was nearly fifteen. There's such a difference between fifteen and eleven that brothers are never companions at those ages. I don't know whether I was fond of you even. When I went away to Moscow for the first few years I never thought of you at all. Then, when you came to Moscow yourself, we only met once somewhere, I believe. And now I've been here more than three months, and so far we have scarcely said a word to each other. To-morrow I am going away, and I was just thinking as I sat here how I could see you to say good-by and just then you passed." "Were you very anxious to see me, then?" "Very. I want to get to know you once for all, and I want you to know me. And then to say good-by. I believe it's always best to get to know people just before leaving them. I've noticed how you've been looking at me these three months. There has been a continual look of expectation in your eyes, and I can't endure that. That's how it is I've kept away from you. But in the end I have learned to respect you. The little man stands firm, I thought. Though I am laughing, I am serious. You do stand firm, don't you? I like people who are firm like that whatever it is they stand by, even if they are such little fellows as you. Your expectant eyes ceased to annoy me, I grew fond of them in the end, those expectant eyes. You seem to love me for some reason, Alyosha?" "I do love you, Ivan. Dmitri says of you--Ivan is a tomb! I say of you, Ivan is a riddle. You are a riddle to me even now. But I understand something in you, and I did not understand it till this morning." "What's that?" laughed Ivan. "You won't be angry?" Alyosha laughed too. "Well?" "That you are just as young as other young men of three and twenty, that you are just a young and fresh and nice boy, green in fact! Now, have I insulted you dreadfully?" "On the contrary, I am struck by a coincidence," cried Ivan, warmly and good-humoredly. "Would you believe it that ever since that scene with her, I have thought of nothing else but my youthful greenness, and just as though you guessed that, you begin about it. Do you know I've been sitting here thinking to myself: that if I didn't believe in life, if I lost faith in the woman I love, lost faith in the order of things, were convinced in fact that everything is a disorderly, damnable, and perhaps devil-ridden chaos, if I were struck by every horror of man's disillusionment--still I should want to live and, having once tasted of the cup, I would not turn away from it till I had drained it! At thirty, though, I shall be sure to leave the cup, even if I've not emptied it, and turn away--where I don't know. But till I am thirty, I know that my youth will triumph over everything--every disillusionment, every disgust with life. I've asked myself many times whether there is in the world any despair that would overcome this frantic and perhaps unseemly thirst for life in me, and I've come to the conclusion that there isn't, that is till I am thirty, and then I shall lose it of myself, I fancy. Some driveling consumptive moralists--and poets especially--often call that thirst for life base. It's a feature of the Karamazovs, it's true, that thirst for life regardless of everything; you have it no doubt too, but why is it base? The centripetal force on our planet is still fearfully strong, Alyosha. I have a longing for life, and I go on living in spite of logic. Though I may not believe in the order of the universe, yet I love the sticky little leaves as they open in spring. I love the blue sky, I love some people, whom one loves you know sometimes without knowing why. I love some great deeds done by men, though I've long ceased perhaps to have faith in them, yet from old habit one's heart prizes them. Here they have brought the soup for you, eat it, it will do you good. It's first-rate soup, they know how to make it here. I want to travel in Europe, Alyosha, I shall set off from here. And yet I know that I am only going to a graveyard, but it's a most precious graveyard, that's what it is! Precious are the dead that lie there, every stone over them speaks of such burning life in the past, of such passionate faith in their work, their truth, their struggle and their science, that I know I shall fall on the ground and kiss those stones and weep over them; though I'm convinced in my heart that it's long been nothing but a graveyard. And I shall not weep from despair, but simply because I shall be happy in my tears, I shall steep my soul in my emotion. I love the sticky leaves in spring, the blue sky--that's all it is. It's not a matter of intellect or logic, it's loving with one's inside, with one's stomach. One loves the first strength of one's youth. Do you understand anything of my tirade, Alyosha?" Ivan laughed suddenly. "I understand too well, Ivan. One longs to love with one's inside, with one's stomach. You said that so well and I am awfully glad that you have such a longing for life," cried Alyosha. "I think every one should love life above everything in the world." "Love life more than the meaning of it?" "Certainly, love it, regardless of logic as you say, it must be regardless of logic, and it's only then one will understand the meaning of it. I have thought so a long time. Half your work is done, Ivan, you love life, now you've only to try to do the second half and you are saved." "You are trying to save me, but perhaps I am not lost! And what does your second half mean?" "Why, one has to raise up your dead, who perhaps have not died after all. Come, let me have tea. I am so glad of our talk, Ivan." "I see you are feeling inspired. I am awfully fond of such _professions de foi_ from such--novices. You are a steadfast person, Alexey. Is it true that you mean to leave the monastery?" "Yes, my elder sends me out into the world." "We shall see each other then in the world. We shall meet before I am thirty, when I shall begin to turn aside from the cup. Father doesn't want to turn aside from his cup till he is seventy, he dreams of hanging on to eighty in fact, so he says. He means it only too seriously, though he is a buffoon. He stands on a firm rock, too, he stands on his sensuality--though after we are thirty, indeed, there may be nothing else to stand on.... But to hang on to seventy is nasty, better only to thirty; one might retain 'a shadow of nobility' by deceiving oneself. Have you seen Dmitri to-day?" "No, but I saw Smerdyakov," and Alyosha rapidly, though minutely, described his meeting with Smerdyakov. Ivan began listening anxiously and questioned him. "But he begged me not to tell Dmitri that he had told me about him," added Alyosha. Ivan frowned and pondered. "Are you frowning on Smerdyakov's account?" asked Alyosha. "Yes, on his account. Damn him, I certainly did want to see Dmitri, but now there's no need," said Ivan reluctantly. "But are you really going so soon, brother?" "Yes." "What of Dmitri and father? how will it end?" asked Alyosha anxiously. "You are always harping upon it! What have I to do with it? Am I my brother Dmitri's keeper?" Ivan snapped irritably, but then he suddenly smiled bitterly. "Cain's answer about his murdered brother, wasn't it? Perhaps that's what you're thinking at this moment? Well, damn it all, I can't stay here to be their keeper, can I? I've finished what I had to do, and I am going. Do you imagine I am jealous of Dmitri, that I've been trying to steal his beautiful Katerina Ivanovna for the last three months? Nonsense, I had business of my own. I finished it. I am going. I finished it just now, you were witness." "At Katerina Ivanovna's?" "Yes, and I've released myself once for all. And after all, what have I to do with Dmitri? Dmitri doesn't come in. I had my own business to settle with Katerina Ivanovna. You know, on the contrary, that Dmitri behaved as though there was an understanding between us. I didn't ask him to do it, but he solemnly handed her over to me and gave us his blessing. It's all too funny. Ah, Alyosha, if you only knew how light my heart is now! Would you believe, it, I sat here eating my dinner and was nearly ordering champagne to celebrate my first hour of freedom. Tfoo! It's been going on nearly six months, and all at once I've thrown it off. I could never have guessed even yesterday, how easy it would be to put an end to it if I wanted." "You are speaking of your love, Ivan?" "Of my love, if you like. I fell in love with the young lady, I worried myself over her and she worried me. I sat watching over her ... and all at once it's collapsed! I spoke this morning with inspiration, but I went away and roared with laughter. Would you believe it? Yes, it's the literal truth." "You seem very merry about it now," observed Alyosha, looking into his face, which had suddenly grown brighter. "But how could I tell that I didn't care for her a bit! Ha ha! It appears after all I didn't. And yet how she attracted me! How attractive she was just now when I made my speech! And do you know she attracts me awfully even now, yet how easy it is to leave her. Do you think I am boasting?" "No, only perhaps it wasn't love." "Alyosha," laughed Ivan, "don't make reflections about love, it's unseemly for you. How you rushed into the discussion this morning! I've forgotten to kiss you for it.... But how she tormented me! It certainly was sitting by a 'laceration.' Ah, she knew how I loved her! She loved me and not Dmitri," Ivan insisted gayly. "Her feeling for Dmitri was simply a self- laceration. All I told her just now was perfectly true, but the worst of it is, it may take her fifteen or twenty years to find out that she doesn't care for Dmitri, and loves me whom she torments, and perhaps she may never find it out at all, in spite of her lesson to-day. Well, it's better so; I can simply go away for good. By the way, how is she now? What happened after I departed?" Alyosha told him she had been hysterical, and that she was now, he heard, unconscious and delirious. "Isn't Madame Hohlakov laying it on?" "I think not." "I must find out. Nobody dies of hysterics, though. They don't matter. God gave woman hysterics as a relief. I won't go to her at all. Why push myself forward again?" "But you told her that she had never cared for you." "I did that on purpose. Alyosha, shall I call for some champagne? Let us drink to my freedom. Ah, if only you knew how glad I am!" "No, brother, we had better not drink," said Alyosha suddenly. "Besides I feel somehow depressed." "Yes, you've been depressed a long time, I've noticed it." "Have you settled to go to-morrow morning, then?" "Morning? I didn't say I should go in the morning.... But perhaps it may be the morning. Would you believe it, I dined here to-day only to avoid dining with the old man, I loathe him so. I should have left long ago, so far as he is concerned. But why are you so worried about my going away? We've plenty of time before I go, an eternity!" "If you are going away to-morrow, what do you mean by an eternity?" "But what does it matter to us?" laughed Ivan. "We've time enough for our talk, for what brought us here. Why do you look so surprised? Answer: why have we met here? To talk of my love for Katerina Ivanovna, of the old man and Dmitri? of foreign travel? of the fatal position of Russia? Of the Emperor Napoleon? Is that it?" "No." "Then you know what for. It's different for other people; but we in our green youth have to settle the eternal questions first of all. That's what we care about. Young Russia is talking about nothing but the eternal questions now. Just when the old folks are all taken up with practical questions. Why have you been looking at me in expectation for the last three months? To ask me, 'What do you believe, or don't you believe at all?' That's what your eyes have been meaning for these three months, haven't they?" "Perhaps so," smiled Alyosha. "You are not laughing at me, now, Ivan?" "Me laughing! I don't want to wound my little brother who has been watching me with such expectation for three months. Alyosha, look straight at me! Of course I am just such a little boy as you are, only not a novice. And what have Russian boys been doing up till now, some of them, I mean? In this stinking tavern, for instance, here, they meet and sit down in a corner. They've never met in their lives before and, when they go out of the tavern, they won't meet again for forty years. And what do they talk about in that momentary halt in the tavern? Of the eternal questions, of the existence of God and immortality. And those who do not believe in God talk of socialism or anarchism, of the transformation of all humanity on a new pattern, so that it all comes to the same, they're the same questions turned inside out. And masses, masses of the most original Russian boys do nothing but talk of the eternal questions! Isn't it so?" "Yes, for real Russians the questions of God's existence and of immortality, or, as you say, the same questions turned inside out, come first and foremost, of course, and so they should," said Alyosha, still watching his brother with the same gentle and inquiring smile. "Well, Alyosha, it's sometimes very unwise to be a Russian at all, but anything stupider than the way Russian boys spend their time one can hardly imagine. But there's one Russian boy called Alyosha I am awfully fond of." "How nicely you put that in!" Alyosha laughed suddenly. "Well, tell me where to begin, give your orders. The existence of God, eh?" "Begin where you like. You declared yesterday at father's that there was no God." Alyosha looked searchingly at his brother. "I said that yesterday at dinner on purpose to tease you and I saw your eyes glow. But now I've no objection to discussing with you, and I say so very seriously. I want to be friends with you, Alyosha, for I have no friends and want to try it. Well, only fancy, perhaps I too accept God," laughed Ivan; "that's a surprise for you, isn't it?" "Yes, of course, if you are not joking now." "Joking? I was told at the elder's yesterday that I was joking. You know, dear boy, there was an old sinner in the eighteenth century who declared that, if there were no God, he would have to be invented. _S'il n'existait pas Dieu, il faudrait l'inventer._ And man has actually invented God. And what's strange, what would be marvelous, is not that God should really exist; the marvel is that such an idea, the idea of the necessity of God, could enter the head of such a savage, vicious beast as man. So holy it is, so touching, so wise and so great a credit it does to man. As for me, I've long resolved not to think whether man created God or God man. And I won't go through all the axioms laid down by Russian boys on that subject, all derived from European hypotheses; for what's a hypothesis there, is an axiom with the Russian boy, and not only with the boys but with their teachers too, for our Russian professors are often just the same boys themselves. And so I omit all the hypotheses. For what are we aiming at now? I am trying to explain as quickly as possible my essential nature, that is what manner of man I am, what I believe in, and for what I hope, that's it, isn't it? And therefore I tell you that I accept God simply. But you must note this: if God exists and if He really did create the world, then, as we all know, He created it according to the geometry of Euclid and the human mind with the conception of only three dimensions in space. Yet there have been and still are geometricians and philosophers, and even some of the most distinguished, who doubt whether the whole universe, or to speak more widely the whole of being, was only created in Euclid's geometry; they even dare to dream that two parallel lines, which according to Euclid can never meet on earth, may meet somewhere in infinity. I have come to the conclusion that, since I can't understand even that, I can't expect to understand about God. I acknowledge humbly that I have no faculty for settling such questions, I have a Euclidian earthly mind, and how could I solve problems that are not of this world? And I advise you never to think about it either, my dear Alyosha, especially about God, whether He exists or not. All such questions are utterly inappropriate for a mind created with an idea of only three dimensions. And so I accept God and am glad to, and what's more, I accept His wisdom, His purpose--which are utterly beyond our ken; I believe in the underlying order and the meaning of life; I believe in the eternal harmony in which they say we shall one day be blended. I believe in the Word to Which the universe is striving, and Which Itself was 'with God,' and Which Itself is God and so on, and so on, to infinity. There are all sorts of phrases for it. I seem to be on the right path, don't I? Yet would you believe it, in the final result I don't accept this world of God's, and, although I know it exists, I don't accept it at all. It's not that I don't accept God, you must understand, it's the world created by Him I don't and cannot accept. Let me make it plain. I believe like a child that suffering will be healed and made up for, that all the humiliating absurdity of human contradictions will vanish like a pitiful mirage, like the despicable fabrication of the impotent and infinitely small Euclidian mind of man, that in the world's finale, at the moment of eternal harmony, something so precious will come to pass that it will suffice for all hearts, for the comforting of all resentments, for the atonement of all the crimes of humanity, of all the blood they've shed; that it will make it not only possible to forgive but to justify all that has happened with men--but though all that may come to pass, I don't accept it. I won't accept it. Even if parallel lines do meet and I see it myself, I shall see it and say that they've met, but still I won't accept it. That's what's at the root of me, Alyosha; that's my creed. I am in earnest in what I say. I began our talk as stupidly as I could on purpose, but I've led up to my confession, for that's all you want. You didn't want to hear about God, but only to know what the brother you love lives by. And so I've told you." Ivan concluded his long tirade with marked and unexpected feeling. "And why did you begin 'as stupidly as you could'?" asked Alyosha, looking dreamily at him. "To begin with, for the sake of being Russian. Russian conversations on such subjects are always carried on inconceivably stupidly. And secondly, the stupider one is, the closer one is to reality. The stupider one is, the clearer one is. Stupidity is brief and artless, while intelligence wriggles and hides itself. Intelligence is a knave, but stupidity is honest and straightforward. I've led the conversation to my despair, and the more stupidly I have presented it, the better for me." "You will explain why you don't accept the world?" said Alyosha. "To be sure I will, it's not a secret, that's what I've been leading up to. Dear little brother, I don't want to corrupt you or to turn you from your stronghold, perhaps I want to be healed by you." Ivan smiled suddenly quite like a little gentle child. Alyosha had never seen such a smile on his face before.

book 5, Chapter 3

https://web.archive.org/web/20210305110438/https://www.sparknotes.com/lit/brothersk/section6/

The Brothers Get Acquainted When Alyosha arrives at the restaurant, he finds Ivan sitting at a table alone. Ivan asks Alyosha to join him and says he has begun to admire him and would like to get to know him better. Alyosha is worried about what will happen to Fyodor Pavlovich and Dmitri if Ivan leaves for Moscow, but Ivan firmly declares that what happens to the others is not his responsibility. He says, in fact, that it was Fyodor Pavlovich's repulsiveness that caused him to come to this restaurant in the first place, simply to escape

cliffnotes

all_chapterized_books/174-chapters/08.txt

finished_summaries/cliffnotes/The Picture of Dorian Gray/section_8_part_0.txt

The Picture of Dorian Gray.chapter 8

chapter 8

{"name": "Chapter 8", "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20201219150422/https://www.cliffsnotes.com/literature/p/the-picture-of-dorian-gray/summary-and-analysis/chapter-8", "summary": "That afternoon, Dorian receives a letter from Lord Henry, but he sets it aside without opening it. Later, Dorian wonders if his portrait has really changed like he thought. Surely not, he thinks of the portrait, hidden behind a screen. Finally, when he builds up his courage and looks at the portrait, he sees that the portrait has changed, just as he remembered. He speculates on the cause, fearing a \"terrible reason.\" The altered portrait forces Dorian to acknowledge his cruelty to Sibyl Vane. It is a \"symbol of the degradation of sin\" and will serve as his guide, his conscience. He composes a long letter to Sibyl in which he accuses himself of madness and begs her forgiveness. As he finishes writing the letter, Dorian feels absolved of his cruelty to Sibyl. Lord Henry knocks on the library door and insists on speaking to Dorian. Lord Henry seems unusually consoling but advises Dorian not to dwell on the situation concerning Sibyl, which he explains is \"dreadful\" but not Dorian's fault. He asks Dorian questions about the previous night: Did Dorian meet Sibyl backstage? Was there a scene? He is pleased when Dorian says that he is not sorry for what happened. Dorian, however, continues. He is not sorry because the matter has taught him a lesson. He tells Lord Henry of his plans to make amends and marry Sibyl. Lord Henry, quite agitated, interrupts and asks if Dorian received his letter. Dorian admits that the letter did arrive but that he has not opened it. Lord Henry then tells Dorian the contents of his letter: Sibyl Vane is dead. Dorian is in shock but asks to hear the whole story. Lord Henry reports that the death was clearly not an accident. About half-past midnight, Sibyl and her mother were leaving the theatre. Sibyl excused herself, saying she had left something upstairs. When she did not return, the people at the theatre checked and found her on the floor of her dressing room, dead from ingesting poison. Lord Henry is concerned with keeping Dorian out of the scandal. He asks Dorian to spend the evening with him at the opera so that the unpleasantness of the suicide does not get on Dorian's nerves. Lord Henry need not be concerned for Dorian's nerves. Dorian admits that he murdered Sibyl, \"murdered her as surely as if I had cut her little throat,\" but he continues to say, in a detached manner, that the whole affair seems too \"wonderful for tears.\" Instead of feeling remorse over Sibyl's death, Dorian muses that his first love letter was written to a dead girl. Within only a few seconds, he concludes that Sibyl's suicide was very selfish of her; it leaves him without the guidance that marriage to her might have provided. Lord Henry offers several glib comments on marriage and specifically on what a disaster this marriage would have been. Dorian wonders why he \"cannot feel this tragedy\" as much as he thinks he should and wonders if he is heartless. The death of Sibyl seems like \"a wonderful ending to a wonderful play\" to Dorian. Lord Henry, \"who found an exquisite pleasure in playing on the lad's unconscious egotism,\" is pleased to extend the simile. He assures Dorian that he is not heartless; the experience has been like a brilliant play, and Dorian should regard the whole matter as if he were a spectator at the theater. Lord Henry approves that he is living in a century when \"such wonders\" as Sibyl's death could happen. When Dorian interrupts that he was \"terribly cruel\" to Sibyl, Lord Henry assures him that women \"appreciate cruelty, downright cruelty, more than anything else.\" Dorian confesses that he has felt everything that Lord Henry has said but was afraid to admit it, even to himself. Assured by his mentor that his \"extraordinary good looks\" will present him with a rich life, Dorian thanks the older man and calls him his \"best friend.\" After Lord Henry leaves, Dorian checks the portrait, which has not changed since earlier in the day. Apparently the portrait registers events as they happen. Dorian wishes that he could actually observe it changing. For a moment, he feels remorse toward Sibyl, but he brushes the feeling away. Vowing to go on, seeking \"eternal youth, infinite passion, pleasures subtle and secret, wild joys and wilder sins,\" he briefly considers praying that the spell of the portrait be broken. However, he rationalizes that the spell is not his to control. Besides, who would not want eternal youth? He decides to enjoy the situation: \"Not one blossom of his loveliness would ever fade.\" He again covers the painting with the screen. Within an hour, he has joined Lord Henry at the opera.", "analysis": "In Chapter 8, Dorian struggles briefly with his conscience. Under Lord Henry's influence, it is no contest: By the end of the chapter, Dorian has dedicated himself entirely to the pursuit of pleasure and sin. He throws away the last scraps of his conscience and becomes a completely selfish being. By the time he goes to the opera with Lord Henry, he doesn't even feel protective about the portrait, which up to this point was the one thing that he still cared about. Lord Henry's sole concern is to protect Dorian's reputation and to urge him to get on with his life. He cares not a whit for the young Sybil and instead speaks superficially about fashion, women, and the convenience of Sibyl's death. He views the whole affair as a splendid artistic experience. His reaction is in line with the cynicism that the reader has observed in his character all along; Lord Henry's ability to make Sibyl's death a trivial matter in Dorian's mind demonstrates that his cynicism and his power to influence Dorian have reached new heights. The flippant, carefree attitudes that Dorian and Lord Henry display in this chapter caused many people to accuse Oscar Wilde of writing an immoral book when The Picture of Dorian Gray was first published. However, the reader needs to distinguish between an author and his characters. Certainly Lord Henry and Dorian often behave like scoundrels, but continuing the Faust theme, Lord Henry is demonic and Dorian blindly does his bidding. He knows exactly how to appeal to Dorian's weaknesses, of which there are plenty. Still, these two are both despicable fellows. The reader might admire or envy parts of their lives, but at this point it is very difficult to like them. Glossary Sevres an exquisite porcelain made in Sevres, France. Louis-Quinze Louis the Fifteenth , king of France 1715-74; a fashion style named after him. sanguine healthy looking; optimistic. absolution formal remission of sin after confession; in the Roman Catholic church, it is a part of the sacrament of penance. prussic acid hydrocyanic acid; a colorless, extremely poisonous solution of hydrogen cyanide . Patti Adelina Patti , world-renowned Italian coloratura soprano. dowdy shabby; lacking style or neatness. nil a contraction of the Latin nihil, \"nothing.\" asphodel a Mediterranean plant that in Greek mythology is linked with death. conjugal having to do with marriage. felicity blissful happiness. Desdemona a leading character in William Shakespeare's Othello. Ophelia a leading character in William Shakespeare's Hamlet. Jacobean relating to drama or literature during the reign of James I of England . Webster John Webster , English dramatist and tragedian whom many rate second only to Shakespeare in the early seventeenth century. Ford John Ford , major English dramatist. Cyril Tourneur , British dramatist and tragedian."}

It was long past noon when he awoke. His valet had crept several times on tiptoe into the room to see if he was stirring, and had wondered what made his young master sleep so late. Finally his bell sounded, and Victor came in softly with a cup of tea, and a pile of letters, on a small tray of old Sevres china, and drew back the olive-satin curtains, with their shimmering blue lining, that hung in front of the three tall windows. "Monsieur has well slept this morning," he said, smiling. "What o'clock is it, Victor?" asked Dorian Gray drowsily. "One hour and a quarter, Monsieur." How late it was! He sat up, and having sipped some tea, turned over his letters. One of them was from Lord Henry, and had been brought by hand that morning. He hesitated for a moment, and then put it aside. The others he opened listlessly. They contained the usual collection of cards, invitations to dinner, tickets for private views, programmes of charity concerts, and the like that are showered on fashionable young men every morning during the season. There was a rather heavy bill for a chased silver Louis-Quinze toilet-set that he had not yet had the courage to send on to his guardians, who were extremely old-fashioned people and did not realize that we live in an age when unnecessary things are our only necessities; and there were several very courteously worded communications from Jermyn Street money-lenders offering to advance any sum of money at a moment's notice and at the most reasonable rates of interest. After about ten minutes he got up, and throwing on an elaborate dressing-gown of silk-embroidered cashmere wool, passed into the onyx-paved bathroom. The cool water refreshed him after his long sleep. He seemed to have forgotten all that he had gone through. A dim sense of having taken part in some strange tragedy came to him once or twice, but there was the unreality of a dream about it. As soon as he was dressed, he went into the library and sat down to a light French breakfast that had been laid out for him on a small round table close to the open window. It was an exquisite day. The warm air seemed laden with spices. A bee flew in and buzzed round the blue-dragon bowl that, filled with sulphur-yellow roses, stood before him. He felt perfectly happy. Suddenly his eye fell on the screen that he had placed in front of the portrait, and he started. "Too cold for Monsieur?" asked his valet, putting an omelette on the table. "I shut the window?" Dorian shook his head. "I am not cold," he murmured. Was it all true? Had the portrait really changed? Or had it been simply his own imagination that had made him see a look of evil where there had been a look of joy? Surely a painted canvas could not alter? The thing was absurd. It would serve as a tale to tell Basil some day. It would make him smile. And, yet, how vivid was his recollection of the whole thing! First in the dim twilight, and then in the bright dawn, he had seen the touch of cruelty round the warped lips. He almost dreaded his valet leaving the room. He knew that when he was alone he would have to examine the portrait. He was afraid of certainty. When the coffee and cigarettes had been brought and the man turned to go, he felt a wild desire to tell him to remain. As the door was closing behind him, he called him back. The man stood waiting for his orders. Dorian looked at him for a moment. "I am not at home to any one, Victor," he said with a sigh. The man bowed and retired. Then he rose from the table, lit a cigarette, and flung himself down on a luxuriously cushioned couch that stood facing the screen. The screen was an old one, of gilt Spanish leather, stamped and wrought with a rather florid Louis-Quatorze pattern. He scanned it curiously, wondering if ever before it had concealed the secret of a man's life. Should he move it aside, after all? Why not let it stay there? What was the use of knowing? If the thing was true, it was terrible. If it was not true, why trouble about it? But what if, by some fate or deadlier chance, eyes other than his spied behind and saw the horrible change? What should he do if Basil Hallward came and asked to look at his own picture? Basil would be sure to do that. No; the thing had to be examined, and at once. Anything would be better than this dreadful state of doubt. He got up and locked both doors. At least he would be alone when he looked upon the mask of his shame. Then he drew the screen aside and saw himself face to face. It was perfectly true. The portrait had altered. As he often remembered afterwards, and always with no small wonder, he found himself at first gazing at the portrait with a feeling of almost scientific interest. That such a change should have taken place was incredible to him. And yet it was a fact. Was there some subtle affinity between the chemical atoms that shaped themselves into form and colour on the canvas and the soul that was within him? Could it be that what that soul thought, they realized?--that what it dreamed, they made true? Or was there some other, more terrible reason? He shuddered, and felt afraid, and, going back to the couch, lay there, gazing at the picture in sickened horror. One thing, however, he felt that it had done for him. It had made him conscious how unjust, how cruel, he had been to Sibyl Vane. It was not too late to make reparation for that. She could still be his wife. His unreal and selfish love would yield to some higher influence, would be transformed into some nobler passion, and the portrait that Basil Hallward had painted of him would be a guide to him through life, would be to him what holiness is to some, and conscience to others, and the fear of God to us all. There were opiates for remorse, drugs that could lull the moral sense to sleep. But here was a visible symbol of the degradation of sin. Here was an ever-present sign of the ruin men brought upon their souls. Three o'clock struck, and four, and the half-hour rang its double chime, but Dorian Gray did not stir. He was trying to gather up the scarlet threads of life and to weave them into a pattern; to find his way through the sanguine labyrinth of passion through which he was wandering. He did not know what to do, or what to think. Finally, he went over to the table and wrote a passionate letter to the girl he had loved, imploring her forgiveness and accusing himself of madness. He covered page after page with wild words of sorrow and wilder words of pain. There is a luxury in self-reproach. When we blame ourselves, we feel that no one else has a right to blame us. It is the confession, not the priest, that gives us absolution. When Dorian had finished the letter, he felt that he had been forgiven. Suddenly there came a knock to the door, and he heard Lord Henry's voice outside. "My dear boy, I must see you. Let me in at once. I can't bear your shutting yourself up like this." He made no answer at first, but remained quite still. The knocking still continued and grew louder. Yes, it was better to let Lord Henry in, and to explain to him the new life he was going to lead, to quarrel with him if it became necessary to quarrel, to part if parting was inevitable. He jumped up, drew the screen hastily across the picture, and unlocked the door. "I am so sorry for it all, Dorian," said Lord Henry as he entered. "But you must not think too much about it." "Do you mean about Sibyl Vane?" asked the lad. "Yes, of course," answered Lord Henry, sinking into a chair and slowly pulling off his yellow gloves. "It is dreadful, from one point of view, but it was not your fault. Tell me, did you go behind and see her, after the play was over?" "Yes." "I felt sure you had. Did you make a scene with her?" "I was brutal, Harry--perfectly brutal. But it is all right now. I am not sorry for anything that has happened. It has taught me to know myself better." "Ah, Dorian, I am so glad you take it in that way! I was afraid I would find you plunged in remorse and tearing that nice curly hair of yours." "I have got through all that," said Dorian, shaking his head and smiling. "I am perfectly happy now. I know what conscience is, to begin with. It is not what you told me it was. It is the divinest thing in us. Don't sneer at it, Harry, any more--at least not before me. I want to be good. I can't bear the idea of my soul being hideous." "A very charming artistic basis for ethics, Dorian! I congratulate you on it. But how are you going to begin?" "By marrying Sibyl Vane." "Marrying Sibyl Vane!" cried Lord Henry, standing up and looking at him in perplexed amazement. "But, my dear Dorian--" "Yes, Harry, I know what you are going to say. Something dreadful about marriage. Don't say it. Don't ever say things of that kind to me again. Two days ago I asked Sibyl to marry me. I am not going to break my word to her. She is to be my wife." "Your wife! Dorian! ... Didn't you get my letter? I wrote to you this morning, and sent the note down by my own man." "Your letter? Oh, yes, I remember. I have not read it yet, Harry. I was afraid there might be something in it that I wouldn't like. You cut life to pieces with your epigrams." "You know nothing then?" "What do you mean?" Lord Henry walked across the room, and sitting down by Dorian Gray, took both his hands in his own and held them tightly. "Dorian," he said, "my letter--don't be frightened--was to tell you that Sibyl Vane is dead." A cry of pain broke from the lad's lips, and he leaped to his feet, tearing his hands away from Lord Henry's grasp. "Dead! Sibyl dead! It is not true! It is a horrible lie! How dare you say it?" "It is quite true, Dorian," said Lord Henry, gravely. "It is in all the morning papers. I wrote down to you to ask you not to see any one till I came. There will have to be an inquest, of course, and you must not be mixed up in it. Things like that make a man fashionable in Paris. But in London people are so prejudiced. Here, one should never make one's _debut_ with a scandal. One should reserve that to give an interest to one's old age. I suppose they don't know your name at the theatre? If they don't, it is all right. Did any one see you going round to her room? That is an important point." Dorian did not answer for a few moments. He was dazed with horror. Finally he stammered, in a stifled voice, "Harry, did you say an inquest? What did you mean by that? Did Sibyl--? Oh, Harry, I can't bear it! But be quick. Tell me everything at once." "I have no doubt it was not an accident, Dorian, though it must be put in that way to the public. It seems that as she was leaving the theatre with her mother, about half-past twelve or so, she said she had forgotten something upstairs. They waited some time for her, but she did not come down again. They ultimately found her lying dead on the floor of her dressing-room. She had swallowed something by mistake, some dreadful thing they use at theatres. I don't know what it was, but it had either prussic acid or white lead in it. I should fancy it was prussic acid, as she seems to have died instantaneously." "Harry, Harry, it is terrible!" cried the lad. "Yes; it is very tragic, of course, but you must not get yourself mixed up in it. I see by _The Standard_ that she was seventeen. I should have thought she was almost younger than that. She looked such a child, and seemed to know so little about acting. Dorian, you mustn't let this thing get on your nerves. You must come and dine with me, and afterwards we will look in at the opera. It is a Patti night, and everybody will be there. You can come to my sister's box. She has got some smart women with her." "So I have murdered Sibyl Vane," said Dorian Gray, half to himself, "murdered her as surely as if I had cut her little throat with a knife. Yet the roses are not less lovely for all that. The birds sing just as happily in my garden. And to-night I am to dine with you, and then go on to the opera, and sup somewhere, I suppose, afterwards. How extraordinarily dramatic life is! If I had read all this in a book, Harry, I think I would have wept over it. Somehow, now that it has happened actually, and to me, it seems far too wonderful for tears. Here is the first passionate love-letter I have ever written in my life. Strange, that my first passionate love-letter should have been addressed to a dead girl. Can they feel, I wonder, those white silent people we call the dead? Sibyl! Can she feel, or know, or listen? Oh, Harry, how I loved her once! It seems years ago to me now. She was everything to me. Then came that dreadful night--was it really only last night?--when she played so badly, and my heart almost broke. She explained it all to me. It was terribly pathetic. But I was not moved a bit. I thought her shallow. Suddenly something happened that made me afraid. I can't tell you what it was, but it was terrible. I said I would go back to her. I felt I had done wrong. And now she is dead. My God! My God! Harry, what shall I do? You don't know the danger I am in, and there is nothing to keep me straight. She would have done that for me. She had no right to kill herself. It was selfish of her." "My dear Dorian," answered Lord Henry, taking a cigarette from his case and producing a gold-latten matchbox, "the only way a woman can ever reform a man is by boring him so completely that he loses all possible interest in life. If you had married this girl, you would have been wretched. Of course, you would have treated her kindly. One can always be kind to people about whom one cares nothing. But she would have soon found out that you were absolutely indifferent to her. And when a woman finds that out about her husband, she either becomes dreadfully dowdy, or wears very smart bonnets that some other woman's husband has to pay for. I say nothing about the social mistake, which would have been abject--which, of course, I would not have allowed--but I assure you that in any case the whole thing would have been an absolute failure." "I suppose it would," muttered the lad, walking up and down the room and looking horribly pale. "But I thought it was my duty. It is not my fault that this terrible tragedy has prevented my doing what was right. I remember your saying once that there is a fatality about good resolutions--that they are always made too late. Mine certainly were." "Good resolutions are useless attempts to interfere with scientific laws. Their origin is pure vanity. Their result is absolutely _nil_. They give us, now and then, some of those luxurious sterile emotions that have a certain charm for the weak. That is all that can be said for them. They are simply cheques that men draw on a bank where they have no account." "Harry," cried Dorian Gray, coming over and sitting down beside him, "why is it that I cannot feel this tragedy as much as I want to? I don't think I am heartless. Do you?" "You have done too many foolish things during the last fortnight to be entitled to give yourself that name, Dorian," answered Lord Henry with his sweet melancholy smile. The lad frowned. "I don't like that explanation, Harry," he rejoined, "but I am glad you don't think I am heartless. I am nothing of the kind. I know I am not. And yet I must admit that this thing that has happened does not affect me as it should. It seems to me to be simply like a wonderful ending to a wonderful play. It has all the terrible beauty of a Greek tragedy, a tragedy in which I took a great part, but by which I have not been wounded." "It is an interesting question," said Lord Henry, who found an exquisite pleasure in playing on the lad's unconscious egotism, "an extremely interesting question. I fancy that the true explanation is this: It often happens that the real tragedies of life occur in such an inartistic manner that they hurt us by their crude violence, their absolute incoherence, their absurd want of meaning, their entire lack of style. They affect us just as vulgarity affects us. They give us an impression of sheer brute force, and we revolt against that. Sometimes, however, a tragedy that possesses artistic elements of beauty crosses our lives. If these elements of beauty are real, the whole thing simply appeals to our sense of dramatic effect. Suddenly we find that we are no longer the actors, but the spectators of the play. Or rather we are both. We watch ourselves, and the mere wonder of the spectacle enthralls us. In the present case, what is it that has really happened? Some one has killed herself for love of you. I wish that I had ever had such an experience. It would have made me in love with love for the rest of my life. The people who have adored me--there have not been very many, but there have been some--have always insisted on living on, long after I had ceased to care for them, or they to care for me. They have become stout and tedious, and when I meet them, they go in at once for reminiscences. That awful memory of woman! What a fearful thing it is! And what an utter intellectual stagnation it reveals! One should absorb the colour of life, but one should never remember its details. Details are always vulgar." "I must sow poppies in my garden," sighed Dorian. "There is no necessity," rejoined his companion. "Life has always poppies in her hands. Of course, now and then things linger. I once wore nothing but violets all through one season, as a form of artistic mourning for a romance that would not die. Ultimately, however, it did die. I forget what killed it. I think it was her proposing to sacrifice the whole world for me. That is always a dreadful moment. It fills one with the terror of eternity. Well--would you believe it?--a week ago, at Lady Hampshire's, I found myself seated at dinner next the lady in question, and she insisted on going over the whole thing again, and digging up the past, and raking up the future. I had buried my romance in a bed of asphodel. She dragged it out again and assured me that I had spoiled her life. I am bound to state that she ate an enormous dinner, so I did not feel any anxiety. But what a lack of taste she showed! The one charm of the past is that it is the past. But women never know when the curtain has fallen. They always want a sixth act, and as soon as the interest of the play is entirely over, they propose to continue it. If they were allowed their own way, every comedy would have a tragic ending, and every tragedy would culminate in a farce. They are charmingly artificial, but they have no sense of art. You are more fortunate than I am. I assure you, Dorian, that not one of the women I have known would have done for me what Sibyl Vane did for you. Ordinary women always console themselves. Some of them do it by going in for sentimental colours. Never trust a woman who wears mauve, whatever her age may be, or a woman over thirty-five who is fond of pink ribbons. It always means that they have a history. Others find a great consolation in suddenly discovering the good qualities of their husbands. They flaunt their conjugal felicity in one's face, as if it were the most fascinating of sins. Religion consoles some. Its mysteries have all the charm of a flirtation, a woman once told me, and I can quite understand it. Besides, nothing makes one so vain as being told that one is a sinner. Conscience makes egotists of us all. Yes; there is really no end to the consolations that women find in modern life. Indeed, I have not mentioned the most important one." "What is that, Harry?" said the lad listlessly. "Oh, the obvious consolation. Taking some one else's admirer when one loses one's own. In good society that always whitewashes a woman. But really, Dorian, how different Sibyl Vane must have been from all the women one meets! There is something to me quite beautiful about her death. I am glad I am living in a century when such wonders happen. They make one believe in the reality of the things we all play with, such as romance, passion, and love." "I was terribly cruel to her. You forget that." "I am afraid that women appreciate cruelty, downright cruelty, more than anything else. They have wonderfully primitive instincts. We have emancipated them, but they remain slaves looking for their masters, all the same. They love being dominated. I am sure you were splendid. I have never seen you really and absolutely angry, but I can fancy how delightful you looked. And, after all, you said something to me the day before yesterday that seemed to me at the time to be merely fanciful, but that I see now was absolutely true, and it holds the key to everything." "What was that, Harry?" "You said to me that Sibyl Vane represented to you all the heroines of romance--that she was Desdemona one night, and Ophelia the other; that if she died as Juliet, she came to life as Imogen." "She will never come to life again now," muttered the lad, burying his face in his hands. "No, she will never come to life. She has played her last part. But you must think of that lonely death in the tawdry dressing-room simply as a strange lurid fragment from some Jacobean tragedy, as a wonderful scene from Webster, or Ford, or Cyril Tourneur. The girl never really lived, and so she has never really died. To you at least she was always a dream, a phantom that flitted through Shakespeare's plays and left them lovelier for its presence, a reed through which Shakespeare's music sounded richer and more full of joy. The moment she touched actual life, she marred it, and it marred her, and so she passed away. Mourn for Ophelia, if you like. Put ashes on your head because Cordelia was strangled. Cry out against Heaven because the daughter of Brabantio died. But don't waste your tears over Sibyl Vane. She was less real than they are." There was a silence. The evening darkened in the room. Noiselessly, and with silver feet, the shadows crept in from the garden. The colours faded wearily out of things. After some time Dorian Gray looked up. "You have explained me to myself, Harry," he murmured with something of a sigh of relief. "I felt all that you have said, but somehow I was afraid of it, and I could not express it to myself. How well you know me! But we will not talk again of what has happened. It has been a marvellous experience. That is all. I wonder if life has still in store for me anything as marvellous." "Life has everything in store for you, Dorian. There is nothing that you, with your extraordinary good looks, will not be able to do." "But suppose, Harry, I became haggard, and old, and wrinkled? What then?" "Ah, then," said Lord Henry, rising to go, "then, my dear Dorian, you would have to fight for your victories. As it is, they are brought to you. No, you must keep your good looks. We live in an age that reads too much to be wise, and that thinks too much to be beautiful. We cannot spare you. And now you had better dress and drive down to the club. We are rather late, as it is." "I think I shall join you at the opera, Harry. I feel too tired to eat anything. What is the number of your sister's box?" "Twenty-seven, I believe. It is on the grand tier. You will see her name on the door. But I am sorry you won't come and dine." "I don't feel up to it," said Dorian listlessly. "But I am awfully obliged to you for all that you have said to me. You are certainly my best friend. No one has ever understood me as you have." "We are only at the beginning of our friendship, Dorian," answered Lord Henry, shaking him by the hand. "Good-bye. I shall see you before nine-thirty, I hope. Remember, Patti is singing." As he closed the door behind him, Dorian Gray touched the bell, and in a few minutes Victor appeared with the lamps and drew the blinds down. He waited impatiently for him to go. The man seemed to take an interminable time over everything. As soon as he had left, he rushed to the screen and drew it back. No; there was no further change in the picture. It had received the news of Sibyl Vane's death before he had known of it himself. It was conscious of the events of life as they occurred. The vicious cruelty that marred the fine lines of the mouth had, no doubt, appeared at the very moment that the girl had drunk the poison, whatever it was. Or was it indifferent to results? Did it merely take cognizance of what passed within the soul? He wondered, and hoped that some day he would see the change taking place before his very eyes, shuddering as he hoped it. Poor Sibyl! What a romance it had all been! She had often mimicked death on the stage. Then Death himself had touched her and taken her with him. How had she played that dreadful last scene? Had she cursed him, as she died? No; she had died for love of him, and love would always be a sacrament to him now. She had atoned for everything by the sacrifice she had made of her life. He would not think any more of what she had made him go through, on that horrible night at the theatre. When he thought of her, it would be as a wonderful tragic figure sent on to the world's stage to show the supreme reality of love. A wonderful tragic figure? Tears came to his eyes as he remembered her childlike look, and winsome fanciful ways, and shy tremulous grace. He brushed them away hastily and looked again at the picture. He felt that the time had really come for making his choice. Or had his choice already been made? Yes, life had decided that for him--life, and his own infinite curiosity about life. Eternal youth, infinite passion, pleasures subtle and secret, wild joys and wilder sins--he was to have all these things. The portrait was to bear the burden of his shame: that was all. A feeling of pain crept over him as he thought of the desecration that was in store for the fair face on the canvas. Once, in boyish mockery of Narcissus, he had kissed, or feigned to kiss, those painted lips that now smiled so cruelly at him. Morning after morning he had sat before the portrait wondering at its beauty, almost enamoured of it, as it seemed to him at times. Was it to alter now with every mood to which he yielded? Was it to become a monstrous and loathsome thing, to be hidden away in a locked room, to be shut out from the sunlight that had so often touched to brighter gold the waving wonder of its hair? The pity of it! the pity of it! For a moment, he thought of praying that the horrible sympathy that existed between him and the picture might cease. It had changed in answer to a prayer; perhaps in answer to a prayer it might remain unchanged. And yet, who, that knew anything about life, would surrender the chance of remaining always young, however fantastic that chance might be, or with what fateful consequences it might be fraught? Besides, was it really under his control? Had it indeed been prayer that had produced the substitution? Might there not be some curious scientific reason for it all? If thought could exercise its influence upon a living organism, might not thought exercise an influence upon dead and inorganic things? Nay, without thought or conscious desire, might not things external to ourselves vibrate in unison with our moods and passions, atom calling to atom in secret love or strange affinity? But the reason was of no importance. He would never again tempt by a prayer any terrible power. If the picture was to alter, it was to alter. That was all. Why inquire too closely into it? For there would be a real pleasure in watching it. He would be able to follow his mind into its secret places. This portrait would be to him the most magical of mirrors. As it had revealed to him his own body, so it would reveal to him his own soul. And when winter came upon it, he would still be standing where spring trembles on the verge of summer. When the blood crept from its face, and left behind a pallid mask of chalk with leaden eyes, he would keep the glamour of boyhood. Not one blossom of his loveliness would ever fade. Not one pulse of his life would ever weaken. Like the gods of the Greeks, he would be strong, and fleet, and joyous. What did it matter what happened to the coloured image on the canvas? He would be safe. That was everything. He drew the screen back into its former place in front of the picture, smiling as he did so, and passed into his bedroom, where his valet was already waiting for him. An hour later he was at the opera, and Lord Henry was leaning over his chair.

Chapter 8

https://web.archive.org/web/20201219150422/https://www.cliffsnotes.com/literature/p/the-picture-of-dorian-gray/summary-and-analysis/chapter-8

That afternoon, Dorian receives a letter from Lord Henry, but he sets it aside without opening it. Later, Dorian wonders if his portrait has really changed like he thought. Surely not, he thinks of the portrait, hidden behind a screen. Finally, when he builds up his courage and looks at the portrait, he sees that the portrait has changed, just as he remembered. He speculates on the cause, fearing a "terrible reason." The altered portrait forces Dorian to acknowledge his cruelty to Sibyl Vane. It is a "symbol of the degradation of sin" and will serve as his guide, his conscience. He composes a long letter to Sibyl in which he accuses himself of madness and begs her forgiveness. As he finishes writing the letter, Dorian feels absolved of his cruelty to Sibyl. Lord Henry knocks on the library door and insists on speaking to Dorian. Lord Henry seems unusually consoling but advises Dorian not to dwell on the situation concerning Sibyl, which he explains is "dreadful" but not Dorian's fault. He asks Dorian questions about the previous night: Did Dorian meet Sibyl backstage? Was there a scene? He is pleased when Dorian says that he is not sorry for what happened. Dorian, however, continues. He is not sorry because the matter has taught him a lesson. He tells Lord Henry of his plans to make amends and marry Sibyl. Lord Henry, quite agitated, interrupts and asks if Dorian received his letter. Dorian admits that the letter did arrive but that he has not opened it. Lord Henry then tells Dorian the contents of his letter: Sibyl Vane is dead. Dorian is in shock but asks to hear the whole story. Lord Henry reports that the death was clearly not an accident. About half-past midnight, Sibyl and her mother were leaving the theatre. Sibyl excused herself, saying she had left something upstairs. When she did not return, the people at the theatre checked and found her on the floor of her dressing room, dead from ingesting poison. Lord Henry is concerned with keeping Dorian out of the scandal. He asks Dorian to spend the evening with him at the opera so that the unpleasantness of the suicide does not get on Dorian's nerves. Lord Henry need not be concerned for Dorian's nerves. Dorian admits that he murdered Sibyl, "murdered her as surely as if I had cut her little throat," but he continues to say, in a detached manner, that the whole affair seems too "wonderful for tears." Instead of feeling remorse over Sibyl's death, Dorian muses that his first love letter was written to a dead girl. Within only a few seconds, he concludes that Sibyl's suicide was very selfish of her; it leaves him without the guidance that marriage to her might have provided. Lord Henry offers several glib comments on marriage and specifically on what a disaster this marriage would have been. Dorian wonders why he "cannot feel this tragedy" as much as he thinks he should and wonders if he is heartless. The death of Sibyl seems like "a wonderful ending to a wonderful play" to Dorian. Lord Henry, "who found an exquisite pleasure in playing on the lad's unconscious egotism," is pleased to extend the simile. He assures Dorian that he is not heartless; the experience has been like a brilliant play, and Dorian should regard the whole matter as if he were a spectator at the theater. Lord Henry approves that he is living in a century when "such wonders" as Sibyl's death could happen. When Dorian interrupts that he was "terribly cruel" to Sibyl, Lord Henry assures him that women "appreciate cruelty, downright cruelty, more than anything else." Dorian confesses that he has felt everything that Lord Henry has said but was afraid to admit it, even to himself. Assured by his mentor that his "extraordinary good looks" will present him with a rich life, Dorian thanks the older man and calls him his "best friend." After Lord Henry leaves, Dorian checks the portrait, which has not changed since earlier in the day. Apparently the portrait registers events as they happen. Dorian wishes that he could actually observe it changing. For a moment, he feels remorse toward Sibyl, but he brushes the feeling away. Vowing to go on, seeking "eternal youth, infinite passion, pleasures subtle and secret, wild joys and wilder sins," he briefly considers praying that the spell of the portrait be broken. However, he rationalizes that the spell is not his to control. Besides, who would not want eternal youth? He decides to enjoy the situation: "Not one blossom of his loveliness would ever fade." He again covers the painting with the screen. Within an hour, he has joined Lord Henry at the opera.

In Chapter 8, Dorian struggles briefly with his conscience. Under Lord Henry's influence, it is no contest: By the end of the chapter, Dorian has dedicated himself entirely to the pursuit of pleasure and sin. He throws away the last scraps of his conscience and becomes a completely selfish being. By the time he goes to the opera with Lord Henry, he doesn't even feel protective about the portrait, which up to this point was the one thing that he still cared about. Lord Henry's sole concern is to protect Dorian's reputation and to urge him to get on with his life. He cares not a whit for the young Sybil and instead speaks superficially about fashion, women, and the convenience of Sibyl's death. He views the whole affair as a splendid artistic experience. His reaction is in line with the cynicism that the reader has observed in his character all along; Lord Henry's ability to make Sibyl's death a trivial matter in Dorian's mind demonstrates that his cynicism and his power to influence Dorian have reached new heights. The flippant, carefree attitudes that Dorian and Lord Henry display in this chapter caused many people to accuse Oscar Wilde of writing an immoral book when The Picture of Dorian Gray was first published. However, the reader needs to distinguish between an author and his characters. Certainly Lord Henry and Dorian often behave like scoundrels, but continuing the Faust theme, Lord Henry is demonic and Dorian blindly does his bidding. He knows exactly how to appeal to Dorian's weaknesses, of which there are plenty. Still, these two are both despicable fellows. The reader might admire or envy parts of their lives, but at this point it is very difficult to like them. Glossary Sevres an exquisite porcelain made in Sevres, France. Louis-Quinze Louis the Fifteenth , king of France 1715-74; a fashion style named after him. sanguine healthy looking; optimistic. absolution formal remission of sin after confession; in the Roman Catholic church, it is a part of the sacrament of penance. prussic acid hydrocyanic acid; a colorless, extremely poisonous solution of hydrogen cyanide . Patti Adelina Patti , world-renowned Italian coloratura soprano. dowdy shabby; lacking style or neatness. nil a contraction of the Latin nihil, "nothing." asphodel a Mediterranean plant that in Greek mythology is linked with death. conjugal having to do with marriage. felicity blissful happiness. Desdemona a leading character in William Shakespeare's Othello. Ophelia a leading character in William Shakespeare's Hamlet. Jacobean relating to drama or literature during the reign of James I of England . Webster John Webster , English dramatist and tragedian whom many rate second only to Shakespeare in the early seventeenth century. Ford John Ford , major English dramatist. Cyril Tourneur , British dramatist and tragedian.

gradesaver

all_chapterized_books/110-chapters/14.txt

finished_summaries/gradesaver/Tess of the D'Urbervilles/section_1_part_3.txt

Tess of the D'Urbervilles.chapter 14

chapter 14

{"name": "Chapter 14", "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20210410060617/https://www.gradesaver.com/tess-of-the-durbervilles/study-guide/summary-phase-2-chapters-12-15", "summary": "On a hot August afternoon, the sun beats down on Marlott while men and women work in the corn fields. Among the women is Tess, whom the other women watch carefully. At intervals she rests, for she has been somewhat changed. After a long seclusion she had decided to undertake outdoor work during the busiest season of the year. When she finishes her labor, during lunch her sister brings Tess's child to her so that she may breastfeed it. A nearby woman observes that Tess is fond of her child, although she might pretend to hate it. Tess had come to bear herself with dignity and to resolve not to wallow in her own self-pity. However, as her sorrows over bearing an illegitimate child fade away, a fresh sorrow arises. The baby takes ill. When Tess returns home after work, she finds that the baby had taken ill. Tess realizes that the baby has not been baptized. Tess begs her father to send for the parson, but he refuses out of pride. Tess goes to bed, but the infant's breathing grows more difficult and Tess prays for pity. Tess finally decides to baptize the infant herself: she gives it the name Sorrow. As she baptizes Sorrow, Tess appears to her siblings as a large, towering, divine personage. When Tess awakes the next morning, she finds that Sorrow has died. Tess wonders whether if it were doctrinally sufficient to secure a Christian burial for the child. She asks the new parson, and he agrees that Sorrow had been properly baptized, but he refuses to give a Christian burial out of community reasons. She tells him not to speak to her as saint to sinner, but as person to person. Finally he agrees that the burial will be the same.", "analysis": "Hardy once again shifts the narrative forward to bypass momentous events in Tess's life; skipping nearly a year in Tess's life, the story picks up after Tess has given birth to the illegitimate child borne of her one encounter with Alec d'Urberville. This child is the living representation of her sin: during the first part of the chapter it exists only as a symbol and not as an actual person, receiving a name only before its death. Even the name that Tess gives her infant child, Sorrow, represents the aftermath of her sin. Nevertheless, if Sorrow represents Tess's guilt over her weakness with Alec d'Urberville, Tess's reaction to her child is significant. At first Tess claims to detest the child, yet grows accustomed to it as a part of her, accepting this sin as inherent in her with a profound sense of self-loathing. However, once the child is near death Tess accepts it fully by insisting on its baptism. By confronting her sin and naming it, Tess essentially allows Sorrow to die peacefully. The baptism of Sorrow is a pivotal event for Tess in which she moves from a simplistic child to, as her siblings see her, a \"towering, divine personage. By baptizing her child, Tess also rejects the social structure around her that perceives the mother as an outcast, performing the ceremony that marks the acceptance of her child into society without the public declaration of the church. The baptism of Sorrow is thus a baptism for Tess as well, marking a new sense of self and self-worth that she has lacked. This can further be seen in the confrontation with the parson that follows: the once demure Tess demands that Sorrow be given a Christian burial, despite the objection of the parson"}

It was a hazy sunrise in August. The denser nocturnal vapours, attacked by the warm beams, were dividing and shrinking into isolated fleeces within hollows and coverts, where they waited till they should be dried away to nothing. The sun, on account of the mist, had a curious sentient, personal look, demanding the masculine pronoun for its adequate expression. His present aspect, coupled with the lack of all human forms in the scene, explained the old-time heliolatries in a moment. One could feel that a saner religion had never prevailed under the sky. The luminary was a golden-haired, beaming, mild-eyed, God-like creature, gazing down in the vigour and intentness of youth upon an earth that was brimming with interest for him. His light, a little later, broke though chinks of cottage shutters, throwing stripes like red-hot pokers upon cupboards, chests of drawers, and other furniture within; and awakening harvesters who were not already astir. But of all ruddy things that morning the brightest were two broad arms of painted wood, which rose from the margin of yellow cornfield hard by Marlott village. They, with two others below, formed the revolving Maltese cross of the reaping-machine, which had been brought to the field on the previous evening to be ready for operations this day. The paint with which they were smeared, intensified in hue by the sunlight, imparted to them a look of having been dipped in liquid fire. The field had already been "opened"; that is to say, a lane a few feet wide had been hand-cut through the wheat along the whole circumference of the field for the first passage of the horses and machine. Two groups, one of men and lads, the other of women, had come down the lane just at the hour when the shadows of the eastern hedge-top struck the west hedge midway, so that the heads of the groups were enjoying sunrise while their feet were still in the dawn. They disappeared from the lane between the two stone posts which flanked the nearest field-gate. Presently there arose from within a ticking like the love-making of the grasshopper. The machine had begun, and a moving concatenation of three horses and the aforesaid long rickety machine was visible over the gate, a driver sitting upon one of the hauling horses, and an attendant on the seat of the implement. Along one side of the field the whole wain went, the arms of the mechanical reaper revolving slowly, till it passed down the hill quite out of sight. In a minute it came up on the other side of the field at the same equable pace; the glistening brass star in the forehead of the fore horse first catching the eye as it rose into view over the stubble, then the bright arms, and then the whole machine. The narrow lane of stubble encompassing the field grew wider with each circuit, and the standing corn was reduced to a smaller area as the morning wore on. Rabbits, hares, snakes, rats, mice, retreated inwards as into a fastness, unaware of the ephemeral nature of their refuge, and of the doom that awaited them later in the day when, their covert shrinking to a more and more horrible narrowness, they were huddled together, friends and foes, till the last few yards of upright wheat fell also under the teeth of the unerring reaper, and they were every one put to death by the sticks and stones of the harvesters. The reaping-machine left the fallen corn behind it in little heaps, each heap being of the quantity for a sheaf; and upon these the active binders in the rear laid their hands--mainly women, but some of them men in print shirts, and trousers supported round their waists by leather straps, rendering useless the two buttons behind, which twinkled and bristled with sunbeams at every movement of each wearer, as if they were a pair of eyes in the small of his back. But those of the other sex were the most interesting of this company of binders, by reason of the charm which is acquired by woman when she becomes part and parcel of outdoor nature, and is not merely an object set down therein as at ordinary times. A field-man is a personality afield; a field-woman is a portion of the field; she had somehow lost her own margin, imbibed the essence of her surrounding, and assimilated herself with it. The women--or rather girls, for they were mostly young--wore drawn cotton bonnets with great flapping curtains to keep off the sun, and gloves to prevent their hands being wounded by the stubble. There was one wearing a pale pink jacket, another in a cream-coloured tight-sleeved gown, another in a petticoat as red as the arms of the reaping-machine; and others, older, in the brown-rough "wropper" or over-all--the old-established and most appropriate dress of the field-woman, which the young ones were abandoning. This morning the eye returns involuntarily to the girl in the pink cotton jacket, she being the most flexuous and finely-drawn figure of them all. But her bonnet is pulled so far over her brow that none of her face is disclosed while she binds, though her complexion may be guessed from a stray twine or two of dark brown hair which extends below the curtain of her bonnet. Perhaps one reason why she seduces casual attention is that she never courts it, though the other women often gaze around them. Her binding proceeds with clock-like monotony. From the sheaf last finished she draws a handful of ears, patting their tips with her left palm to bring them even. Then, stooping low, she moves forward, gathering the corn with both hands against her knees, and pushing her left gloved hand under the bundle to meet the right on the other side, holding the corn in an embrace like that of a lover. She brings the ends of the bond together, and kneels on the sheaf while she ties it, beating back her skirts now and then when lifted by the breeze. A bit of her naked arm is visible between the buff leather of the gauntlet and the sleeve of her gown; and as the day wears on its feminine smoothness becomes scarified by the stubble and bleeds. At intervals she stands up to rest, and to retie her disarranged apron, or to pull her bonnet straight. Then one can see the oval face of a handsome young woman with deep dark eyes and long heavy clinging tresses, which seem to clasp in a beseeching way anything they fall against. The cheeks are paler, the teeth more regular, the red lips thinner than is usual in a country-bred girl. It is Tess Durbeyfield, otherwise d'Urberville, somewhat changed--the same, but not the same; at the present stage of her existence living as a stranger and an alien here, though it was no strange land that she was in. After a long seclusion she had come to a resolve to undertake outdoor work in her native village, the busiest season of the year in the agricultural world having arrived, and nothing that she could do within the house being so remunerative for the time as harvesting in the fields. The movements of the other women were more or less similar to Tess's, the whole bevy of them drawing together like dancers in a quadrille at the completion of a sheaf by each, every one placing her sheaf on end against those of the rest, till a shock, or "stitch" as it was here called, of ten or a dozen was formed. They went to breakfast, and came again, and the work proceeded as before. As the hour of eleven drew near a person watching her might have noticed that every now and then Tess's glance flitted wistfully to the brow of the hill, though she did not pause in her sheafing. On the verge of the hour the heads of a group of children, of ages ranging from six to fourteen, rose over the stubbly convexity of the hill. The face of Tess flushed slightly, but still she did not pause. The eldest of the comers, a girl who wore a triangular shawl, its corner draggling on the stubble, carried in her arms what at first sight seemed to be a doll, but proved to be an infant in long clothes. Another brought some lunch. The harvesters ceased working, took their provisions, and sat down against one of the shocks. Here they fell to, the men plying a stone jar freely, and passing round a cup. Tess Durbeyfield had been one of the last to suspend her labours. She sat down at the end of the shock, her face turned somewhat away from her companions. When she had deposited herself a man in a rabbit-skin cap, and with a red handkerchief tucked into his belt, held the cup of ale over the top of the shock for her to drink. But she did not accept his offer. As soon as her lunch was spread she called up the big girl, her sister, and took the baby of her, who, glad to be relieved of the burden, went away to the next shock and joined the other children playing there. Tess, with a curiously stealthy yet courageous movement, and with a still rising colour, unfastened her frock and began suckling the child. The men who sat nearest considerately turned their faces towards the other end of the field, some of them beginning to smoke; one, with absent-minded fondness, regretfully stroking the jar that would no longer yield a stream. All the women but Tess fell into animated talk, and adjusted the disarranged knots of their hair. When the infant had taken its fill, the young mother sat it upright in her lap, and looking into the far distance, dandled it with a gloomy indifference that was almost dislike; then all of a sudden she fell to violently kissing it some dozens of times, as if she could never leave off, the child crying at the vehemence of an onset which strangely combined passionateness with contempt. "She's fond of that there child, though she mid pretend to hate en, and say she wishes the baby and her too were in the churchyard," observed the woman in the red petticoat. "She'll soon leave off saying that," replied the one in buff. "Lord, 'tis wonderful what a body can get used to o' that sort in time!" "A little more than persuading had to do wi' the coming o't, I reckon. There were they that heard a sobbing one night last year in The Chase; and it mid ha' gone hard wi' a certain party if folks had come along." "Well, a little more, or a little less, 'twas a thousand pities that it should have happened to she, of all others. But 'tis always the comeliest! The plain ones be as safe as churches--hey, Jenny?" The speaker turned to one of the group who certainly was not ill-defined as plain. It was a thousand pities, indeed; it was impossible for even an enemy to feel otherwise on looking at Tess as she sat there, with her flower-like mouth and large tender eyes, neither black nor blue nor grey nor violet; rather all those shades together, and a hundred others, which could be seen if one looked into their irises--shade behind shade--tint beyond tint--around pupils that had no bottom; an almost standard woman, but for the slight incautiousness of character inherited from her race. A resolution which had surprised herself had brought her into the fields this week for the first time during many months. After wearing and wasting her palpitating heart with every engine of regret that lonely inexperience could devise, common sense had illuminated her. She felt that she would do well to be useful again--to taste anew sweet independence at any price. The past was past; whatever it had been, it was no more at hand. Whatever its consequences, time would close over them; they would all in a few years be as if they had never been, and she herself grassed down and forgotten. Meanwhile the trees were just as green as before; the birds sang and the sun shone as clearly now as ever. The familiar surroundings had not darkened because of her grief, nor sickened because of her pain. She might have seen that what had bowed her head so profoundly--the thought of the world's concern at her situation--was founded on an illusion. She was not an existence, an experience, a passion, a structure of sensations, to anybody but herself. To all humankind besides, Tess was only a passing thought. Even to friends she was no more than a frequently passing thought. If she made herself miserable the livelong night and day it was only this much to them--"Ah, she makes herself unhappy." If she tried to be cheerful, to dismiss all care, to take pleasure in the daylight, the flowers, the baby, she could only be this idea to them--"Ah, she bears it very well." Moreover, alone in a desert island would she have been wretched at what had happened to her? Not greatly. If she could have been but just created, to discover herself as a spouseless mother, with no experience of life except as the parent of a nameless child, would the position have caused her to despair? No, she would have taken it calmly, and found pleasure therein. Most of the misery had been generated by her conventional aspect, and not by her innate sensations. Whatever Tess's reasoning, some spirit had induced her to dress herself up neatly as she had formerly done, and come out into the fields, harvest-hands being greatly in demand just then. This was why she had borne herself with dignity, and had looked people calmly in the face at times, even when holding the baby in her arms. The harvest-men rose from the shock of corn, and stretched their limbs, and extinguished their pipes. The horses, which had been unharnessed and fed, were again attached to the scarlet machine. Tess, having quickly eaten her own meal, beckoned to her eldest sister to come and take away the baby, fastened her dress, put on the buff gloves again, and stooped anew to draw a bond from the last completed sheaf for the tying of the next. In the afternoon and evening the proceedings of the morning were continued, Tess staying on till dusk with the body of harvesters. Then they all rode home in one of the largest wagons, in the company of a broad tarnished moon that had risen from the ground to the eastwards, its face resembling the outworn gold-leaf halo of some worm-eaten Tuscan saint. Tess's female companions sang songs, and showed themselves very sympathetic and glad at her reappearance out of doors, though they could not refrain from mischievously throwing in a few verses of the ballad about the maid who went to the merry green wood and came back a changed state. There are counterpoises and compensations in life; and the event which had made of her a social warning had also for the moment made her the most interesting personage in the village to many. Their friendliness won her still farther away from herself, their lively spirits were contagious, and she became almost gay. But now that her moral sorrows were passing away a fresh one arose on the natural side of her which knew no social law. When she reached home it was to learn to her grief that the baby had been suddenly taken ill since the afternoon. Some such collapse had been probable, so tender and puny was its frame; but the event came as a shock nevertheless. The baby's offence against society in coming into the world was forgotten by the girl-mother; her soul's desire was to continue that offence by preserving the life of the child. However, it soon grew clear that the hour of emancipation for that little prisoner of the flesh was to arrive earlier than her worst misgiving had conjectured. And when she had discovered this she was plunged into a misery which transcended that of the child's simple loss. Her baby had not been baptized. Tess had drifted into a frame of mind which accepted passively the consideration that if she should have to burn for what she had done, burn she must, and there was an end of it. Like all village girls, she was well grounded in the Holy Scriptures, and had dutifully studied the histories of Aholah and Aholibah, and knew the inferences to be drawn therefrom. But when the same question arose with regard to the baby, it had a very different colour. Her darling was about to die, and no salvation. It was nearly bedtime, but she rushed downstairs and asked if she might send for the parson. The moment happened to be one at which her father's sense of the antique nobility of his family was highest, and his sensitiveness to the smudge which Tess had set upon that nobility most pronounced, for he had just returned from his weekly booze at Rolliver's Inn. No parson should come inside his door, he declared, prying into his affairs, just then, when, by her shame, it had become more necessary than ever to hide them. He locked the door and put the key in his pocket. The household went to bed, and, distressed beyond measure, Tess retired also. She was continually waking as she lay, and in the middle of the night found that the baby was still worse. It was obviously dying--quietly and painlessly, but none the less surely. In her misery she rocked herself upon the bed. The clock struck the solemn hour of one, that hour when fancy stalks outside reason, and malignant possibilities stand rock-firm as facts. She thought of the child consigned to the nethermost corner of hell, as its double doom for lack of baptism and lack of legitimacy; saw the arch-fiend tossing it with his three-pronged fork, like the one they used for heating the oven on baking days; to which picture she added many other quaint and curious details of torment sometimes taught the young in this Christian country. The lurid presentment so powerfully affected her imagination in the silence of the sleeping house that her nightgown became damp with perspiration, and the bedstead shook with each throb of her heart. The infant's breathing grew more difficult, and the mother's mental tension increased. It was useless to devour the little thing with kisses; she could stay in bed no longer, and walked feverishly about the room. "O merciful God, have pity; have pity upon my poor baby!" she cried. "Heap as much anger as you want to upon me, and welcome; but pity the child!" She leant against the chest of drawers, and murmured incoherent supplications for a long while, till she suddenly started up. "Ah! perhaps baby can be saved! Perhaps it will be just the same!" She spoke so brightly that it seemed as though her face might have shone in the gloom surrounding her. She lit a candle, and went to a second and a third bed under the wall, where she awoke her young sisters and brothers, all of whom occupied the same room. Pulling out the washing-stand so that she could get behind it, she poured some water from a jug, and made them kneel around, putting their hands together with fingers exactly vertical. While the children, scarcely awake, awe-stricken at her manner, their eyes growing larger and larger, remained in this position, she took the baby from her bed--a child's child--so immature as scarce to seem a sufficient personality to endow its producer with the maternal title. Tess then stood erect with the infant on her arm beside the basin; the next sister held the Prayer-Book open before her, as the clerk at church held it before the parson; and thus the girl set about baptizing her child. Her figure looked singularly tall and imposing as she stood in her long white nightgown, a thick cable of twisted dark hair hanging straight down her back to her waist. The kindly dimness of the weak candle abstracted from her form and features the little blemishes which sunlight might have revealed--the stubble scratches upon her wrists, and the weariness of her eyes--her high enthusiasm having a transfiguring effect upon the face which had been her undoing, showing it as a thing of immaculate beauty, with a touch of dignity which was almost regal. The little ones kneeling round, their sleepy eyes blinking and red, awaited her preparations full of a suspended wonder which their physical heaviness at that hour would not allow to become active. The most impressed of them said: "Be you really going to christen him, Tess?" The girl-mother replied in a grave affirmative. "What's his name going to be?" She had not thought of that, but a name suggested by a phrase in the book of Genesis came into her head as she proceeded with the baptismal service, and now she pronounced it: "SORROW, I baptize thee in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost." She sprinkled the water, and there was silence. "Say 'Amen,' children." The tiny voices piped in obedient response, "Amen!" Tess went on: "We receive this child"--and so forth--"and do sign him with the sign of the Cross." Here she dipped her hand into the basin, and fervently drew an immense cross upon the baby with her forefinger, continuing with the customary sentences as to his manfully fighting against sin, the world, and the devil, and being a faithful soldier and servant unto his life's end. She duly went on with the Lord's Prayer, the children lisping it after her in a thin gnat-like wail, till, at the conclusion, raising their voices to clerk's pitch, they again piped into silence, "Amen!" Then their sister, with much augmented confidence in the efficacy of the sacrament, poured forth from the bottom of her heart the thanksgiving that follows, uttering it boldly and triumphantly in the stopt-diapason note which her voice acquired when her heart was in her speech, and which will never be forgotten by those who knew her. The ecstasy of faith almost apotheosized her; it set upon her face a glowing irradiation, and brought a red spot into the middle of each cheek; while the miniature candle-flame inverted in her eye-pupils shone like a diamond. The children gazed up at her with more and more reverence, and no longer had a will for questioning. She did not look like Sissy to them now, but as a being large, towering, and awful--a divine personage with whom they had nothing in common. Poor Sorrow's campaign against sin, the world, and the devil was doomed to be of limited brilliancy--luckily perhaps for himself, considering his beginnings. In the blue of the morning that fragile soldier and servant breathed his last, and when the other children awoke they cried bitterly, and begged Sissy to have another pretty baby. The calmness which had possessed Tess since the christening remained with her in the infant's loss. In the daylight, indeed, she felt her terrors about his soul to have been somewhat exaggerated; whether well founded or not, she had no uneasiness now, reasoning that if Providence would not ratify such an act of approximation she, for one, did not value the kind of heaven lost by the irregularity--either for herself or for her child. So passed away Sorrow the Undesired--that intrusive creature, that bastard gift of shameless Nature, who respects not the social law; a waif to whom eternal Time had been a matter of days merely, who knew not that such things as years and centuries ever were; to whom the cottage interior was the universe, the week's weather climate, new-born babyhood human existence, and the instinct to suck human knowledge. Tess, who mused on the christening a good deal, wondered if it were doctrinally sufficient to secure a Christian burial for the child. Nobody could tell this but the parson of the parish, and he was a new-comer, and did not know her. She went to his house after dusk, and stood by the gate, but could not summon courage to go in. The enterprise would have been abandoned if she had not by accident met him coming homeward as she turned away. In the gloom she did not mind speaking freely. "I should like to ask you something, sir." He expressed his willingness to listen, and she told the story of the baby's illness and the extemporized ordinance. "And now, sir," she added earnestly, "can you tell me this--will it be just the same for him as if you had baptized him?" Having the natural feelings of a tradesman at finding that a job he should have been called in for had been unskilfully botched by his customers among themselves, he was disposed to say no. Yet the dignity of the girl, the strange tenderness in her voice, combined to affect his nobler impulses--or rather those that he had left in him after ten years of endeavour to graft technical belief on actual scepticism. The man and the ecclesiastic fought within him, and the victory fell to the man. "My dear girl," he said, "it will be just the same." "Then will you give him a Christian burial?" she asked quickly. The Vicar felt himself cornered. Hearing of the baby's illness, he had conscientiously gone to the house after nightfall to perform the rite, and, unaware that the refusal to admit him had come from Tess's father and not from Tess, he could not allow the plea of necessity for its irregular administration. "Ah--that's another matter," he said. "Another matter--why?" asked Tess, rather warmly. "Well--I would willingly do so if only we two were concerned. But I must not--for certain reasons." "Just for once, sir!" "Really I must not." "O sir!" She seized his hand as she spoke. He withdrew it, shaking his head. "Then I don't like you!" she burst out, "and I'll never come to your church no more!" "Don't talk so rashly." "Perhaps it will be just the same to him if you don't? ... Will it be just the same? Don't for God's sake speak as saint to sinner, but as you yourself to me myself--poor me!" How the Vicar reconciled his answer with the strict notions he supposed himself to hold on these subjects it is beyond a layman's power to tell, though not to excuse. Somewhat moved, he said in this case also-- "It will be just the same." So the baby was carried in a small deal box, under an ancient woman's shawl, to the churchyard that night, and buried by lantern-light, at the cost of a shilling and a pint of beer to the sexton, in that shabby corner of God's allotment where He lets the nettles grow, and where all unbaptized infants, notorious drunkards, suicides, and others of the conjecturally damned are laid. In spite of the untoward surroundings, however, Tess bravely made a little cross of two laths and a piece of string, and having bound it with flowers, she stuck it up at the head of the grave one evening when she could enter the churchyard without being seen, putting at the foot also a bunch of the same flowers in a little jar of water to keep them alive. What matter was it that on the outside of the jar the eye of mere observation noted the words "Keelwell's Marmalade"? The eye of maternal affection did not see them in its vision of higher things.

Chapter 14

https://web.archive.org/web/20210410060617/https://www.gradesaver.com/tess-of-the-durbervilles/study-guide/summary-phase-2-chapters-12-15

On a hot August afternoon, the sun beats down on Marlott while men and women work in the corn fields. Among the women is Tess, whom the other women watch carefully. At intervals she rests, for she has been somewhat changed. After a long seclusion she had decided to undertake outdoor work during the busiest season of the year. When she finishes her labor, during lunch her sister brings Tess's child to her so that she may breastfeed it. A nearby woman observes that Tess is fond of her child, although she might pretend to hate it. Tess had come to bear herself with dignity and to resolve not to wallow in her own self-pity. However, as her sorrows over bearing an illegitimate child fade away, a fresh sorrow arises. The baby takes ill. When Tess returns home after work, she finds that the baby had taken ill. Tess realizes that the baby has not been baptized. Tess begs her father to send for the parson, but he refuses out of pride. Tess goes to bed, but the infant's breathing grows more difficult and Tess prays for pity. Tess finally decides to baptize the infant herself: she gives it the name Sorrow. As she baptizes Sorrow, Tess appears to her siblings as a large, towering, divine personage. When Tess awakes the next morning, she finds that Sorrow has died. Tess wonders whether if it were doctrinally sufficient to secure a Christian burial for the child. She asks the new parson, and he agrees that Sorrow had been properly baptized, but he refuses to give a Christian burial out of community reasons. She tells him not to speak to her as saint to sinner, but as person to person. Finally he agrees that the burial will be the same.

Hardy once again shifts the narrative forward to bypass momentous events in Tess's life; skipping nearly a year in Tess's life, the story picks up after Tess has given birth to the illegitimate child borne of her one encounter with Alec d'Urberville. This child is the living representation of her sin: during the first part of the chapter it exists only as a symbol and not as an actual person, receiving a name only before its death. Even the name that Tess gives her infant child, Sorrow, represents the aftermath of her sin. Nevertheless, if Sorrow represents Tess's guilt over her weakness with Alec d'Urberville, Tess's reaction to her child is significant. At first Tess claims to detest the child, yet grows accustomed to it as a part of her, accepting this sin as inherent in her with a profound sense of self-loathing. However, once the child is near death Tess accepts it fully by insisting on its baptism. By confronting her sin and naming it, Tess essentially allows Sorrow to die peacefully. The baptism of Sorrow is a pivotal event for Tess in which she moves from a simplistic child to, as her siblings see her, a "towering, divine personage. By baptizing her child, Tess also rejects the social structure around her that perceives the mother as an outcast, performing the ceremony that marks the acceptance of her child into society without the public declaration of the church. The baptism of Sorrow is thus a baptism for Tess as well, marking a new sense of self and self-worth that she has lacked. This can further be seen in the confrontation with the parson that follows: the once demure Tess demands that Sorrow be given a Christian burial, despite the objection of the parson

novelguide

all_chapterized_books/161-chapters/07.txt

finished_summaries/novelguide/Sense and Sensibility/section_1_part_7.txt

Sense and Sensibility.chapter vii

chapter vii

{"name": "Chapter VII", "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20201020004256/https://www.novelguide.com/sense-and-sensibility/summaries/volume1-chapter1-11", "summary": "The following day, at Sir John's invitation, the Dashwood women go to dinner at Barton Park. The sociable Sir John is delighted with his new tenants. He is pleased that they are an all-female family, as a man might hunt the birds and animals on his estate, and he wants to keep all the hunting for himself. Also present are Mrs. Jennings, who is Lady Middleton's mother, and Colonel Brandon, who is a friend of Sir John. Marianne is invited to play the piano. Colonel Brandon is the only person who does not go into raptures about her performance, only listening with quiet attention. Marianne excuses him his lack of ecstasy on the grounds of his advanced age", "analysis": ""}

Barton Park was about half a mile from the cottage. The ladies had passed near it in their way along the valley, but it was screened from their view at home by the projection of a hill. The house was large and handsome; and the Middletons lived in a style of equal hospitality and elegance. The former was for Sir John's gratification, the latter for that of his lady. They were scarcely ever without some friends staying with them in the house, and they kept more company of every kind than any other family in the neighbourhood. It was necessary to the happiness of both; for however dissimilar in temper and outward behaviour, they strongly resembled each other in that total want of talent and taste which confined their employments, unconnected with such as society produced, within a very narrow compass. Sir John was a sportsman, Lady Middleton a mother. He hunted and shot, and she humoured her children; and these were their only resources. Lady Middleton had the advantage of being able to spoil her children all the year round, while Sir John's independent employments were in existence only half the time. Continual engagements at home and abroad, however, supplied all the deficiencies of nature and education; supported the good spirits of Sir John, and gave exercise to the good breeding of his wife. Lady Middleton piqued herself upon the elegance of her table, and of all her domestic arrangements; and from this kind of vanity was her greatest enjoyment in any of their parties. But Sir John's satisfaction in society was much more real; he delighted in collecting about him more young people than his house would hold, and the noisier they were the better was he pleased. He was a blessing to all the juvenile part of the neighbourhood, for in summer he was for ever forming parties to eat cold ham and chicken out of doors, and in winter his private balls were numerous enough for any young lady who was not suffering under the unsatiable appetite of fifteen. The arrival of a new family in the country was always a matter of joy to him, and in every point of view he was charmed with the inhabitants he had now procured for his cottage at Barton. The Miss Dashwoods were young, pretty, and unaffected. It was enough to secure his good opinion; for to be unaffected was all that a pretty girl could want to make her mind as captivating as her person. The friendliness of his disposition made him happy in accommodating those, whose situation might be considered, in comparison with the past, as unfortunate. In showing kindness to his cousins therefore he had the real satisfaction of a good heart; and in settling a family of females only in his cottage, he had all the satisfaction of a sportsman; for a sportsman, though he esteems only those of his sex who are sportsmen likewise, is not often desirous of encouraging their taste by admitting them to a residence within his own manor. Mrs. Dashwood and her daughters were met at the door of the house by Sir John, who welcomed them to Barton Park with unaffected sincerity; and as he attended them to the drawing room repeated to the young ladies the concern which the same subject had drawn from him the day before, at being unable to get any smart young men to meet them. They would see, he said, only one gentleman there besides himself; a particular friend who was staying at the park, but who was neither very young nor very gay. He hoped they would all excuse the smallness of the party, and could assure them it should never happen so again. He had been to several families that morning in hopes of procuring some addition to their number, but it was moonlight and every body was full of engagements. Luckily Lady Middleton's mother had arrived at Barton within the last hour, and as she was a very cheerful agreeable woman, he hoped the young ladies would not find it so very dull as they might imagine. The young ladies, as well as their mother, were perfectly satisfied with having two entire strangers of the party, and wished for no more. Mrs. Jennings, Lady Middleton's mother, was a good-humoured, merry, fat, elderly woman, who talked a great deal, seemed very happy, and rather vulgar. She was full of jokes and laughter, and before dinner was over had said many witty things on the subject of lovers and husbands; hoped they had not left their hearts behind them in Sussex, and pretended to see them blush whether they did or not. Marianne was vexed at it for her sister's sake, and turned her eyes towards Elinor to see how she bore these attacks, with an earnestness which gave Elinor far more pain than could arise from such common-place raillery as Mrs. Jennings's. Colonel Brandon, the friend of Sir John, seemed no more adapted by resemblance of manner to be his friend, than Lady Middleton was to be his wife, or Mrs. Jennings to be Lady Middleton's mother. He was silent and grave. His appearance however was not unpleasing, in spite of his being in the opinion of Marianne and Margaret an absolute old bachelor, for he was on the wrong side of five and thirty; but though his face was not handsome, his countenance was sensible, and his address was particularly gentlemanlike. There was nothing in any of the party which could recommend them as companions to the Dashwoods; but the cold insipidity of Lady Middleton was so particularly repulsive, that in comparison of it the gravity of Colonel Brandon, and even the boisterous mirth of Sir John and his mother-in-law was interesting. Lady Middleton seemed to be roused to enjoyment only by the entrance of her four noisy children after dinner, who pulled her about, tore her clothes, and put an end to every kind of discourse except what related to themselves. In the evening, as Marianne was discovered to be musical, she was invited to play. The instrument was unlocked, every body prepared to be charmed, and Marianne, who sang very well, at their request went through the chief of the songs which Lady Middleton had brought into the family on her marriage, and which perhaps had lain ever since in the same position on the pianoforte, for her ladyship had celebrated that event by giving up music, although by her mother's account, she had played extremely well, and by her own was very fond of it. Marianne's performance was highly applauded. Sir John was loud in his admiration at the end of every song, and as loud in his conversation with the others while every song lasted. Lady Middleton frequently called him to order, wondered how any one's attention could be diverted from music for a moment, and asked Marianne to sing a particular song which Marianne had just finished. Colonel Brandon alone, of all the party, heard her without being in raptures. He paid her only the compliment of attention; and she felt a respect for him on the occasion, which the others had reasonably forfeited by their shameless want of taste. His pleasure in music, though it amounted not to that ecstatic delight which alone could sympathize with her own, was estimable when contrasted against the horrible insensibility of the others; and she was reasonable enough to allow that a man of five and thirty might well have outlived all acuteness of feeling and every exquisite power of enjoyment. She was perfectly disposed to make every allowance for the colonel's advanced state of life which humanity required.

Chapter VII

https://web.archive.org/web/20201020004256/https://www.novelguide.com/sense-and-sensibility/summaries/volume1-chapter1-11

The following day, at Sir John's invitation, the Dashwood women go to dinner at Barton Park. The sociable Sir John is delighted with his new tenants. He is pleased that they are an all-female family, as a man might hunt the birds and animals on his estate, and he wants to keep all the hunting for himself. Also present are Mrs. Jennings, who is Lady Middleton's mother, and Colonel Brandon, who is a friend of Sir John. Marianne is invited to play the piano. Colonel Brandon is the only person who does not go into raptures about her performance, only listening with quiet attention. Marianne excuses him his lack of ecstasy on the grounds of his advanced age

cliffnotes

all_chapterized_books/174-chapters/07.txt

finished_summaries/cliffnotes/The Picture of Dorian Gray/section_7_part_0.txt

The Picture of Dorian Gray.chapter 7

chapter 7

{"name": "Chapter 7", "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20201219150422/https://www.cliffsnotes.com/literature/p/the-picture-of-dorian-gray/summary-and-analysis/chapter-7", "summary": "The theatre is crowded when Dorian, Basil, and Lord Henry arrive. When Sibyl appears onstage as Juliet, Lord Henry thinks she is one of the \"loveliest creatures\" he has seen, fawn-like in her grace and innocence. Her performance, however, is worse than disappointing. She seems listless and artificial; in fact, she is absolutely awful. Dorian is more disgusted than embarrassed by Sybil's acting. Lord Henry and Basil leave, as does half the audience, but Dorian sits through the entire play. In the greenroom after the play is finished, Sibyl seems overjoyed at her dismal performance and expects Dorian to understand that she can no longer act because she has found true love in real life. She intended to be outstanding, she says, but because Dorian has taught her \"what reality really is,\" she no longer can believe in the fake world of plays. She asks Dorian to take her away so that they might begin their life together. Dorian's response is cold and filled with disgust: \"You have killed my love,\" he mutters. He loved her because she was a great performer, he says. Now he finds her \"shallow and stupid\" and can barely stand her. Sibyl is distraught. Apologizing for her bad performance, she pleads with Dorian to give her another chance. Sobbing, she falls to the floor and begs him not to leave her. As she cries hysterically, she begins to recount her brother's threat to kill anyone who harms her, but she shakes off the thought, reminding herself out loud that the threat was just a joke. Dorian is annoyed with Sybil and tells her that he cannot see her anymore. Abruptly, he leaves. Dorian wanders the streets until near dawn and then returns home. Passing through his library toward his bedroom, he notices the portrait that Basil painted of him. He is startled and puzzled, but he goes on into his bedroom. He begins to undress but pauses and returns to the library to look at the portrait. To Dorian, the face in the portrait has slightly changed, taking on a look of cruelty around the mouth. Going to the window, he sees a bright dawn. He looks again at the painting. The \"lines of cruelty round the mouth\" are still there, even more clearly than before. Looking at his reflection in a mirror, Dorian looks fresh and youthful. Suddenly he recalls the wish he earlier made at Basil's studio, that he might remain the same while the picture took on the \"lines of suffering and thought,\" the various signs of corruption and age that Dorian's life might bring him. He thinks that such a wish could never be fulfilled. Surely it is impossible. Still, there are the cruel lines about the mouth in the portrait. Dorian begins to wonder if he really has been cruel to Sibyl. However, he convinces himself that he is not to blame for the situation. Sibyl is to blame because she disappointed him and made him endure the three painful hours of her terrible performance. Eventually, he convinces himself that Sibyl hadn't really loved him, and he concludes that he needn't be concerned about her at all. Dorian is more concerned about the changed portrait than with Sibyl. It occurs to Dorian that every sin he commits will be reflected in the face on the canvas. He vows never to sin again so that the painting, like himself, will never change. He vows to use the portrait as his conscience; the danger of hurting the portrait will keep him from committing sins. He will refuse to see Lord Henry or at least will ignore Lord Henry's \"subtle poisonous theories.\" He will return to Sibyl, apologize, and marry her. He pulls a screen in front of the painting and walks outside. The chapter ends as Dorian repeats Sibyl's name into the dawn.", "analysis": "In Chapter 7, Dorian's narrative supercedes all others in the novel. From now on, it will be his story, not Lord Henry's. The novel becomes more dynamic because Dorian's character grows -- changes -- while Lord Henry's remains unchanged. The change in Dorian's character in this chapter is dramatic. Dorian begins the chapter as a dedicated lover. Then, in a few short pages, he becomes a disgusted critic, a heartless deserter, briefly a contrite sinner, and then finally a lover rededicated to Sibyl -- not because he loves the woman, but because he fears hurting himself and the portrait. Even though the chapter ends with Dorian intending to do \"his duty\" by being honorable and marrying Sibyl, his honor is false because it is based on selfishness. His \"honorable intentions\" are simply a continuation of his soul's degradation. The number and degree of changes that Dorian goes through in this chapter, most of them negative changes, hint at the turn his nature will take in the rest of the book. Chapter 7 also introduces an element that will reoccur throughout the story: the changing of the portrait. By the end of the chapter, the reader understands that the portrait will symbolize the state of Dorian's soul and spirit. Wilde will use the portrait to help develop his characterization of Dorian for the rest of the book. Dorian's special relationship with his portrait continues the Faust theme. His wish about the portrait suggests a pact with the devil. Dorian's desire to escape the \"poisonous theories\" of Lord Henry indicates that he sees his mentor as an evil, devil-like influence, but, like Faust, Dorian seems eager to benefit from the fruits of his pact, namely the eternal youth that the portrait offers him. Glossary Miranda a leading character in William Shakespeare's The Tempest. Caliban a savage who is half-man, half-beast in The Tempest. tawdry gaudy; cheap; vulgarly ornamental. listless lacking energy or effort. Good pilgrim . . . holy palmer's kiss a quote from Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet, Act I, Scene 5, 99-102. Thou knowest . . . speak tonight a quote from Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet, Act II, Scene 2, 85-87. elocution the art of public speaking. Although I joy . . . when next we meet a quote from Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet, Act II, Scene 2, 116-22. Portia a leading character in William Shakespeare's The Merchant of Venice. Beatrice a leading character in William Shakespeare's Much Ado About Nothing. Cordelia a leading character in William Shakespeare's King Lear. nacre mother-of-pearl."}

For some reason or other, the house was crowded that night, and the fat Jew manager who met them at the door was beaming from ear to ear with an oily tremulous smile. He escorted them to their box with a sort of pompous humility, waving his fat jewelled hands and talking at the top of his voice. Dorian Gray loathed him more than ever. He felt as if he had come to look for Miranda and had been met by Caliban. Lord Henry, upon the other hand, rather liked him. At least he declared he did, and insisted on shaking him by the hand and assuring him that he was proud to meet a man who had discovered a real genius and gone bankrupt over a poet. Hallward amused himself with watching the faces in the pit. The heat was terribly oppressive, and the huge sunlight flamed like a monstrous dahlia with petals of yellow fire. The youths in the gallery had taken off their coats and waistcoats and hung them over the side. They talked to each other across the theatre and shared their oranges with the tawdry girls who sat beside them. Some women were laughing in the pit. Their voices were horribly shrill and discordant. The sound of the popping of corks came from the bar. "What a place to find one's divinity in!" said Lord Henry. "Yes!" answered Dorian Gray. "It was here I found her, and she is divine beyond all living things. When she acts, you will forget everything. These common rough people, with their coarse faces and brutal gestures, become quite different when she is on the stage. They sit silently and watch her. They weep and laugh as she wills them to do. She makes them as responsive as a violin. She spiritualizes them, and one feels that they are of the same flesh and blood as one's self." "The same flesh and blood as one's self! Oh, I hope not!" exclaimed Lord Henry, who was scanning the occupants of the gallery through his opera-glass. "Don't pay any attention to him, Dorian," said the painter. "I understand what you mean, and I believe in this girl. Any one you love must be marvellous, and any girl who has the effect you describe must be fine and noble. To spiritualize one's age--that is something worth doing. If this girl can give a soul to those who have lived without one, if she can create the sense of beauty in people whose lives have been sordid and ugly, if she can strip them of their selfishness and lend them tears for sorrows that are not their own, she is worthy of all your adoration, worthy of the adoration of the world. This marriage is quite right. I did not think so at first, but I admit it now. The gods made Sibyl Vane for you. Without her you would have been incomplete." "Thanks, Basil," answered Dorian Gray, pressing his hand. "I knew that you would understand me. Harry is so cynical, he terrifies me. But here is the orchestra. It is quite dreadful, but it only lasts for about five minutes. Then the curtain rises, and you will see the girl to whom I am going to give all my life, to whom I have given everything that is good in me." A quarter of an hour afterwards, amidst an extraordinary turmoil of applause, Sibyl Vane stepped on to the stage. Yes, she was certainly lovely to look at--one of the loveliest creatures, Lord Henry thought, that he had ever seen. There was something of the fawn in her shy grace and startled eyes. A faint blush, like the shadow of a rose in a mirror of silver, came to her cheeks as she glanced at the crowded enthusiastic house. She stepped back a few paces and her lips seemed to tremble. Basil Hallward leaped to his feet and began to applaud. Motionless, and as one in a dream, sat Dorian Gray, gazing at her. Lord Henry peered through his glasses, murmuring, "Charming! charming!" The scene was the hall of Capulet's house, and Romeo in his pilgrim's dress had entered with Mercutio and his other friends. The band, such as it was, struck up a few bars of music, and the dance began. Through the crowd of ungainly, shabbily dressed actors, Sibyl Vane moved like a creature from a finer world. Her body swayed, while she danced, as a plant sways in the water. The curves of her throat were the curves of a white lily. Her hands seemed to be made of cool ivory. Yet she was curiously listless. She showed no sign of joy when her eyes rested on Romeo. The few words she had to speak-- Good pilgrim, you do wrong your hand too much, Which mannerly devotion shows in this; For saints have hands that pilgrims' hands do touch, And palm to palm is holy palmers' kiss-- with the brief dialogue that follows, were spoken in a thoroughly artificial manner. The voice was exquisite, but from the point of view of tone it was absolutely false. It was wrong in colour. It took away all the life from the verse. It made the passion unreal. Dorian Gray grew pale as he watched her. He was puzzled and anxious. Neither of his friends dared to say anything to him. She seemed to them to be absolutely incompetent. They were horribly disappointed. Yet they felt that the true test of any Juliet is the balcony scene of the second act. They waited for that. If she failed there, there was nothing in her. She looked charming as she came out in the moonlight. That could not be denied. But the staginess of her acting was unbearable, and grew worse as she went on. Her gestures became absurdly artificial. She overemphasized everything that she had to say. The beautiful passage-- Thou knowest the mask of night is on my face, Else would a maiden blush bepaint my cheek For that which thou hast heard me speak to-night-- was declaimed with the painful precision of a schoolgirl who has been taught to recite by some second-rate professor of elocution. When she leaned over the balcony and came to those wonderful lines-- Although I joy in thee, I have no joy of this contract to-night: It is too rash, too unadvised, too sudden; Too like the lightning, which doth cease to be Ere one can say, "It lightens." Sweet, good-night! This bud of love by summer's ripening breath May prove a beauteous flower when next we meet-- she spoke the words as though they conveyed no meaning to her. It was not nervousness. Indeed, so far from being nervous, she was absolutely self-contained. It was simply bad art. She was a complete failure. Even the common uneducated audience of the pit and gallery lost their interest in the play. They got restless, and began to talk loudly and to whistle. The Jew manager, who was standing at the back of the dress-circle, stamped and swore with rage. The only person unmoved was the girl herself. When the second act was over, there came a storm of hisses, and Lord Henry got up from his chair and put on his coat. "She is quite beautiful, Dorian," he said, "but she can't act. Let us go." "I am going to see the play through," answered the lad, in a hard bitter voice. "I am awfully sorry that I have made you waste an evening, Harry. I apologize to you both." "My dear Dorian, I should think Miss Vane was ill," interrupted Hallward. "We will come some other night." "I wish she were ill," he rejoined. "But she seems to me to be simply callous and cold. She has entirely altered. Last night she was a great artist. This evening she is merely a commonplace mediocre actress." "Don't talk like that about any one you love, Dorian. Love is a more wonderful thing than art." "They are both simply forms of imitation," remarked Lord Henry. "But do let us go. Dorian, you must not stay here any longer. It is not good for one's morals to see bad acting. Besides, I don't suppose you will want your wife to act, so what does it matter if she plays Juliet like a wooden doll? She is very lovely, and if she knows as little about life as she does about acting, she will be a delightful experience. There are only two kinds of people who are really fascinating--people who know absolutely everything, and people who know absolutely nothing. Good heavens, my dear boy, don't look so tragic! The secret of remaining young is never to have an emotion that is unbecoming. Come to the club with Basil and myself. We will smoke cigarettes and drink to the beauty of Sibyl Vane. She is beautiful. What more can you want?" "Go away, Harry," cried the lad. "I want to be alone. Basil, you must go. Ah! can't you see that my heart is breaking?" The hot tears came to his eyes. His lips trembled, and rushing to the back of the box, he leaned up against the wall, hiding his face in his hands. "Let us go, Basil," said Lord Henry with a strange tenderness in his voice, and the two young men passed out together. A few moments afterwards the footlights flared up and the curtain rose on the third act. Dorian Gray went back to his seat. He looked pale, and proud, and indifferent. The play dragged on, and seemed interminable. Half of the audience went out, tramping in heavy boots and laughing. The whole thing was a _fiasco_. The last act was played to almost empty benches. The curtain went down on a titter and some groans. As soon as it was over, Dorian Gray rushed behind the scenes into the greenroom. The girl was standing there alone, with a look of triumph on her face. Her eyes were lit with an exquisite fire. There was a radiance about her. Her parted lips were smiling over some secret of their own. When he entered, she looked at him, and an expression of infinite joy came over her. "How badly I acted to-night, Dorian!" she cried. "Horribly!" he answered, gazing at her in amazement. "Horribly! It was dreadful. Are you ill? You have no idea what it was. You have no idea what I suffered." The girl smiled. "Dorian," she answered, lingering over his name with long-drawn music in her voice, as though it were sweeter than honey to the red petals of her mouth. "Dorian, you should have understood. But you understand now, don't you?" "Understand what?" he asked, angrily. "Why I was so bad to-night. Why I shall always be bad. Why I shall never act well again." He shrugged his shoulders. "You are ill, I suppose. When you are ill you shouldn't act. You make yourself ridiculous. My friends were bored. I was bored." She seemed not to listen to him. She was transfigured with joy. An ecstasy of happiness dominated her. "Dorian, Dorian," she cried, "before I knew you, acting was the one reality of my life. It was only in the theatre that I lived. I thought that it was all true. I was Rosalind one night and Portia the other. The joy of Beatrice was my joy, and the sorrows of Cordelia were mine also. I believed in everything. The common people who acted with me seemed to me to be godlike. The painted scenes were my world. I knew nothing but shadows, and I thought them real. You came--oh, my beautiful love!--and you freed my soul from prison. You taught me what reality really is. To-night, for the first time in my life, I saw through the hollowness, the sham, the silliness of the empty pageant in which I had always played. To-night, for the first time, I became conscious that the Romeo was hideous, and old, and painted, that the moonlight in the orchard was false, that the scenery was vulgar, and that the words I had to speak were unreal, were not my words, were not what I wanted to say. You had brought me something higher, something of which all art is but a reflection. You had made me understand what love really is. My love! My love! Prince Charming! Prince of life! I have grown sick of shadows. You are more to me than all art can ever be. What have I to do with the puppets of a play? When I came on to-night, I could not understand how it was that everything had gone from me. I thought that I was going to be wonderful. I found that I could do nothing. Suddenly it dawned on my soul what it all meant. The knowledge was exquisite to me. I heard them hissing, and I smiled. What could they know of love such as ours? Take me away, Dorian--take me away with you, where we can be quite alone. I hate the stage. I might mimic a passion that I do not feel, but I cannot mimic one that burns me like fire. Oh, Dorian, Dorian, you understand now what it signifies? Even if I could do it, it would be profanation for me to play at being in love. You have made me see that." He flung himself down on the sofa and turned away his face. "You have killed my love," he muttered. She looked at him in wonder and laughed. He made no answer. She came across to him, and with her little fingers stroked his hair. She knelt down and pressed his hands to her lips. He drew them away, and a shudder ran through him. Then he leaped up and went to the door. "Yes," he cried, "you have killed my love. You used to stir my imagination. Now you don't even stir my curiosity. You simply produce no effect. I loved you because you were marvellous, because you had genius and intellect, because you realized the dreams of great poets and gave shape and substance to the shadows of art. You have thrown it all away. You are shallow and stupid. My God! how mad I was to love you! What a fool I have been! You are nothing to me now. I will never see you again. I will never think of you. I will never mention your name. You don't know what you were to me, once. Why, once ... Oh, I can't bear to think of it! I wish I had never laid eyes upon you! You have spoiled the romance of my life. How little you can know of love, if you say it mars your art! Without your art, you are nothing. I would have made you famous, splendid, magnificent. The world would have worshipped you, and you would have borne my name. What are you now? A third-rate actress with a pretty face." The girl grew white, and trembled. She clenched her hands together, and her voice seemed to catch in her throat. "You are not serious, Dorian?" she murmured. "You are acting." "Acting! I leave that to you. You do it so well," he answered bitterly. She rose from her knees and, with a piteous expression of pain in her face, came across the room to him. She put her hand upon his arm and looked into his eyes. He thrust her back. "Don't touch me!" he cried. A low moan broke from her, and she flung herself at his feet and lay there like a trampled flower. "Dorian, Dorian, don't leave me!" she whispered. "I am so sorry I didn't act well. I was thinking of you all the time. But I will try--indeed, I will try. It came so suddenly across me, my love for you. I think I should never have known it if you had not kissed me--if we had not kissed each other. Kiss me again, my love. Don't go away from me. I couldn't bear it. Oh! don't go away from me. My brother ... No; never mind. He didn't mean it. He was in jest.... But you, oh! can't you forgive me for to-night? I will work so hard and try to improve. Don't be cruel to me, because I love you better than anything in the world. After all, it is only once that I have not pleased you. But you are quite right, Dorian. I should have shown myself more of an artist. It was foolish of me, and yet I couldn't help it. Oh, don't leave me, don't leave me." A fit of passionate sobbing choked her. She crouched on the floor like a wounded thing, and Dorian Gray, with his beautiful eyes, looked down at her, and his chiselled lips curled in exquisite disdain. There is always something ridiculous about the emotions of people whom one has ceased to love. Sibyl Vane seemed to him to be absurdly melodramatic. Her tears and sobs annoyed him. "I am going," he said at last in his calm clear voice. "I don't wish to be unkind, but I can't see you again. You have disappointed me." She wept silently, and made no answer, but crept nearer. Her little hands stretched blindly out, and appeared to be seeking for him. He turned on his heel and left the room. In a few moments he was out of the theatre. Where he went to he hardly knew. He remembered wandering through dimly lit streets, past gaunt, black-shadowed archways and evil-looking houses. Women with hoarse voices and harsh laughter had called after him. Drunkards had reeled by, cursing and chattering to themselves like monstrous apes. He had seen grotesque children huddled upon door-steps, and heard shrieks and oaths from gloomy courts. As the dawn was just breaking, he found himself close to Covent Garden. The darkness lifted, and, flushed with faint fires, the sky hollowed itself into a perfect pearl. Huge carts filled with nodding lilies rumbled slowly down the polished empty street. The air was heavy with the perfume of the flowers, and their beauty seemed to bring him an anodyne for his pain. He followed into the market and watched the men unloading their waggons. A white-smocked carter offered him some cherries. He thanked him, wondered why he refused to accept any money for them, and began to eat them listlessly. They had been plucked at midnight, and the coldness of the moon had entered into them. A long line of boys carrying crates of striped tulips, and of yellow and red roses, defiled in front of him, threading their way through the huge, jade-green piles of vegetables. Under the portico, with its grey, sun-bleached pillars, loitered a troop of draggled bareheaded girls, waiting for the auction to be over. Others crowded round the swinging doors of the coffee-house in the piazza. The heavy cart-horses slipped and stamped upon the rough stones, shaking their bells and trappings. Some of the drivers were lying asleep on a pile of sacks. Iris-necked and pink-footed, the pigeons ran about picking up seeds. After a little while, he hailed a hansom and drove home. For a few moments he loitered upon the doorstep, looking round at the silent square, with its blank, close-shuttered windows and its staring blinds. The sky was pure opal now, and the roofs of the houses glistened like silver against it. From some chimney opposite a thin wreath of smoke was rising. It curled, a violet riband, through the nacre-coloured air. In the huge gilt Venetian lantern, spoil of some Doge's barge, that hung from the ceiling of the great, oak-panelled hall of entrance, lights were still burning from three flickering jets: thin blue petals of flame they seemed, rimmed with white fire. He turned them out and, having thrown his hat and cape on the table, passed through the library towards the door of his bedroom, a large octagonal chamber on the ground floor that, in his new-born feeling for luxury, he had just had decorated for himself and hung with some curious Renaissance tapestries that had been discovered stored in a disused attic at Selby Royal. As he was turning the handle of the door, his eye fell upon the portrait Basil Hallward had painted of him. He started back as if in surprise. Then he went on into his own room, looking somewhat puzzled. After he had taken the button-hole out of his coat, he seemed to hesitate. Finally, he came back, went over to the picture, and examined it. In the dim arrested light that struggled through the cream-coloured silk blinds, the face appeared to him to be a little changed. The expression looked different. One would have said that there was a touch of cruelty in the mouth. It was certainly strange. He turned round and, walking to the window, drew up the blind. The bright dawn flooded the room and swept the fantastic shadows into dusky corners, where they lay shuddering. But the strange expression that he had noticed in the face of the portrait seemed to linger there, to be more intensified even. The quivering ardent sunlight showed him the lines of cruelty round the mouth as clearly as if he had been looking into a mirror after he had done some dreadful thing. He winced and, taking up from the table an oval glass framed in ivory Cupids, one of Lord Henry's many presents to him, glanced hurriedly into its polished depths. No line like that warped his red lips. What did it mean? He rubbed his eyes, and came close to the picture, and examined it again. There were no signs of any change when he looked into the actual painting, and yet there was no doubt that the whole expression had altered. It was not a mere fancy of his own. The thing was horribly apparent. He threw himself into a chair and began to think. Suddenly there flashed across his mind what he had said in Basil Hallward's studio the day the picture had been finished. Yes, he remembered it perfectly. He had uttered a mad wish that he himself might remain young, and the portrait grow old; that his own beauty might be untarnished, and the face on the canvas bear the burden of his passions and his sins; that the painted image might be seared with the lines of suffering and thought, and that he might keep all the delicate bloom and loveliness of his then just conscious boyhood. Surely his wish had not been fulfilled? Such things were impossible. It seemed monstrous even to think of them. And, yet, there was the picture before him, with the touch of cruelty in the mouth. Cruelty! Had he been cruel? It was the girl's fault, not his. He had dreamed of her as a great artist, had given his love to her because he had thought her great. Then she had disappointed him. She had been shallow and unworthy. And, yet, a feeling of infinite regret came over him, as he thought of her lying at his feet sobbing like a little child. He remembered with what callousness he had watched her. Why had he been made like that? Why had such a soul been given to him? But he had suffered also. During the three terrible hours that the play had lasted, he had lived centuries of pain, aeon upon aeon of torture. His life was well worth hers. She had marred him for a moment, if he had wounded her for an age. Besides, women were better suited to bear sorrow than men. They lived on their emotions. They only thought of their emotions. When they took lovers, it was merely to have some one with whom they could have scenes. Lord Henry had told him that, and Lord Henry knew what women were. Why should he trouble about Sibyl Vane? She was nothing to him now. But the picture? What was he to say of that? It held the secret of his life, and told his story. It had taught him to love his own beauty. Would it teach him to loathe his own soul? Would he ever look at it again? No; it was merely an illusion wrought on the troubled senses. The horrible night that he had passed had left phantoms behind it. Suddenly there had fallen upon his brain that tiny scarlet speck that makes men mad. The picture had not changed. It was folly to think so. Yet it was watching him, with its beautiful marred face and its cruel smile. Its bright hair gleamed in the early sunlight. Its blue eyes met his own. A sense of infinite pity, not for himself, but for the painted image of himself, came over him. It had altered already, and would alter more. Its gold would wither into grey. Its red and white roses would die. For every sin that he committed, a stain would fleck and wreck its fairness. But he would not sin. The picture, changed or unchanged, would be to him the visible emblem of conscience. He would resist temptation. He would not see Lord Henry any more--would not, at any rate, listen to those subtle poisonous theories that in Basil Hallward's garden had first stirred within him the passion for impossible things. He would go back to Sibyl Vane, make her amends, marry her, try to love her again. Yes, it was his duty to do so. She must have suffered more than he had. Poor child! He had been selfish and cruel to her. The fascination that she had exercised over him would return. They would be happy together. His life with her would be beautiful and pure. He got up from his chair and drew a large screen right in front of the portrait, shuddering as he glanced at it. "How horrible!" he murmured to himself, and he walked across to the window and opened it. When he stepped out on to the grass, he drew a deep breath. The fresh morning air seemed to drive away all his sombre passions. He thought only of Sibyl. A faint echo of his love came back to him. He repeated her name over and over again. The birds that were singing in the dew-drenched garden seemed to be telling the flowers about her.

Chapter 7

https://web.archive.org/web/20201219150422/https://www.cliffsnotes.com/literature/p/the-picture-of-dorian-gray/summary-and-analysis/chapter-7

The theatre is crowded when Dorian, Basil, and Lord Henry arrive. When Sibyl appears onstage as Juliet, Lord Henry thinks she is one of the "loveliest creatures" he has seen, fawn-like in her grace and innocence. Her performance, however, is worse than disappointing. She seems listless and artificial; in fact, she is absolutely awful. Dorian is more disgusted than embarrassed by Sybil's acting. Lord Henry and Basil leave, as does half the audience, but Dorian sits through the entire play. In the greenroom after the play is finished, Sibyl seems overjoyed at her dismal performance and expects Dorian to understand that she can no longer act because she has found true love in real life. She intended to be outstanding, she says, but because Dorian has taught her "what reality really is," she no longer can believe in the fake world of plays. She asks Dorian to take her away so that they might begin their life together. Dorian's response is cold and filled with disgust: "You have killed my love," he mutters. He loved her because she was a great performer, he says. Now he finds her "shallow and stupid" and can barely stand her. Sibyl is distraught. Apologizing for her bad performance, she pleads with Dorian to give her another chance. Sobbing, she falls to the floor and begs him not to leave her. As she cries hysterically, she begins to recount her brother's threat to kill anyone who harms her, but she shakes off the thought, reminding herself out loud that the threat was just a joke. Dorian is annoyed with Sybil and tells her that he cannot see her anymore. Abruptly, he leaves. Dorian wanders the streets until near dawn and then returns home. Passing through his library toward his bedroom, he notices the portrait that Basil painted of him. He is startled and puzzled, but he goes on into his bedroom. He begins to undress but pauses and returns to the library to look at the portrait. To Dorian, the face in the portrait has slightly changed, taking on a look of cruelty around the mouth. Going to the window, he sees a bright dawn. He looks again at the painting. The "lines of cruelty round the mouth" are still there, even more clearly than before. Looking at his reflection in a mirror, Dorian looks fresh and youthful. Suddenly he recalls the wish he earlier made at Basil's studio, that he might remain the same while the picture took on the "lines of suffering and thought," the various signs of corruption and age that Dorian's life might bring him. He thinks that such a wish could never be fulfilled. Surely it is impossible. Still, there are the cruel lines about the mouth in the portrait. Dorian begins to wonder if he really has been cruel to Sibyl. However, he convinces himself that he is not to blame for the situation. Sibyl is to blame because she disappointed him and made him endure the three painful hours of her terrible performance. Eventually, he convinces himself that Sibyl hadn't really loved him, and he concludes that he needn't be concerned about her at all. Dorian is more concerned about the changed portrait than with Sibyl. It occurs to Dorian that every sin he commits will be reflected in the face on the canvas. He vows never to sin again so that the painting, like himself, will never change. He vows to use the portrait as his conscience; the danger of hurting the portrait will keep him from committing sins. He will refuse to see Lord Henry or at least will ignore Lord Henry's "subtle poisonous theories." He will return to Sibyl, apologize, and marry her. He pulls a screen in front of the painting and walks outside. The chapter ends as Dorian repeats Sibyl's name into the dawn.

In Chapter 7, Dorian's narrative supercedes all others in the novel. From now on, it will be his story, not Lord Henry's. The novel becomes more dynamic because Dorian's character grows -- changes -- while Lord Henry's remains unchanged. The change in Dorian's character in this chapter is dramatic. Dorian begins the chapter as a dedicated lover. Then, in a few short pages, he becomes a disgusted critic, a heartless deserter, briefly a contrite sinner, and then finally a lover rededicated to Sibyl -- not because he loves the woman, but because he fears hurting himself and the portrait. Even though the chapter ends with Dorian intending to do "his duty" by being honorable and marrying Sibyl, his honor is false because it is based on selfishness. His "honorable intentions" are simply a continuation of his soul's degradation. The number and degree of changes that Dorian goes through in this chapter, most of them negative changes, hint at the turn his nature will take in the rest of the book. Chapter 7 also introduces an element that will reoccur throughout the story: the changing of the portrait. By the end of the chapter, the reader understands that the portrait will symbolize the state of Dorian's soul and spirit. Wilde will use the portrait to help develop his characterization of Dorian for the rest of the book. Dorian's special relationship with his portrait continues the Faust theme. His wish about the portrait suggests a pact with the devil. Dorian's desire to escape the "poisonous theories" of Lord Henry indicates that he sees his mentor as an evil, devil-like influence, but, like Faust, Dorian seems eager to benefit from the fruits of his pact, namely the eternal youth that the portrait offers him. Glossary Miranda a leading character in William Shakespeare's The Tempest. Caliban a savage who is half-man, half-beast in The Tempest. tawdry gaudy; cheap; vulgarly ornamental. listless lacking energy or effort. Good pilgrim . . . holy palmer's kiss a quote from Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet, Act I, Scene 5, 99-102. Thou knowest . . . speak tonight a quote from Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet, Act II, Scene 2, 85-87. elocution the art of public speaking. Although I joy . . . when next we meet a quote from Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet, Act II, Scene 2, 116-22. Portia a leading character in William Shakespeare's The Merchant of Venice. Beatrice a leading character in William Shakespeare's Much Ado About Nothing. Cordelia a leading character in William Shakespeare's King Lear. nacre mother-of-pearl.

shmoop

all_chapterized_books/1526-chapters/10.txt

finished_summaries/shmoop/Twelfth Night, or What You Will/section_9_part_0.txt

Twelfth Night, or What You Will.act 2.scene 5

act 2, scene 5

{"name": "Act 2, Scene 5", "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20210415161814/https://www.shmoop.com/study-guides/literature/twelfth-night/summary/act-2-scene-5", "summary": "In Olivia's garden, Toby and Aguecheek hang out with Fabian, who worries that he'll get in trouble again if he helps them trick Malvolio. Seems Malvolio told on Fabian earlier for holding a bear-baiting contest at Olivia's place. Toby Belch says not to worry--they'll make Malvolio pay for being such a drag. Maria enters and tells the men Malvolio has been hanging out alone practicing acting super cool for the past half hour. Now he's headed this way, and she knows the letter she wrote is going to make him act like an even bigger fool. She tells everyone to hide behind a tree and put the letter on the ground for Malvolio to find. Malvolio enters the garden talking to himself. First he says he thinks Maria wants him and then he fantasizes about being married to Olivia, which would make him a Count who could boss around Sir Toby and his raucous little crew. Toby and Aguecheek can hardly contain their laughter and their anger at Malvolio's audacity. The fantasy continues as Malvolio daydreams about fondling some expensive jewels and lecturing Toby for his drunkenness. Malvolio finds the letter and thinks right away that it's written in Olivia's handwriting. He thinks the letter is meant for him because it spells out M-A-O-I, all letters that appear in the name Malvolio. The letter instructs Malvolio to pick fights with Toby and company, wear yellow stockings with cross-garters, and smile at everything, even when Olivia's in a sad mood. Malvolio is all over this and runs off to change his clothes. Toby is psyched - Maria's plot is so clever that he's tempted to marry her. Maria enters and gloats about her evil genius plan. Malvolio is sure to make a fool of himself while annoying Olivia to no end.", "analysis": ""}

SCENE V. OLIVIA'S garden. [Enter SIR TOBY BELCH, SIR ANDREW AGUE-CHEEK, and FABIAN.] SIR TOBY. Come thy ways, Signior Fabian. FABIAN. Nay, I'll come; if I lose a scruple of this sport let me be boiled to death with melancholy. SIR TOBY. Wouldst thou not be glad to have the niggardly rascally sheep-biter come by some notable shame? FABIAN. I would exult, man; you know he brought me out o' favour with my lady about a bear-baiting here. SIR TOBY. To anger him we'll have the bear again; and we will fool him black and blue:--shall we not, Sir Andrew? SIR ANDREW. An we do not, it is pity of our lives. [Enter MARIA.] SIR TOBY. Here comes the little villain:--How now, my nettle of India? MARIA. Get ye all three into the box-tree: Malvolio's coming down this walk; he has been yonder i' the sun practising behaviour to his own shadow this half hour: observe him, for the love of mockery; for I know this letter will make a contemplative idiot of him. Close, in the name of jesting! [The men hide themselves.] Lie thou there; [Throws down a letter] for here comes the trout that must be caught with tickling. [Exit Maria.] [Enter MALVOLIO.] MALVOLIO. 'Tis but fortune; all is fortune. Maria once told me she did affect me: and I have heard herself come thus near, that, should she fancy, it should be one of my complexion. Besides, she uses me with a more exalted respect than any one else that follows her. What should I think on't? SIR TOBY. Here's an overweening rogue! FABIAN. O, peace! Contemplation makes a rare turkey-cock of him; how he jets under his advanced plumes! SIR ANDREW. 'Slight, I could so beat the rogue:-- SIR TOBY. Peace, I say. MALVOLIO. To be Count Malvolio;-- SIR TOBY. Ah, rogue! SIR ANDREW. Pistol him, pistol him. SIR TOBY. Peace, peace. MALVOLIO. There is example for't; the lady of the Strachy married the yeoman of the wardrobe. SIR ANDREW. Fie on him, Jezebel! FABIAN. O, peace! now he's deeply in; look how imagination blows him. MALVOLIO. Having been three months married to her, sitting in my state,-- SIR TOBY. O for a stone-bow to hit him in the eye! MALVOLIO. Calling my officers about me, in my branched velvet gown; having come from a day-bed, where I have left Olivia sleeping. SIR TOBY. Fire and brimstone! FABIAN. O, peace, peace. MALVOLIO. And then to have the humour of state: and after a demure travel of regard,--telling them I know my place as I would they should do theirs,--to ask for my kinsman Toby. SIR TOBY. Bolts and shackles! FABIAN. O, peace, peace, peace! Now, now. MALVOLIO. Seven of my people, with an obedient start, make out for him: I frown the while, and perchance, wind up my watch, or play with some rich jewel. Toby approaches; court'sies there to me: SIR TOBY. Shall this fellow live? FABIAN. Though our silence be drawn from us with cars, yet peace. MALVOLIO. I extend my hand to him thus, quenching my familiar smile with an austere regard of control: SIR TOBY. And does not Toby take you a blow o' the lips then? MALVOLIO. Saying 'Cousin Toby, my fortunes having cast me on your niece, give me this prerogative of speech':-- SIR TOBY. What, what? MALVOLIO. 'You must amend your drunkenness.' SIR TOBY. Out, scab! FABIAN. Nay, patience, or we break the sinews of our plot. MALVOLIO. 'Besides, you waste the treasure of your time with a foolish knight'; SIR ANDREW. That's me, I warrant you. MALVOLIO. 'One Sir Andrew': SIR ANDREW. I knew 'twas I; for many do call me fool. MALVOLIO. What employment have we here? [Taking up the letter.] FABIAN. Now is the woodcock near the gin. SIR TOBY. O, peace! And the spirit of humours intimate reading aloud to him! MALVOLIO. By my life, this is my lady's hand: these be her very C's, her U's, and her T's; and thus makes she her great P's. It is in contempt of question, her hand. SIR ANDREW. Her C's, her U's, and her T's. Why that? MALVOLIO. [Reads] 'To the unknown beloved, this, and my good wishes.' Her very phrases!--By your leave, wax.--Soft!--and the impressure her Lucrece, with which she uses to seal: 'tis my lady. To whom should this be? FABIAN. This wins him, liver and all. MALVOLIO. [Reads] 'Jove knows I love, But who? Lips, do not move, No man must know.' 'No man must know.'--What follows? the numbers alter'd!--'No man must know':--If this should be thee, Malvolio? SIR TOBY. Marry, hang thee, brock! MALVOLIO. 'I may command where I adore: But silence, like a Lucrece knife, With bloodless stroke my heart doth gore; M, O, A, I, doth sway my life.' FABIAN. A fustian riddle! SIR TOBY. Excellent wench, say I. MALVOLIO. 'M, O, A, I, doth sway my life.'--Nay, but first let me see,--let me see,--let me see. FABIAN. What dish of poison has she dressed him! SIR TOBY. And with what wing the stannyel checks at it! MALVOLIO. 'I may command where I adore.' Why, she may command me: I serve her, she is my lady. Why, this is evident to any formal capacity; there is no obstruction in this;--And the end,--What should that alphabetical position portend? If I could make that resemble something in me.--Softly!--M, O, A, I.-- SIR TOBY. O, ay, make up that:--he is now at a cold scent. FABIAN. Sowter will cry upon't for all this, though it be as rank as a fox. MALVOLIO. M,--Malvolio; M,--why, that begins my name. FABIAN. Did not I say he would work it out? The cur is excellent at faults. MALVOLIO. M,--But then there is no consonancy in the sequel; that suffers under probation: A should follow, but O does. FABIAN. And O shall end, I hope. SIR TOBY. Ay, or I'll cudgel him, and make him cry 'O!' MALVOLIO. And then I comes behind. FABIAN. Ay, an you had any eye behind you, you might see more detraction at your heels than fortunes before you. MALVOLIO. M, O, A, I;--This simulation is not as the former:--and yet, to crush this a little, it would bow to me, for every one of these letters are in my name. Soft; here follows prose.-- 'If this fall into thy hand, revolve. In my stars I am above thee; but be not afraid of greatness. Some are born great, some achieve greatness, and some have greatness thrust upon them. Thy fates open their hands; let thy blood and spirit embrace them. And, to inure thyself to what thou art like to be, cast thy humble slough and appear fresh. Be opposite with a kinsman, surly with servants: let thy tongue tang arguments of state; put thyself into the trick of singularity: She thus advises thee that sighs for thee. Remember who commended thy yellow stockings, and wished to see thee ever cross-gartered. I say, remember. Go to; thou art made, if thou desirest to be so; if not, let me see thee a steward still, the fellow of servants, and not worthy to touch fortune's fingers. Farewell. She that would alter services with thee, 'The fortunate-unhappy.' Daylight and champian discovers not more: this is open. I will be proud, I will read politic authors, I will baffle Sir Toby, I will wash off gross acquaintance, I will be point-device, the very man. I do not now fool myself to let imagination jade me; for every reason excites to this, that my lady loves me. She did commend my yellow stockings of late, she did praise my leg being cross-gartered; and in this she manifests herself to my love, and with a kind of injunction, drives me to these habits of her liking. I thank my stars I am happy. I will be strange, stout, in yellow stockings, and cross-gartered, even with the swiftness of putting on. Jove and my stars be praised!--Here is yet a postscript. 'Thou canst not choose but know who I am. If thou entertainest my love, let it appear in thy smiling; thy smiles become thee well: therefore in my presence still smile, dear my sweet, I pr'ythee.' Jove, I thank thee. I will smile; I will do everything that thou wilt have me. [Exit.] FABIAN. I will not give my part of this sport for a pension of thousands to be paid from the Sophy. SIR TOBY. I could marry this wench for this device: SIR ANDREW. So could I too. SIR TOBY. And ask no other dowry with her but such another jest. [Enter MARIA.] SIR ANDREW. Nor I neither. FABIAN. Here comes my noble gull-catcher. SIR TOBY. Wilt thou set thy foot o' my neck? SIR ANDREW. Or o' mine either? SIR TOBY. Shall I play my freedom at tray-trip, and become thy bond-slave? SIR ANDREW. I' faith, or I either? SIR TOBY. Why, thou hast put him in such a dream, that, when the image of it leaves him, he must run mad. MARIA. Nay, but say true; does it work upon him? SIR TOBY. Like aqua-vitae with a midwife. MARIA. If you will then see the fruits of the sport, mark his first approach before my lady: he will come to her in yellow stockings, and 'tis a colour she abhors, and cross-gartered, a fashion she detests; and he will smile upon her, which will now be so unsuitable to her disposition, being addicted to a melancholy as she is, that it cannot but turn him into a notable contempt; if you will see it, follow me. SIR TOBY. To the gates of Tartar, thou most excellent devil of wit! SIR ANDREW. I'll make one too. [Exeunt.]

Act 2, Scene 5

https://web.archive.org/web/20210415161814/https://www.shmoop.com/study-guides/literature/twelfth-night/summary/act-2-scene-5

In Olivia's garden, Toby and Aguecheek hang out with Fabian, who worries that he'll get in trouble again if he helps them trick Malvolio. Seems Malvolio told on Fabian earlier for holding a bear-baiting contest at Olivia's place. Toby Belch says not to worry--they'll make Malvolio pay for being such a drag. Maria enters and tells the men Malvolio has been hanging out alone practicing acting super cool for the past half hour. Now he's headed this way, and she knows the letter she wrote is going to make him act like an even bigger fool. She tells everyone to hide behind a tree and put the letter on the ground for Malvolio to find. Malvolio enters the garden talking to himself. First he says he thinks Maria wants him and then he fantasizes about being married to Olivia, which would make him a Count who could boss around Sir Toby and his raucous little crew. Toby and Aguecheek can hardly contain their laughter and their anger at Malvolio's audacity. The fantasy continues as Malvolio daydreams about fondling some expensive jewels and lecturing Toby for his drunkenness. Malvolio finds the letter and thinks right away that it's written in Olivia's handwriting. He thinks the letter is meant for him because it spells out M-A-O-I, all letters that appear in the name Malvolio. The letter instructs Malvolio to pick fights with Toby and company, wear yellow stockings with cross-garters, and smile at everything, even when Olivia's in a sad mood. Malvolio is all over this and runs off to change his clothes. Toby is psyched - Maria's plot is so clever that he's tempted to marry her. Maria enters and gloats about her evil genius plan. Malvolio is sure to make a fool of himself while annoying Olivia to no end.

cliffnotes

all_chapterized_books/107-chapters/44.txt

finished_summaries/cliffnotes/Far from the Madding Crowd/section_43_part_0.txt

Far from the Madding Crowd.chapter 44

chapter 44

{"name": "Chapter 44", "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20201101052914/https://www.cliffsnotes.com/literature/f/far-from-the-madding-crowd/summary-and-analysis/chapter-44", "summary": "\"Bathsheba went along the dark road, neither knowing nor caring about the direction or issue of her flight.\" Finally she sank down in a brake of ferns. At daybreak, unsure whether or not she had slept, she felt calmer. Eventually Liddy found her, and the two women decided to walk about until Fanny had been taken away. Liddy went back to the house to check, telling those who asked that her mistress was unwell so that people would assume Bathsheba was in her room. When Liddy returned, Bathsheba lectured her, warning, \"You,'ll find yourself in a fearful situation; but mind this, don't you flinch. Stand your ground, and be cut to pieces. That's what I'm going to do.\" They re-entered the rear of the house, Bathsheba withdrawing into an unused attic. Liddy brought in a piece of carpet and laid a fire. From the window Bathsheba viewed the farm and saw the young men at play in the sunset. Suddenly they stopped. Liddy said, \"I think 'twas because two men came just then from Casterbridge and began putting up a grand carved tombstone.\" The young men had gone to see whom the stone was for. \"'Do you know?' Bathsheba asked. \"'I don't,' said Liddy.\"", "analysis": "Hardy does not use nature as mere setting: It is an integral part of his story. Bathsheba discovers before her a hollow in which there is a swamp: \"The general aspect of the swamp was malignant. From its moist and poisonous coat seemed to be exhaled the essences of evil things in the earth. . . . Bathsheba arose with a tremor at the thought of having passed the night on the brink of so dismal a place.\" Thus Bathsheba's physical surroundings reflect the dark happenings in her life. She has been brought to the edge of an evil abyss, but she has not fallen into it."}

UNDER A TREE--REACTION Bathsheba went along the dark road, neither knowing nor caring about the direction or issue of her flight. The first time that she definitely noticed her position was when she reached a gate leading into a thicket overhung by some large oak and beech trees. On looking into the place, it occurred to her that she had seen it by daylight on some previous occasion, and that what appeared like an impassable thicket was in reality a brake of fern now withering fast. She could think of nothing better to do with her palpitating self than to go in here and hide; and entering, she lighted on a spot sheltered from the damp fog by a reclining trunk, where she sank down upon a tangled couch of fronds and stems. She mechanically pulled some armfuls round her to keep off the breezes, and closed her eyes. Whether she slept or not that night Bathsheba was not clearly aware. But it was with a freshened existence and a cooler brain that, a long time afterwards, she became conscious of some interesting proceedings which were going on in the trees above her head and around. A coarse-throated chatter was the first sound. It was a sparrow just waking. Next: "Chee-weeze-weeze-weeze!" from another retreat. It was a finch. Third: "Tink-tink-tink-tink-a-chink!" from the hedge. It was a robin. "Chuck-chuck-chuck!" overhead. A squirrel. Then, from the road, "With my ra-ta-ta, and my rum-tum-tum!" It was a ploughboy. Presently he came opposite, and she believed from his voice that he was one of the boys on her own farm. He was followed by a shambling tramp of heavy feet, and looking through the ferns Bathsheba could just discern in the wan light of daybreak a team of her own horses. They stopped to drink at a pond on the other side of the way. She watched them flouncing into the pool, drinking, tossing up their heads, drinking again, the water dribbling from their lips in silver threads. There was another flounce, and they came out of the pond, and turned back again towards the farm. She looked further around. Day was just dawning, and beside its cool air and colours her heated actions and resolves of the night stood out in lurid contrast. She perceived that in her lap, and clinging to her hair, were red and yellow leaves which had come down from the tree and settled silently upon her during her partial sleep. Bathsheba shook her dress to get rid of them, when multitudes of the same family lying round about her rose and fluttered away in the breeze thus created, "like ghosts from an enchanter fleeing." There was an opening towards the east, and the glow from the as yet unrisen sun attracted her eyes thither. From her feet, and between the beautiful yellowing ferns with their feathery arms, the ground sloped downwards to a hollow, in which was a species of swamp, dotted with fungi. A morning mist hung over it now--a fulsome yet magnificent silvery veil, full of light from the sun, yet semi-opaque--the hedge behind it being in some measure hidden by its hazy luminousness. Up the sides of this depression grew sheaves of the common rush, and here and there a peculiar species of flag, the blades of which glistened in the emerging sun, like scythes. But the general aspect of the swamp was malignant. From its moist and poisonous coat seemed to be exhaled the essences of evil things in the earth, and in the waters under the earth. The fungi grew in all manner of positions from rotting leaves and tree stumps, some exhibiting to her listless gaze their clammy tops, others their oozing gills. Some were marked with great splotches, red as arterial blood, others were saffron yellow, and others tall and attenuated, with stems like macaroni. Some were leathery and of richest browns. The hollow seemed a nursery of pestilences small and great, in the immediate neighbourhood of comfort and health, and Bathsheba arose with a tremor at the thought of having passed the night on the brink of so dismal a place. There were now other footsteps to be heard along the road. Bathsheba's nerves were still unstrung: she crouched down out of sight again, and the pedestrian came into view. He was a schoolboy, with a bag slung over his shoulder containing his dinner, and a book in his hand. He paused by the gate, and, without looking up, continued murmuring words in tones quite loud enough to reach her ears. "'O Lord, O Lord, O Lord, O Lord, O Lord':--that I know out o' book. 'Give us, give us, give us, give us, give us':--that I know. 'Grace that, grace that, grace that, grace that':--that I know." Other words followed to the same effect. The boy was of the dunce class apparently; the book was a psalter, and this was his way of learning the collect. In the worst attacks of trouble there appears to be always a superficial film of consciousness which is left disengaged and open to the notice of trifles, and Bathsheba was faintly amused at the boy's method, till he too passed on. By this time stupor had given place to anxiety, and anxiety began to make room for hunger and thirst. A form now appeared upon the rise on the other side of the swamp, half-hidden by the mist, and came towards Bathsheba. The woman--for it was a woman--approached with her face askance, as if looking earnestly on all sides of her. When she got a little further round to the left, and drew nearer, Bathsheba could see the newcomer's profile against the sunny sky, and knew the wavy sweep from forehead to chin, with neither angle nor decisive line anywhere about it, to be the familiar contour of Liddy Smallbury. Bathsheba's heart bounded with gratitude in the thought that she was not altogether deserted, and she jumped up. "Oh, Liddy!" she said, or attempted to say; but the words had only been framed by her lips; there came no sound. She had lost her voice by exposure to the clogged atmosphere all these hours of night. "Oh, ma'am! I am so glad I have found you," said the girl, as soon as she saw Bathsheba. "You can't come across," Bathsheba said in a whisper, which she vainly endeavoured to make loud enough to reach Liddy's ears. Liddy, not knowing this, stepped down upon the swamp, saying, as she did so, "It will bear me up, I think." Bathsheba never forgot that transient little picture of Liddy crossing the swamp to her there in the morning light. Iridescent bubbles of dank subterranean breath rose from the sweating sod beside the waiting-maid's feet as she trod, hissing as they burst and expanded away to join the vapoury firmament above. Liddy did not sink, as Bathsheba had anticipated. She landed safely on the other side, and looked up at the beautiful though pale and weary face of her young mistress. "Poor thing!" said Liddy, with tears in her eyes, "Do hearten yourself up a little, ma'am. However did--" "I can't speak above a whisper--my voice is gone for the present," said Bathsheba, hurriedly. "I suppose the damp air from that hollow has taken it away. Liddy, don't question me, mind. Who sent you--anybody?" "Nobody. I thought, when I found you were not at home, that something cruel had happened. I fancy I heard his voice late last night; and so, knowing something was wrong--" "Is he at home?" "No; he left just before I came out." "Is Fanny taken away?" "Not yet. She will soon be--at nine o'clock." "We won't go home at present, then. Suppose we walk about in this wood?" Liddy, without exactly understanding everything, or anything, in this episode, assented, and they walked together further among the trees. "But you had better come in, ma'am, and have something to eat. You will die of a chill!" "I shall not come indoors yet--perhaps never." "Shall I get you something to eat, and something else to put over your head besides that little shawl?" "If you will, Liddy." Liddy vanished, and at the end of twenty minutes returned with a cloak, hat, some slices of bread and butter, a tea-cup, and some hot tea in a little china jug. "Is Fanny gone?" said Bathsheba. "No," said her companion, pouring out the tea. Bathsheba wrapped herself up and ate and drank sparingly. Her voice was then a little clearer, and trifling colour returned to her face. "Now we'll walk about again," she said. They wandered about the wood for nearly two hours, Bathsheba replying in monosyllables to Liddy's prattle, for her mind ran on one subject, and one only. She interrupted with-- "I wonder if Fanny is gone by this time?" "I will go and see." She came back with the information that the men were just taking away the corpse; that Bathsheba had been inquired for; that she had replied to the effect that her mistress was unwell and could not be seen. "Then they think I am in my bedroom?" "Yes." Liddy then ventured to add: "You said when I first found you that you might never go home again--you didn't mean it, ma'am?" "No; I've altered my mind. It is only women with no pride in them who run away from their husbands. There is one position worse than that of being found dead in your husband's house from his ill usage, and that is, to be found alive through having gone away to the house of somebody else. I've thought of it all this morning, and I've chosen my course. A runaway wife is an encumbrance to everybody, a burden to herself and a byword--all of which make up a heap of misery greater than any that comes by staying at home--though this may include the trifling items of insult, beating, and starvation. Liddy, if ever you marry--God forbid that you ever should!--you'll find yourself in a fearful situation; but mind this, don't you flinch. Stand your ground, and be cut to pieces. That's what I'm going to do." "Oh, mistress, don't talk so!" said Liddy, taking her hand; "but I knew you had too much sense to bide away. May I ask what dreadful thing it is that has happened between you and him?" "You may ask; but I may not tell." In about ten minutes they returned to the house by a circuitous route, entering at the rear. Bathsheba glided up the back stairs to a disused attic, and her companion followed. "Liddy," she said, with a lighter heart, for youth and hope had begun to reassert themselves; "you are to be my confidante for the present--somebody must be--and I choose you. Well, I shall take up my abode here for a while. Will you get a fire lighted, put down a piece of carpet, and help me to make the place comfortable. Afterwards, I want you and Maryann to bring up that little stump bedstead in the small room, and the bed belonging to it, and a table, and some other things.... What shall I do to pass the heavy time away?" "Hemming handkerchiefs is a very good thing," said Liddy. "Oh no, no! I hate needlework--I always did." "Knitting?" "And that, too." "You might finish your sampler. Only the carnations and peacocks want filling in; and then it could be framed and glazed, and hung beside your aunt's ma'am." "Samplers are out of date--horribly countrified. No Liddy, I'll read. Bring up some books--not new ones. I haven't heart to read anything new." "Some of your uncle's old ones, ma'am?" "Yes. Some of those we stowed away in boxes." A faint gleam of humour passed over her face as she said: "Bring Beaumont and Fletcher's _Maid's Tragedy_, and the _Mourning Bride_, and--let me see--_Night Thoughts_, and the _Vanity of Human Wishes_." "And that story of the black man, who murdered his wife Desdemona? It is a nice dismal one that would suit you excellent just now." "Now, Liddy, you've been looking into my books without telling me; and I said you were not to! How do you know it would suit me? It wouldn't suit me at all." "But if the others do--" "No, they don't; and I won't read dismal books. Why should I read dismal books, indeed? Bring me _Love in a Village_, and _Maid of the Mill_, and _Doctor Syntax_, and some volumes of the _Spectator-_." All that day Bathsheba and Liddy lived in the attic in a state of barricade; a precaution which proved to be needless as against Troy, for he did not appear in the neighbourhood or trouble them at all. Bathsheba sat at the window till sunset, sometimes attempting to read, at other times watching every movement outside without much purpose, and listening without much interest to every sound. The sun went down almost blood-red that night, and a livid cloud received its rays in the east. Up against this dark background the west front of the church tower--the only part of the edifice visible from the farm-house windows--rose distinct and lustrous, the vane upon the summit bristling with rays. Hereabouts, at six o'clock, the young men of the village gathered, as was their custom, for a game of Prisoners' base. The spot had been consecrated to this ancient diversion from time immemorial, the old stocks conveniently forming a base facing the boundary of the churchyard, in front of which the ground was trodden hard and bare as a pavement by the players. She could see the brown and black heads of the young lads darting about right and left, their white shirt-sleeves gleaming in the sun; whilst occasionally a shout and a peal of hearty laughter varied the stillness of the evening air. They continued playing for a quarter of an hour or so, when the game concluded abruptly, and the players leapt over the wall and vanished round to the other side behind a yew-tree, which was also half behind a beech, now spreading in one mass of golden foliage, on which the branches traced black lines. "Why did the base-players finish their game so suddenly?" Bathsheba inquired, the next time that Liddy entered the room. "I think 'twas because two men came just then from Casterbridge and began putting up a grand carved tombstone," said Liddy. "The lads went to see whose it was." "Do you know?" Bathsheba asked. "I don't," said Liddy.

Chapter 44

https://web.archive.org/web/20201101052914/https://www.cliffsnotes.com/literature/f/far-from-the-madding-crowd/summary-and-analysis/chapter-44

"Bathsheba went along the dark road, neither knowing nor caring about the direction or issue of her flight." Finally she sank down in a brake of ferns. At daybreak, unsure whether or not she had slept, she felt calmer. Eventually Liddy found her, and the two women decided to walk about until Fanny had been taken away. Liddy went back to the house to check, telling those who asked that her mistress was unwell so that people would assume Bathsheba was in her room. When Liddy returned, Bathsheba lectured her, warning, "You,'ll find yourself in a fearful situation; but mind this, don't you flinch. Stand your ground, and be cut to pieces. That's what I'm going to do." They re-entered the rear of the house, Bathsheba withdrawing into an unused attic. Liddy brought in a piece of carpet and laid a fire. From the window Bathsheba viewed the farm and saw the young men at play in the sunset. Suddenly they stopped. Liddy said, "I think 'twas because two men came just then from Casterbridge and began putting up a grand carved tombstone." The young men had gone to see whom the stone was for. "'Do you know?' Bathsheba asked. "'I don't,' said Liddy."

Hardy does not use nature as mere setting: It is an integral part of his story. Bathsheba discovers before her a hollow in which there is a swamp: "The general aspect of the swamp was malignant. From its moist and poisonous coat seemed to be exhaled the essences of evil things in the earth. . . . Bathsheba arose with a tremor at the thought of having passed the night on the brink of so dismal a place." Thus Bathsheba's physical surroundings reflect the dark happenings in her life. She has been brought to the edge of an evil abyss, but she has not fallen into it.

cliffnotes

all_chapterized_books/110-chapters/chapters_50_to_52.txt

finished_summaries/cliffnotes/Tess of the d'Urbervilles/section_12_part_0.txt

Tess of the d'Urbervilles.chapters 50-52

chapters 50-52

{"name": "Chapters 50-52", "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20201219151046/https://www.cliffsnotes.com/literature/t/tess-of-the-durbervilles/summary-and-analysis/phase-the-sixth-the-convert-chapters-5052", "summary": "Tess travels the Wessex countryside and arrives at Marlott at 3 a.m. She finds a neighbor sitting with her parents, both of whom are ill. Tess also finds that the allotment for the family garden has not been planted. She and Liza Lu begin work at once on the garden while the parents recuperate. Tess even works by moonlight to complete the spring gardening task. Alec finds Tess in the garden and approaches her to tell her he has left a gift for her at the house. Liza Lu returns to tell Tess that their mother has recovered but their father, John Durbeyfield, has died. With John dead, the family is evicted; another larger family has procured the home. Tess and her family, however, feel as though the eviction has been precipitated because of Tess' past and the scorn of the villagers. The family hires a cart and horse to take them to nearby Kingsbere. Alec appears again to lend his support, but Tess refuses his help. Tess pens a passionate letter to Angel, as she feels she cannot resist the temptation of Alec and his willingness to aid her family. The next day, as the family makes its way to Kingsbere, Tess meets Marian and Izz, who have now begun work for another farmer. She relates what has happened to her father. Upon arrival in Kingsbere, the family learns that their intended house has been rented to someone else. All of their goods are unloaded in the churchyard while a new house is procured. As the family beds down under the stars for the night, Tess goes into the church and finds Alec lying on a tomb. He frightens Tess when she sees his body on top of a crypt. Meanwhile, Marian and Izz write a letter to Angel urging him to come at once.", "analysis": "The death of John Durbeyfield leaves the family destitute and homeless. Instead of being forced out of their home in search of new work, the Durbeyfield's are forced out because another family needs the house, can pay rent, and do not have the Durbeyfield's past problems: \"It was, indeed, quite true that the household had not been shining examples either of temperance, soberness or chastity. The father, and even the mother, had got drunk at times, the younger children seldom had gone to church, and the eldest daughter had made queer unions.\" This passage is Hardy's commentary on the forced expulsions of hundreds of families in England. During his lifetime, these expulsions caused urban areas to explode in population and caused rural areas to be abandoned. Hardy laments, with a detached view, that since industrialization had come to England, the need for agricultural workers had declined, thereby creating a vacuum in smaller villages and towns. Since the Durbeyfields have no real purpose in the village, they are expendable because they \"had been tacitly looked on as one which would have to go when their lease ended, if only in the interest of morality.\" The village is then cleansed of an offending family. At Kingsbere, the scenario is nearly repeated when the Durbeyfields are forced to unload their belongings in the street because their intended rental home has been leased to another family. Making the best of a bad situation, Joan sets up their bed as a tent on the grounds of the church where many d'Urberville ancestors had been buried. Alec's appearance and his proposal to help the forsaken family forces Tess to become his mistress. The extreme circumstances of the Durbeyfields poverty, the much-delayed return of Angel, and Alec's persistent entreaties compel Tess to seek a solution that will appease all sides. Alec's money and offers of help then cannot be refused. Tess' pleas to Angel seem to go unheard, even when she writes the two letters in Chapters 48 and 51. By now, Alec has convinced Tess that Angel is not coming back for her, abandoning her with hardly a word. In her first letter, we sense that Tess is wrestling with the temptation that Alec presents, \"I am so exposed to temptation, Angel,\" and that she could fall into a worse situation than the one that presently exists -- \"ut if I break down by falling into some fearful snare, my last state will be worse than my first.\" Her second letter is not a plea but an argument that she has been wronged, \"O why have you treated me so monstrously, Angel!\" In a fit of fury, she vows to forget Angel and how he has treated her. Marian and Izz send a letter that warns Angel that another man has set his sights on Tess, \"For she is sore put by an Enemy in the shape of a Friend.\" All three letters give Angel a clear picture as to Tess' dire situation, and he acts quickly to locate his wife. Glossary Equinoctial occurring at or about the time of an equinox. \"pricked or ducked\" references to ordeals used to identify witches, either by pricking them to see if they were insensitive or bled less than normal, or by ducking them to see if they sank or floated . Whickered snickered, giggled, tittered. Stupefaction stunned amazement or utter bewilderment. \"pillar of a cloud\" from Exodus 13:21. \"that scene of Milton's\" scene from Paradise Lost, and the passage quoted is spoken by Eve to Satan in the form of a serpent. Liviers lifeholders, that is, tenants whose lease ran the length of a specified number of lifetimes; by contrast, a freeholder's heirs could retain his lease in perpetuity. Pattens elevated, wooden soled shoes, often used for walking in mud and sometimes outfitted with an iron ring that can clink. Superincumbent lying or resting on something else. Stale to urinate. Deparked removed from their status as a park, that is, an area preserved for hunting by the aristocracy through royal decree. Traceried having ornamental work of interlacing or branching lines, as in a Gothic window, some kinds of embroidery, etc. \"Ostium sepulchri . . . \" Door of the tomb of the ancient family of d'Urberville . \"land of Canaan\" the Promised Land. Tole to entice."}

She plunged into the chilly equinoctial darkness as the clock struck ten, for her fifteen miles' walk under the steely stars. In lonely districts night is a protection rather than a danger to a noiseless pedestrian, and knowing this, Tess pursued the nearest course along by-lanes that she would almost have feared in the day-time; but marauders were wanting now, and spectral fears were driven out of her mind by thoughts of her mother. Thus she proceeded mile after mile, ascending and descending till she came to Bulbarrow, and about midnight looked from that height into the abyss of chaotic shade which was all that revealed itself of the vale on whose further side she was born. Having already traversed about five miles on the upland, she had now some ten or eleven in the lowland before her journey would be finished. The winding road downwards became just visible to her under the wan starlight as she followed it, and soon she paced a soil so contrasting with that above it that the difference was perceptible to the tread and to the smell. It was the heavy clay land of Blackmoor Vale, and a part of the Vale to which turnpike-roads had never penetrated. Superstitions linger longest on these heavy soils. Having once been forest, at this shadowy time it seemed to assert something of its old character, the far and the near being blended, and every tree and tall hedge making the most of its presence. The harts that had been hunted here, the witches that had been pricked and ducked, the green-spangled fairies that "whickered" at you as you passed;--the place teemed with beliefs in them still, and they formed an impish multitude now. At Nuttlebury she passed the village inn, whose sign creaked in response to the greeting of her footsteps, which not a human soul heard but herself. Under the thatched roofs her mind's eye beheld relaxed tendons and flaccid muscles, spread out in the darkness beneath coverlets made of little purple patchwork squares, and undergoing a bracing process at the hands of sleep for renewed labour on the morrow, as soon as a hint of pink nebulosity appeared on Hambledon Hill. At three she turned the last corner of the maze of lanes she had threaded, and entered Marlott, passing the field in which as a club-girl she had first seen Angel Clare, when he had not danced with her; the sense of disappointment remained with her yet. In the direction of her mother's house she saw a light. It came from the bedroom window, and a branch waved in front of it and made it wink at her. As soon as she could discern the outline of the house--newly thatched with her money--it had all its old effect upon Tess's imagination. Part of her body and life it ever seemed to be; the slope of its dormers, the finish of its gables, the broken courses of brick which topped the chimney, all had something in common with her personal character. A stupefaction had come into these features, to her regard; it meant the illness of her mother. She opened the door so softly as to disturb nobody; the lower room was vacant, but the neighbour who was sitting up with her mother came to the top of the stairs, and whispered that Mrs Durbeyfield was no better, though she was sleeping just then. Tess prepared herself a breakfast, and then took her place as nurse in her mother's chamber. In the morning, when she contemplated the children, they had all a curiously elongated look; although she had been away little more than a year, their growth was astounding; and the necessity of applying herself heart and soul to their needs took her out of her own cares. Her father's ill-health was the same indefinite kind, and he sat in his chair as usual. But the day after her arrival he was unusually bright. He had a rational scheme for living, and Tess asked him what it was. "I'm thinking of sending round to all the old antiqueerians in this part of England," he said, "asking them to subscribe to a fund to maintain me. I'm sure they'd see it as a romantical, artistical, and proper thing to do. They spend lots o' money in keeping up old ruins, and finding the bones o' things, and such like; and living remains must be more interesting to 'em still, if they only knowed of me. Would that somebody would go round and tell 'em what there is living among 'em, and they thinking nothing of him! If Pa'son Tringham, who discovered me, had lived, he'd ha' done it, I'm sure." Tess postponed her arguments on this high project till she had grappled with pressing matters in hand, which seemed little improved by her remittances. When indoor necessities had been eased, she turned her attention to external things. It was now the season for planting and sowing; many gardens and allotments of the villagers had already received their spring tillage; but the garden and the allotment of the Durbeyfields were behindhand. She found, to her dismay, that this was owing to their having eaten all the seed potatoes,--that last lapse of the improvident. At the earliest moment she obtained what others she could procure, and in a few days her father was well enough to see to the garden, under Tess's persuasive efforts: while she herself undertook the allotment-plot which they rented in a field a couple of hundred yards out of the village. She liked doing it after the confinement of the sick chamber, where she was not now required by reason of her mother's improvement. Violent motion relieved thought. The plot of ground was in a high, dry, open enclosure, where there were forty or fifty such pieces, and where labour was at its briskest when the hired labour of the day had ended. Digging began usually at six o'clock and extended indefinitely into the dusk or moonlight. Just now heaps of dead weeds and refuse were burning on many of the plots, the dry weather favouring their combustion. One fine day Tess and 'Liza-Lu worked on here with their neighbours till the last rays of the sun smote flat upon the white pegs that divided the plots. As soon as twilight succeeded to sunset the flare of the couch-grass and cabbage-stalk fires began to light up the allotments fitfully, their outlines appearing and disappearing under the dense smoke as wafted by the wind. When a fire glowed, banks of smoke, blown level along the ground, would themselves become illuminated to an opaque lustre, screening the workpeople from one another; and the meaning of the "pillar of a cloud", which was a wall by day and a light by night, could be understood. As evening thickened, some of the gardening men and women gave over for the night, but the greater number remained to get their planting done, Tess being among them, though she sent her sister home. It was on one of the couch-burning plots that she laboured with her fork, its four shining prongs resounding against the stones and dry clods in little clicks. Sometimes she was completely involved in the smoke of her fire; then it would leave her figure free, irradiated by the brassy glare from the heap. She was oddly dressed to-night, and presented a somewhat staring aspect, her attire being a gown bleached by many washings, with a short black jacket over it, the effect of the whole being that of a wedding and funeral guest in one. The women further back wore white aprons, which, with their pale faces, were all that could be seen of them in the gloom, except when at moments they caught a flash from the flames. Westward, the wiry boughs of the bare thorn hedge which formed the boundary of the field rose against the pale opalescence of the lower sky. Above, Jupiter hung like a full-blown jonquil, so bright as almost to throw a shade. A few small nondescript stars were appearing elsewhere. In the distance a dog barked, and wheels occasionally rattled along the dry road. Still the prongs continued to click assiduously, for it was not late; and though the air was fresh and keen there was a whisper of spring in it that cheered the workers on. Something in the place, the hours, the crackling fires, the fantastic mysteries of light and shade, made others as well as Tess enjoy being there. Nightfall, which in the frost of winter comes as a fiend and in the warmth of summer as a lover, came as a tranquillizer on this March day. Nobody looked at his or her companions. The eyes of all were on the soil as its turned surface was revealed by the fires. Hence as Tess stirred the clods and sang her foolish little songs with scarce now a hope that Clare would ever hear them, she did not for a long time notice the person who worked nearest to her--a man in a long smockfrock who, she found, was forking the same plot as herself, and whom she supposed her father had sent there to advance the work. She became more conscious of him when the direction of his digging brought him closer. Sometimes the smoke divided them; then it swerved, and the two were visible to each other but divided from all the rest. Tess did not speak to her fellow-worker, nor did he speak to her. Nor did she think of him further than to recollect that he had not been there when it was broad daylight, and that she did not know him as any one of the Marlott labourers, which was no wonder, her absences having been so long and frequent of late years. By-and-by he dug so close to her that the fire-beams were reflected as distinctly from the steel prongs of his fork as from her own. On going up to the fire to throw a pitch of dead weeds upon it, she found that he did the same on the other side. The fire flared up, and she beheld the face of d'Urberville. The unexpectedness of his presence, the grotesqueness of his appearance in a gathered smockfrock, such as was now worn only by the most old-fashioned of the labourers, had a ghastly comicality that chilled her as to its bearing. D'Urberville emitted a low, long laugh. "If I were inclined to joke, I should say, How much this seems like Paradise!" he remarked whimsically, looking at her with an inclined head. "What do you say?" she weakly asked. "A jester might say this is just like Paradise. You are Eve, and I am the old Other One come to tempt you in the disguise of an inferior animal. I used to be quite up in that scene of Milton's when I was theological. Some of it goes-- "'Empress, the way is ready, and not long, Beyond a row of myrtles... ... If thou accept My conduct, I can bring thee thither soon.' 'Lead then,' said Eve. "And so on. My dear Tess, I am only putting this to you as a thing that you might have supposed or said quite untruly, because you think so badly of me." "I never said you were Satan, or thought it. I don't think of you in that way at all. My thoughts of you are quite cold, except when you affront me. What, did you come digging here entirely because of me?" "Entirely. To see you; nothing more. The smockfrock, which I saw hanging for sale as I came along, was an afterthought, that I mightn't be noticed. I come to protest against your working like this." "But I like doing it--it is for my father." "Your engagement at the other place is ended?" "Yes." "Where are you going to next? To join your dear husband?" She could not bear the humiliating reminder. "O--I don't know!" she said bitterly. "I have no husband!" "It is quite true--in the sense you mean. But you have a friend, and I have determined that you shall be comfortable in spite of yourself. When you get down to your house you will see what I have sent there for you." "O, Alec, I wish you wouldn't give me anything at all! I cannot take it from you! I don't like--it is not right!" "It IS right!" he cried lightly. "I am not going to see a woman whom I feel so tenderly for as I do for you in trouble without trying to help her." "But I am very well off! I am only in trouble about--about--not about living at all!" She turned, and desperately resumed her digging, tears dripping upon the fork-handle and upon the clods. "About the children--your brothers and sisters," he resumed. "I've been thinking of them." Tess's heart quivered--he was touching her in a weak place. He had divined her chief anxiety. Since returning home her soul had gone out to those children with an affection that was passionate. "If your mother does not recover, somebody ought to do something for them; since your father will not be able to do much, I suppose?" "He can with my assistance. He must!" "And with mine." "No, sir!" "How damned foolish this is!" burst out d'Urberville. "Why, he thinks we are the same family; and will be quite satisfied!" "He don't. I've undeceived him." "The more fool you!" D'Urberville in anger retreated from her to the hedge, where he pulled off the long smockfrock which had disguised him; and rolling it up and pushing it into the couch-fire, went away. Tess could not get on with her digging after this; she felt restless; she wondered if he had gone back to her father's house; and taking the fork in her hand proceeded homewards. Some twenty yards from the house she was met by one of her sisters. "O, Tessy--what do you think! 'Liza-Lu is a-crying, and there's a lot of folk in the house, and mother is a good deal better, but they think father is dead!" The child realized the grandeur of the news; but not as yet its sadness, and stood looking at Tess with round-eyed importance till, beholding the effect produced upon her, she said-- "What, Tess, shan't we talk to father never no more?" "But father was only a little bit ill!" exclaimed Tess distractedly. 'Liza-Lu came up. "He dropped down just now, and the doctor who was there for mother said there was no chance for him, because his heart was growed in." Yes; the Durbeyfield couple had changed places; the dying one was out of danger, and the indisposed one was dead. The news meant even more than it sounded. Her father's life had a value apart from his personal achievements, or perhaps it would not have had much. It was the last of the three lives for whose duration the house and premises were held under a lease; and it had long been coveted by the tenant-farmer for his regular labourers, who were stinted in cottage accommodation. Moreover, "liviers" were disapproved of in villages almost as much as little freeholders, because of their independence of manner, and when a lease determined it was never renewed. Thus the Durbeyfields, once d'Urbervilles, saw descending upon them the destiny which, no doubt, when they were among the Olympians of the county, they had caused to descend many a time, and severely enough, upon the heads of such landless ones as they themselves were now. So do flux and reflux--the rhythm of change--alternate and persist in everything under the sky. At length it was the eve of Old Lady-Day, and the agricultural world was in a fever of mobility such as only occurs at that particular date of the year. It is a day of fulfilment; agreements for outdoor service during the ensuing year, entered into at Candlemas, are to be now carried out. The labourers--or "work-folk", as they used to call themselves immemorially till the other word was introduced from without--who wish to remain no longer in old places are removing to the new farms. These annual migrations from farm to farm were on the increase here. When Tess's mother was a child the majority of the field-folk about Marlott had remained all their lives on one farm, which had been the home also of their fathers and grandfathers; but latterly the desire for yearly removal had risen to a high pitch. With the younger families it was a pleasant excitement which might possibly be an advantage. The Egypt of one family was the Land of Promise to the family who saw it from a distance, till by residence there it became it turn their Egypt also; and so they changed and changed. However, all the mutations so increasingly discernible in village life did not originate entirely in the agricultural unrest. A depopulation was also going on. The village had formerly contained, side by side with the argicultural labourers, an interesting and better-informed class, ranking distinctly above the former--the class to which Tess's father and mother had belonged--and including the carpenter, the smith, the shoemaker, the huckster, together with nondescript workers other than farm-labourers; a set of people who owed a certain stability of aim and conduct to the fact of their being lifeholders like Tess's father, or copyholders, or occasionally, small freeholders. But as the long holdings fell in, they were seldom again let to similar tenants, and were mostly pulled down, if not absolutely required by the farmer for his hands. Cottagers who were not directly employed on the land were looked upon with disfavour, and the banishment of some starved the trade of others, who were thus obliged to follow. These families, who had formed the backbone of the village life in the past, who were the depositaries of the village traditions, had to seek refuge in the large centres; the process, humorously designated by statisticians as "the tendency of the rural population towards the large towns", being really the tendency of water to flow uphill when forced by machinery. The cottage accommodation at Marlott having been in this manner considerably curtailed by demolitions, every house which remained standing was required by the agriculturist for his work-people. Ever since the occurrence of the event which had cast such a shadow over Tess's life, the Durbeyfield family (whose descent was not credited) had been tacitly looked on as one which would have to go when their lease ended, if only in the interests of morality. It was, indeed, quite true that the household had not been shining examples either of temperance, soberness, or chastity. The father, and even the mother, had got drunk at times, the younger children seldom had gone to church, and the eldest daughter had made queer unions. By some means the village had to be kept pure. So on this, the first Lady-Day on which the Durbeyfields were expellable, the house, being roomy, was required for a carter with a large family; and Widow Joan, her daughters Tess and 'Liza-Lu, the boy Abraham, and the younger children had to go elsewhere. On the evening preceding their removal it was getting dark betimes by reason of a drizzling rain which blurred the sky. As it was the last night they would spend in the village which had been their home and birthplace, Mrs Durbeyfield, 'Liza-Lu, and Abraham had gone out to bid some friends goodbye, and Tess was keeping house till they should return. She was kneeling in the window-bench, her face close to the casement, where an outer pane of rain-water was sliding down the inner pane of glass. Her eyes rested on the web of a spider, probably starved long ago, which had been mistakenly placed in a corner where no flies ever came, and shivered in the slight draught through the casement. Tess was reflecting on the position of the household, in which she perceived her own evil influence. Had she not come home, her mother and the children might probably have been allowed to stay on as weekly tenants. But she had been observed almost immediately on her return by some people of scrupulous character and great influence: they had seen her idling in the churchyard, restoring as well as she could with a little trowel a baby's obliterated grave. By this means they had found that she was living here again; her mother was scolded for "harbouring" her; sharp retorts had ensued from Joan, who had independently offered to leave at once; she had been taken at her word; and here was the result. "I ought never to have come home," said Tess to herself, bitterly. She was so intent upon these thoughts that she hardly at first took note of a man in a white mackintosh whom she saw riding down the street. Possibly it was owing to her face being near to the pane that he saw her so quickly, and directed his horse so close to the cottage-front that his hoofs were almost upon the narrow border for plants growing under the wall. It was not till he touched the window with his riding-crop that she observed him. The rain had nearly ceased, and she opened the casement in obedience to his gesture. "Didn't you see me?" asked d'Urberville. "I was not attending," she said. "I heard you, I believe, though I fancied it was a carriage and horses. I was in a sort of dream." "Ah! you heard the d'Urberville Coach, perhaps. You know the legend, I suppose?" "No. My--somebody was going to tell it me once, but didn't." "If you are a genuine d'Urberville I ought not to tell you either, I suppose. As for me, I'm a sham one, so it doesn't matter. It is rather dismal. It is that this sound of a non-existent coach can only be heard by one of d'Urberville blood, and it is held to be of ill-omen to the one who hears it. It has to do with a murder, committed by one of the family, centuries ago." "Now you have begun it, finish it." "Very well. One of the family is said to have abducted some beautiful woman, who tried to escape from the coach in which he was carrying her off, and in the struggle he killed her--or she killed him--I forget which. Such is one version of the tale... I see that your tubs and buckets are packed. Going away, aren't you?" "Yes, to-morrow--Old Lady Day." "I heard you were, but could hardly believe it; it seems so sudden. Why is it?" "Father's was the last life on the property, and when that dropped we had no further right to stay. Though we might, perhaps, have stayed as weekly tenants--if it had not been for me." "What about you?" "I am not a--proper woman." D'Urberville's face flushed. "What a blasted shame! Miserable snobs! May their dirty souls be burnt to cinders!" he exclaimed in tones of ironic resentment. "That's why you are going, is it? Turned out?" "We are not turned out exactly; but as they said we should have to go soon, it was best to go now everybody was moving, because there are better chances." "Where are you going to?" "Kingsbere. We have taken rooms there. Mother is so foolish about father's people that she will go there." "But your mother's family are not fit for lodgings, and in a little hole of a town like that. Now why not come to my garden-house at Trantridge? There are hardly any poultry now, since my mother's death; but there's the house, as you know it, and the garden. It can be whitewashed in a day, and your mother can live there quite comfortably; and I will put the children to a good school. Really I ought to do something for you!" "But we have already taken the rooms at Kingsbere!" she declared. "And we can wait there--" "Wait--what for? For that nice husband, no doubt. Now look here, Tess, I know what men are, and, bearing in mind the _grounds_ of your separation, I am quite positive he will never make it up with you. Now, though I have been your enemy, I am your friend, even if you won't believe it. Come to this cottage of mine. We'll get up a regular colony of fowls, and your mother can attend to them excellently; and the children can go to school." Tess breathed more and more quickly, and at length she said-- "How do I know that you would do all this? Your views may change--and then--we should be--my mother would be--homeless again." "O no--no. I would guarantee you against such as that in writing, if necessary. Think it over." Tess shook her head. But d'Urberville persisted; she had seldom seen him so determined; he would not take a negative. "Please just tell your mother," he said, in emphatic tones. "It is her business to judge--not yours. I shall get the house swept out and whitened to-morrow morning, and fires lit; and it will be dry by the evening, so that you can come straight there. Now mind, I shall expect you." Tess again shook her head, her throat swelling with complicated emotion. She could not look up at d'Urberville. "I owe you something for the past, you know," he resumed. "And you cured me, too, of that craze; so I am glad--" "I would rather you had kept the craze, so that you had kept the practice which went with it!" "I am glad of this opportunity of repaying you a little. To-morrow I shall expect to hear your mother's goods unloading... Give me your hand on it now--dear, beautiful Tess!" With the last sentence he had dropped his voice to a murmur, and put his hand in at the half-open casement. With stormy eyes she pulled the stay-bar quickly, and, in doing so, caught his arm between the casement and the stone mullion. "Damnation--you are very cruel!" he said, snatching out his arm. "No, no!--I know you didn't do it on purpose. Well I shall expect you, or your mother and children at least." "I shall not come--I have plenty of money!" she cried. "Where?" "At my father-in-law's, if I ask for it." "IF you ask for it. But you won't, Tess; I know you; you'll never ask for it--you'll starve first!" With these words he rode off. Just at the corner of the street he met the man with the paint-pot, who asked him if he had deserted the brethren. "You go to the devil!" said d'Urberville. Tess remained where she was a long while, till a sudden rebellious sense of injustice caused the region of her eyes to swell with the rush of hot tears thither. Her husband, Angel Clare himself, had, like others, dealt out hard measure to her; surely he had! She had never before admitted such a thought; but he had surely! Never in her life--she could swear it from the bottom of her soul--had she ever intended to do wrong; yet these hard judgements had come. Whatever her sins, they were not sins of intention, but of inadvertence, and why should she have been punished so persistently? She passionately seized the first piece of paper that came to hand, and scribbled the following lines: O why have you treated me so monstrously, Angel! I do not deserve it. I have thought it all over carefully, and I can never, never forgive you! You know that I did not intend to wrong you--why have you so wronged me? You are cruel, cruel indeed! I will try to forget you. It is all injustice I have received at your hands! T. She watched till the postman passed by, ran out to him with her epistle, and then again took her listless place inside the window-panes. It was just as well to write like that as to write tenderly. How could he give way to entreaty? The facts had not changed: there was no new event to alter his opinion. It grew darker, the fire-light shining over the room. The two biggest of the younger children had gone out with their mother; the four smallest, their ages ranging from three-and-a-half years to eleven, all in black frocks, were gathered round the hearth babbling their own little subjects. Tess at length joined them, without lighting a candle. "This is the last night that we shall sleep here, dears, in the house where we were born," she said quickly. "We ought to think of it, oughtn't we?" They all became silent; with the impressibility of their age they were ready to burst into tears at the picture of finality she had conjured up, though all the day hitherto they had been rejoicing in the idea of a new place. Tess changed the subject. "Sing to me, dears," she said. "What shall we sing?" "Anything you know; I don't mind." There was a momentary pause; it was broken, first, in one little tentative note; then a second voice strengthened it, and a third and a fourth chimed in unison, with words they had learnt at the Sunday-school-- Here we suffer grief and pain, Here we meet to part again; In Heaven we part no more. The four sang on with the phlegmatic passivity of persons who had long ago settled the question, and there being no mistake about it, felt that further thought was not required. With features strained hard to enunciate the syllables they continued to regard the centre of the flickering fire, the notes of the youngest straying over into the pauses of the rest. Tess turned from them, and went to the window again. Darkness had now fallen without, but she put her face to the pane as though to peer into the gloom. It was really to hide her tears. If she could only believe what the children were singing; if she were only sure, how different all would now be; how confidently she would leave them to Providence and their future kingdom! But, in default of that, it behoved her to do something; to be their Providence; for to Tess, as to not a few millions of others, there was ghastly satire in the poet's lines-- Not in utter nakedness But trailing clouds of glory do we come. To her and her like, birth itself was an ordeal of degrading personal compulsion, whose gratuitousness nothing in the result seemed to justify, and at best could only palliate. In the shades of the wet road she soon discerned her mother with tall 'Liza-Lu and Abraham. Mrs Durbeyfield's pattens clicked up to the door, and Tess opened it. "I see the tracks of a horse outside the window," said Joan. "Hev somebody called?" "No," said Tess. The children by the fire looked gravely at her, and one murmured-- "Why, Tess, the gentleman a-horseback!" "He didn't call," said Tess. "He spoke to me in passing." "Who was the gentleman?" asked the mother. "Your husband?" "No. He'll never, never come," answered Tess in stony hopelessness. "Then who was it?" "Oh, you needn't ask. You've seen him before, and so have I." "Ah! What did he say?" said Joan curiously. "I will tell you when we are settled in our lodging at Kingsbere to-morrow--every word." It was not her husband, she had said. Yet a consciousness that in a physical sense this man alone was her husband seemed to weigh on her more and more. During the small hours of the next morning, while it was still dark, dwellers near the highways were conscious of a disturbance of their night's rest by rumbling noises, intermittently continuing till daylight--noises as certain to recur in this particular first week of the month as the voice of the cuckoo in the third week of the same. They were the preliminaries of the general removal, the passing of the empty waggons and teams to fetch the goods of the migrating families; for it was always by the vehicle of the farmer who required his services that the hired man was conveyed to his destination. That this might be accomplished within the day was the explanation of the reverberation occurring so soon after midnight, the aim of the carters being to reach the door of the outgoing households by six o'clock, when the loading of their movables at once began. But to Tess and her mother's household no such anxious farmer sent his team. They were only women; they were not regular labourers; they were not particularly required anywhere; hence they had to hire a waggon at their own expense, and got nothing sent gratuitously. It was a relief to Tess, when she looked out of the window that morning, to find that though the weather was windy and louring, it did not rain, and that the waggon had come. A wet Lady-Day was a spectre which removing families never forgot; damp furniture, damp bedding, damp clothing accompanied it, and left a train of ills. Her mother, 'Liza-Lu, and Abraham were also awake, but the younger children were let sleep on. The four breakfasted by the thin light, and the "house-ridding" was taken in hand. It proceeded with some cheerfulness, a friendly neighbour or two assisting. When the large articles of furniture had been packed in position, a circular nest was made of the beds and bedding, in which Joan Durbeyfield and the young children were to sit through the journey. After loading there was a long delay before the horses were brought, these having been unharnessed during the ridding; but at length, about two o'clock, the whole was under way, the cooking-pot swinging from the axle of the waggon, Mrs Durbeyfield and family at the top, the matron having in her lap, to prevent injury to its works, the head of the clock, which, at any exceptional lurch of the waggon, struck one, or one-and-a-half, in hurt tones. Tess and the next eldest girl walked alongside till they were out of the village. They had called on a few neighbours that morning and the previous evening, and some came to see them off, all wishing them well, though, in their secret hearts, hardly expecting welfare possible to such a family, harmless as the Durbeyfields were to all except themselves. Soon the equipage began to ascend to higher ground, and the wind grew keener with the change of level and soil. The day being the sixth of April, the Durbeyfield waggon met many other waggons with families on the summit of the load, which was built on a wellnigh unvarying principle, as peculiar, probably, to the rural labourer as the hexagon to the bee. The groundwork of the arrangement was the family dresser, which, with its shining handles, and finger-marks, and domestic evidences thick upon it, stood importantly in front, over the tails of the shaft-horses, in its erect and natural position, like some Ark of the Covenant that they were bound to carry reverently. Some of the households were lively, some mournful; some were stopping at the doors of wayside inns; where, in due time, the Durbeyfield menagerie also drew up to bait horses and refresh the travellers. During the halt Tess's eyes fell upon a three-pint blue mug, which was ascending and descending through the air to and from the feminine section of a household, sitting on the summit of a load that had also drawn up at a little distance from the same inn. She followed one of the mug's journeys upward, and perceived it to be clasped by hands whose owner she well knew. Tess went towards the waggon. "Marian and Izz!" she cried to the girls, for it was they, sitting with the moving family at whose house they had lodged. "Are you house-ridding to-day, like everybody else?" They were, they said. It had been too rough a life for them at Flintcomb-Ash, and they had come away, almost without notice, leaving Groby to prosecute them if he chose. They told Tess their destination, and Tess told them hers. Marian leant over the load, and lowered her voice. "Do you know that the gentleman who follows 'ee--you'll guess who I mean--came to ask for 'ee at Flintcomb after you had gone? We didn't tell'n where you was, knowing you wouldn't wish to see him." "Ah--but I did see him!" Tess murmured. "He found me." "And do he know where you be going?" "I think so." "Husband come back?" "No." She bade her acquaintance goodbye--for the respective carters had now come out from the inn--and the two waggons resumed their journey in opposite directions; the vehicle whereon sat Marian, Izz, and the ploughman's family with whom they had thrown in their lot, being brightly painted, and drawn by three powerful horses with shining brass ornaments on their harness; while the waggon on which Mrs Durbeyfield and her family rode was a creaking erection that would scarcely bear the weight of the superincumbent load; one which had known no paint since it was made, and drawn by two horses only. The contrast well marked the difference between being fetched by a thriving farmer and conveying oneself whither no hirer waited one's coming. The distance was great--too great for a day's journey--and it was with the utmost difficulty that the horses performed it. Though they had started so early, it was quite late in the afternoon when they turned the flank of an eminence which formed part of the upland called Greenhill. While the horses stood to stale and breathe themselves Tess looked around. Under the hill, and just ahead of them, was the half-dead townlet of their pilgrimage, Kingsbere, where lay those ancestors of whom her father had spoken and sung to painfulness: Kingsbere, the spot of all spots in the world which could be considered the d'Urbervilles' home, since they had resided there for full five hundred years. A man could be seen advancing from the outskirts towards them, and when he beheld the nature of their waggon-load he quickened his steps. "You be the woman they call Mrs Durbeyfield, I reckon?" he said to Tess's mother, who had descended to walk the remainder of the way. She nodded. "Though widow of the late Sir John d'Urberville, poor nobleman, if I cared for my rights; and returning to the domain of his forefathers." "Oh? Well, I know nothing about that; but if you be Mrs Durbeyfield, I am sent to tell 'ee that the rooms you wanted be let. We didn't know that you was coming till we got your letter this morning--when 'twas too late. But no doubt you can get other lodgings somewhere." The man had noticed the face of Tess, which had become ash-pale at his intelligence. Her mother looked hopelessly at fault. "What shall we do now, Tess?" she said bitterly. "Here's a welcome to your ancestors' lands! However, let's try further." They moved on into the town, and tried with all their might, Tess remaining with the waggon to take care of the children whilst her mother and 'Liza-Lu made inquiries. At the last return of Joan to the vehicle, an hour later, when her search for accommodation had still been fruitless, the driver of the waggon said the goods must be unloaded, as the horses were half-dead, and he was bound to return part of the way at least that night. "Very well--unload it here," said Joan recklessly. "I'll get shelter somewhere." The waggon had drawn up under the churchyard wall, in a spot screened from view, and the driver, nothing loth, soon hauled down the poor heap of household goods. This done, she paid him, reducing herself to almost her last shilling thereby, and he moved off and left them, only too glad to get out of further dealings with such a family. It was a dry night, and he guessed that they would come to no harm. Tess gazed desperately at the pile of furniture. The cold sunlight of this spring evening peered invidiously upon the crocks and kettles, upon the bunches of dried herbs shivering in the breeze, upon the brass handles of the dresser, upon the wicker-cradle they had all been rocked in, and upon the well-rubbed clock-case, all of which gave out the reproachful gleam of indoor articles abandoned to the vicissitudes of a roofless exposure for which they were never made. Round about were deparked hills and slopes--now cut up into little paddocks--and the green foundations that showed where the d'Urberville mansion once had stood; also an outlying stretch of Egdon Heath that had always belonged to the estate. Hard by, the aisle of the church called the d'Urberville Aisle looked on imperturbably. "Isn't your family vault your own freehold?" said Tess's mother, as she returned from a reconnoitre of the church and graveyard. "Why, of course 'tis, and that's where we will camp, girls, till the place of your ancestors finds us a roof! Now, Tess and 'Liza and Abraham, you help me. We'll make a nest for these children, and then we'll have another look round." Tess listlessly lent a hand, and in a quarter of an hour the old four-post bedstead was dissociated from the heap of goods, and erected under the south wall of the church, the part of the building known as the d'Urberville Aisle, beneath which the huge vaults lay. Over the tester of the bedstead was a beautiful traceried window, of many lights, its date being the fifteenth century. It was called the d'Urberville Window, and in the upper part could be discerned heraldic emblems like those on Durbeyfield's old seal and spoon. Joan drew the curtains round the bed so as to make an excellent tent of it, and put the smaller children inside. "If it comes to the worst we can sleep there too, for one night," she said. "But let us try further on, and get something for the dears to eat! O, Tess, what's the use of your playing at marrying gentlemen, if it leaves us like this!" Accompanied by 'Liza-Lu and the boy, she again ascended the little lane which secluded the church from the townlet. As soon as they got into the street they beheld a man on horseback gazing up and down. "Ah--I'm looking for you!" he said, riding up to them. "This is indeed a family gathering on the historic spot!" It was Alec d'Urberville. "Where is Tess?" he asked. Personally Joan had no liking for Alec. She cursorily signified the direction of the church, and went on, d'Urberville saying that he would see them again, in case they should be still unsuccessful in their search for shelter, of which he had just heard. When they had gone, d'Urberville rode to the inn, and shortly after came out on foot. In the interim Tess, left with the children inside the bedstead, remained talking with them awhile, till, seeing that no more could be done to make them comfortable just then, she walked about the churchyard, now beginning to be embrowned by the shades of nightfall. The door of the church was unfastened, and she entered it for the first time in her life. Within the window under which the bedstead stood were the tombs of the family, covering in their dates several centuries. They were canopied, altar-shaped, and plain; their carvings being defaced and broken; their brasses torn from the matrices, the rivet-holes remaining like martin-holes in a sandcliff. Of all the reminders that she had ever received that her people were socially extinct, there was none so forcible as this spoliation. She drew near to a dark stone on which was inscribed: OSTIUM SEPULCHRI ANTIQUAE FAMILIAE D'URBERVILLE Tess did not read Church-Latin like a Cardinal, but she knew that this was the door of her ancestral sepulchre, and that the tall knights of whom her father had chanted in his cups lay inside. She musingly turned to withdraw, passing near an altar-tomb, the oldest of them all, on which was a recumbent figure. In the dusk she had not noticed it before, and would hardly have noticed it now but for an odd fancy that the effigy moved. As soon as she drew close to it she discovered all in a moment that the figure was a living person; and the shock to her sense of not having been alone was so violent that she was quite overcome, and sank down nigh to fainting, not, however, till she had recognized Alec d'Urberville in the form. He leapt off the slab and supported her. "I saw you come in," he said smiling, "and got up there not to interrupt your meditations. A family gathering, is it not, with these old fellows under us here? Listen." He stamped with his heel heavily on the floor; whereupon there arose a hollow echo from below. "That shook them a bit, I'll warrant!" he continued. "And you thought I was the mere stone reproduction of one of them. But no. The old order changeth. The little finger of the sham d'Urberville can do more for you than the whole dynasty of the real underneath... Now command me. What shall I do?" "Go away!" she murmured. "I will--I'll look for your mother," said he blandly. But in passing her he whispered: "Mind this; you'll be civil yet!" When he was gone she bent down upon the entrance to the vaults, and said-- "Why am I on the wrong side of this door!" In the meantime Marian and Izz Huett had journeyed onward with the chattels of the ploughman in the direction of their land of Canaan-- the Egypt of some other family who had left it only that morning. But the girls did not for a long time think of where they were going. Their talk was of Angel Clare and Tess, and Tess's persistent lover, whose connection with her previous history they had partly heard and partly guessed ere this. "'Tisn't as though she had never known him afore," said Marian. "His having won her once makes all the difference in the world. 'Twould be a thousand pities if he were to tole her away again. Mr Clare can never be anything to us, Izz; and why should we grudge him to her, and not try to mend this quarrel? If he could on'y know what straits she's put to, and what's hovering round, he might come to take care of his own." "Could we let him know?" They thought of this all the way to their destination; but the bustle of re-establishment in their new place took up all their attention then. But when they were settled, a month later, they heard of Clare's approaching return, though they had learnt nothing more of Tess. Upon that, agitated anew by their attachment to him, yet honourably disposed to her, Marian uncorked the penny ink-bottle they shared, and a few lines were concocted between the two girls. HONOUR'D SIR-- Look to your Wife if you do love her as much as she do love you. For she is sore put to by an Enemy in the shape of a Friend. Sir, there is one near her who ought to be Away. A woman should not be try'd beyond her Strength, and continual dropping will wear away a Stone--ay, more--a Diamond. FROM TWO WELL-WISHERS This was addressed to Angel Clare at the only place they had ever heard him to be connected with, Emminster Vicarage; after which they continued in a mood of emotional exaltation at their own generosity, which made them sing in hysterical snatches and weep at the same time. END OF PHASE THE SIXTH Phase the Seventh: Fulfilment

Chapters 50-52

https://web.archive.org/web/20201219151046/https://www.cliffsnotes.com/literature/t/tess-of-the-durbervilles/summary-and-analysis/phase-the-sixth-the-convert-chapters-5052

Tess travels the Wessex countryside and arrives at Marlott at 3 a.m. She finds a neighbor sitting with her parents, both of whom are ill. Tess also finds that the allotment for the family garden has not been planted. She and Liza Lu begin work at once on the garden while the parents recuperate. Tess even works by moonlight to complete the spring gardening task. Alec finds Tess in the garden and approaches her to tell her he has left a gift for her at the house. Liza Lu returns to tell Tess that their mother has recovered but their father, John Durbeyfield, has died. With John dead, the family is evicted; another larger family has procured the home. Tess and her family, however, feel as though the eviction has been precipitated because of Tess' past and the scorn of the villagers. The family hires a cart and horse to take them to nearby Kingsbere. Alec appears again to lend his support, but Tess refuses his help. Tess pens a passionate letter to Angel, as she feels she cannot resist the temptation of Alec and his willingness to aid her family. The next day, as the family makes its way to Kingsbere, Tess meets Marian and Izz, who have now begun work for another farmer. She relates what has happened to her father. Upon arrival in Kingsbere, the family learns that their intended house has been rented to someone else. All of their goods are unloaded in the churchyard while a new house is procured. As the family beds down under the stars for the night, Tess goes into the church and finds Alec lying on a tomb. He frightens Tess when she sees his body on top of a crypt. Meanwhile, Marian and Izz write a letter to Angel urging him to come at once.

The death of John Durbeyfield leaves the family destitute and homeless. Instead of being forced out of their home in search of new work, the Durbeyfield's are forced out because another family needs the house, can pay rent, and do not have the Durbeyfield's past problems: "It was, indeed, quite true that the household had not been shining examples either of temperance, soberness or chastity. The father, and even the mother, had got drunk at times, the younger children seldom had gone to church, and the eldest daughter had made queer unions." This passage is Hardy's commentary on the forced expulsions of hundreds of families in England. During his lifetime, these expulsions caused urban areas to explode in population and caused rural areas to be abandoned. Hardy laments, with a detached view, that since industrialization had come to England, the need for agricultural workers had declined, thereby creating a vacuum in smaller villages and towns. Since the Durbeyfields have no real purpose in the village, they are expendable because they "had been tacitly looked on as one which would have to go when their lease ended, if only in the interest of morality." The village is then cleansed of an offending family. At Kingsbere, the scenario is nearly repeated when the Durbeyfields are forced to unload their belongings in the street because their intended rental home has been leased to another family. Making the best of a bad situation, Joan sets up their bed as a tent on the grounds of the church where many d'Urberville ancestors had been buried. Alec's appearance and his proposal to help the forsaken family forces Tess to become his mistress. The extreme circumstances of the Durbeyfields poverty, the much-delayed return of Angel, and Alec's persistent entreaties compel Tess to seek a solution that will appease all sides. Alec's money and offers of help then cannot be refused. Tess' pleas to Angel seem to go unheard, even when she writes the two letters in Chapters 48 and 51. By now, Alec has convinced Tess that Angel is not coming back for her, abandoning her with hardly a word. In her first letter, we sense that Tess is wrestling with the temptation that Alec presents, "I am so exposed to temptation, Angel," and that she could fall into a worse situation than the one that presently exists -- "ut if I break down by falling into some fearful snare, my last state will be worse than my first." Her second letter is not a plea but an argument that she has been wronged, "O why have you treated me so monstrously, Angel!" In a fit of fury, she vows to forget Angel and how he has treated her. Marian and Izz send a letter that warns Angel that another man has set his sights on Tess, "For she is sore put by an Enemy in the shape of a Friend." All three letters give Angel a clear picture as to Tess' dire situation, and he acts quickly to locate his wife. Glossary Equinoctial occurring at or about the time of an equinox. "pricked or ducked" references to ordeals used to identify witches, either by pricking them to see if they were insensitive or bled less than normal, or by ducking them to see if they sank or floated . Whickered snickered, giggled, tittered. Stupefaction stunned amazement or utter bewilderment. "pillar of a cloud" from Exodus 13:21. "that scene of Milton's" scene from Paradise Lost, and the passage quoted is spoken by Eve to Satan in the form of a serpent. Liviers lifeholders, that is, tenants whose lease ran the length of a specified number of lifetimes; by contrast, a freeholder's heirs could retain his lease in perpetuity. Pattens elevated, wooden soled shoes, often used for walking in mud and sometimes outfitted with an iron ring that can clink. Superincumbent lying or resting on something else. Stale to urinate. Deparked removed from their status as a park, that is, an area preserved for hunting by the aristocracy through royal decree. Traceried having ornamental work of interlacing or branching lines, as in a Gothic window, some kinds of embroidery, etc. "Ostium sepulchri . . . " Door of the tomb of the ancient family of d'Urberville . "land of Canaan" the Promised Land. Tole to entice.

shmoop

all_chapterized_books/44747-chapters/60.txt

finished_summaries/shmoop/The Red and the Black/section_59_part_0.txt

The Red and the Black.part 2.chapter 30

part 2, chapter 30

{"name": "Part 2, Chapter 30", "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20200920104425/https://www.shmoop.com/study-guides/literature/red-and-the-black/summary/part-2-chapter-30", "summary": "After telling Julien she wants him back, Mathilde asks if he has had sex with Madame de Fervaques yet. He decides not to answer, which just twists the knife in her all the more. Julien is conflicted. He wants to take Mathilde in his arms, but knows that she'll despise him in only a few days if he declares his love for her. Julien tells Mathilde straight up that he doesn't trust her. She's too fickle for him and he won't let himself love her anymore. With that, he leaves Mathilde to cry all by her lonesome self. Julien goes to the opera that night with Madame de Fervaques and cries because he's thinking of Mathilde. Madame thinks that he's just showing his sensitivity as a man because the opera is sad. It makes her like him even more. Of course, Mathilde is at the opera to see whether Julien is there with Fervaques.", "analysis": ""}

CHAPTER LX A BOX AT THE BOUFFES As the blackest sky Foretells the heaviest tempest _Don Juan, c._ 1. _st_.76. In the midst of these great transports Julien felt more surprised than happy. Mathilde's abuse proved to him the shrewdness of the Russian tactics. "'Few words, few deeds,' that is my one method of salvation." He picked up Mathilde, and without saying a word, put her back on the divan. She was gradually being overcome by tears. In order to keep herself in countenance, she took madame de Fervaques' letters in her hands, and slowly broke the seals. She gave a noticeable nervous movement when she recognised the marechale's handwriting. She turned over the pages of these letters without reading them. Most of them were six pages. "At least answer me," Mathilde said at last, in the most supplicatory tone, but without daring to look at Julien: "You know how proud I am. It is the misfortune of my position, and of my temperament, too, I confess. Has madame de Fervaques robbed me of your heart? Has she made the sacrifices to which my fatal love swept me?" A dismal silence was all Julien's answer. "By what right," he thought, "does she ask me to commit an indiscretion unworthy of an honest man?" Mathilde tried to read the letters; her eyes were so wet with tears that it was impossible for her to do so. She had been unhappy for a month past, but this haughty soul had been very far from owning its own feelings even to itself. Chance alone had brought about this explosion. For one instant jealousy and love had won a victory over pride. She was sitting on the divan, and very near him. He saw her hair and her alabaster neck. For a moment he forgot all he owed to himself. He passed his arm around her waist, and clasped her almost to his breast. She slowly turned her head towards him. He was astonished by the extreme anguish in her eyes. There was not a trace of their usual expression. Julien felt his strength desert him. So great was the deadly pain of the courageous feat which he was imposing on himself. "Those eyes will soon express nothing but the coldest disdain," said Julien to himself, "if I allow myself to be swept away by the happiness of loving her." She, however, kept repeatedly assuring him at this moment, in a hushed voice, and in words which she had scarcely the strength to finish, of all her remorse for those steps which her inordinate pride had dictated. "I, too, have pride," said Julien to her, in a scarcely articulate voice, while his features portrayed the lowest depths of physical prostration. Mathilde turned round sharply towards him. Hearing his voice was a happiness which she had given up hoping. At this moment her only thought of her haughtiness was to curse it. She would have liked to have found out some abnormal and incredible actions, in order to prove to him the extent to which she adored him and detested herself. "That pride is probably the reason," continued Julien, "why you singled me out for a moment. My present courageous and manly firmness is certainly the reason why you respect me. I may entertain love for the marechale." Mathilde shuddered; a strange expression came into her eyes. She was going to hear her sentence pronounced. This shudder did not escape Julien. He felt his courage weaken. "Ah," he said to himself, as he listened to the sound of the vain words which his mouth was articulating, as he thought it were some strange sound, "if I could only cover those pale cheeks with kisses without your feeling it." "I may entertain love for the marechale," he continued, while his voice became weaker and weaker, "but I certainly have no definite proof of her interest in me." Mathilde looked at him. He supported that look. He hoped, at any rate, that his expression had not betrayed him. He felt himself bathed in a love that penetrated even into the most secret recesses of his heart. He had never adored her so much; he was almost as mad as Mathilde. If she had mustered sufficient self-possession and courage to manoeuvre, he would have abandoned all his play-acting, and fallen at her feet. He had sufficient strength to manage to continue speaking: "Ah, Korasoff," he exclaimed mentally, "why are you not here? How I need a word from you to guide me in my conduct." During this time his voice was saying, "In default of any other sentiment, gratitude would be sufficient to attach me to the marechale. She has been indulgent to me; she has consoled me when I have been despised. I cannot put unlimited faith in certain appearances which are, no doubt, extremely flattering, but possibly very fleeting." "Oh, my God!" exclaimed Mathilde. "Well, what guarantee will you give me?" replied Julien with a sharp, firm intonation, which seemed to abandon for a moment the prudent forms of diplomacy. "What guarantee, what god will warrant that the position to which you seem inclined to restore me at the present moment will last more than two days?" "The excess of my love, and my unhappiness if you do not love me," she said to him, taking his hands and turning towards him. The spasmodic movement which she had just made had slightly displaced her tippet; Julien caught a view of her charming shoulders. Her slightly dishevelled hair recalled a delicious memory.... He was on the point of succumbing. "One imprudent word," he said to himself, "and I have to start all over again that long series of days which I have passed in despair. Madame de Renal used to find reasons for doing what her heart dictated. This young girl of high society never allows her heart to be moved except when she has proved to herself by sound logic that it ought to be moved." He saw this proof in the twinkling of an eye, and in the twinkling of an eye too, he regained his courage. He took away his hands which Mathilde was pressing in her own, and moved a little away from her with a marked respect. Human courage could not go further. He then busied himself with putting together madame de Fervaque's letters which were spread out on the divan, and it was with all the appearance of extreme politeness that he cruelly exploited the psychological moment by adding, "Mademoiselle de la Mole will allow me to reflect over all this." He went rapidly away and left the library; she heard him shut all the doors one after the other. "The monster is not the least bit troubled," she said to herself. "But what am I saying? Monster? He is wise, prudent, good. It is I myself who have committed more wrong than one can imagine." This point of view lasted. Mathilde was almost happy today, for she gave herself up to love unreservedly. One would have said that this soul had never been disturbed by pride (and what pride!) She shuddered with horror when a lackey announced madame le Fervaques into the salon in the evening. The man's voice struck her as sinister. She could not endure the sight of the marechale, and stopped suddenly. Julien who had felt little pride over his painful victory, had feared to face her, and had not dined at the Hotel de la Mole. His love and his happiness rapidly increased in proportion to the time that elapsed from the moment of the battle. He was blaming himself already. "How could I resist her?" he said to himself. "Suppose she were to go and leave off loving me! One single moment may change that haughty soul, and I must admit that I have treated her awfully." In the evening he felt that it was absolutely necessary to put in an appearance at the Bouffes in madame de Fervaques' box. She had expressly invited him. Mathilde would be bound to know of his presence or his discourteous absence. In spite of the clearness of this logic, he could not at the beginning of the evening bring himself to plunge into society. By speaking he would lose half his happiness. Ten o'clock struck and it was absolutely necessary to show himself. Luckily he found the marechale's box packed with women, and was relegated to a place near the door where he was completely hidden by the hats. This position saved him from looking ridiculous; Caroline's divine notes of despair in the _Matrimonio Segreto_ made him burst into tears. Madame de Fervaques saw these tears. They represented so great a contrast with the masculine firmness of his usual expression that the soul of the old-fashioned lady, saturated as it had been for many years with all the corroding acid of parvenu haughtiness, was none the less touched. Such remnants of a woman's heart as she still possessed impelled her to speak: she wanted to enjoy the sound of his voice at this moment. "Have you seen the de la Mole ladies?" she said to him. "They are in the third tier." Julien immediately craned out over the theatre, leaning politely enough on the front of the box. He saw Mathilde; her eyes were shining with tears. "And yet it is not their Opera day," thought Julien; "how eager she must be!" Mathilde had prevailed on her mother to come to the Bouffes in spite of the inconveniently high tier of the box, which a lady friend of the family had hastened to offer her. She wanted to see if Julien would pass the evening with the marechale.

Part 2, Chapter 30

https://web.archive.org/web/20200920104425/https://www.shmoop.com/study-guides/literature/red-and-the-black/summary/part-2-chapter-30

After telling Julien she wants him back, Mathilde asks if he has had sex with Madame de Fervaques yet. He decides not to answer, which just twists the knife in her all the more. Julien is conflicted. He wants to take Mathilde in his arms, but knows that she'll despise him in only a few days if he declares his love for her. Julien tells Mathilde straight up that he doesn't trust her. She's too fickle for him and he won't let himself love her anymore. With that, he leaves Mathilde to cry all by her lonesome self. Julien goes to the opera that night with Madame de Fervaques and cries because he's thinking of Mathilde. Madame thinks that he's just showing his sensitivity as a man because the opera is sad. It makes her like him even more. Of course, Mathilde is at the opera to see whether Julien is there with Fervaques.

pinkmonkey

all_chapterized_books/161-chapters/25.txt

finished_summaries/pinkmonkey/Sense and Sensibility/section_24_part_0.txt

Sense and Sensibility.chapter 25

chapter 25

{"name": "Chapter 25", "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20180820034609/http://www.pinkmonkey.com/booknotes/monkeynotes/pmSenseSensibility39.asp", "summary": "Elinor is troubled by Lucy's confession. Although she is inclined to believe the truth of Lucy's statements, she is not sure about Edward's feelings in the matter. So she decides to talk to Lucy again on the subject. She gets the opportunity to do so when she visits the Park on the invitation of John Middleton. While Lady Middleton sits down to play Casino with the others and Marianne plays the piano, Elinor helps Lucy to make a basket for Annamaria.", "analysis": "Notes Elinor is as composed as she is sensible. After hearing about the engagement of Lucy and Edward, she neither breaks down nor indulges in brooding. She ponders over the truth of Lucy's statements and tries to analyze Edward's emotions towards Lucy. She does not condemn Edward for his actions. She tries to connect the sequence of events leading to their engagement. She tries to remember Edward's state of mind when she met him at Norland. She decides to talk to Lucy again before passing judgment. At home, Elinor behaves normally. She is in admirable control of her emotions. She thus spares her mother and sisters from the anxiety that would naturally result from such a disclosure. She realizes the futility of seeking advice or conversing with them on the subject. She feels that \"she was stronger alone, and her own good sense so well supported her, that her firmness was as unshaken, her appearance of cheerfulness as invariable, as with regrets so poignant and so fresh, it was possible for them to be. \" Indisputably, then, she is a paragon of endurance. CHAPTER 24 Summary At the first opportunity, Elinor brings up the topic of Lucy and Edward. Lucy readily gives information about Edward's insufficient income, which might not be enough for them to settle down. However, she expresses confidence in Edward's love for her. She also voices her desire to have Edward take orders in the Church. To realize her wish, she seeks the help of Elinor to persuade her brother to give the Norland parish to them. She further reveals a plan to visit London later on, in order to meet Edward. Notes Elinor elicits information from Lucy with commendable tact and persuasion. She encourages Lucy to talk about Edward and observes her in order to gauge her actual feelings for Edward. Lucy is pragmatic enough to want Edward to be well-settled before their marriage. She takes the first opportunity to ask Elinor to speak to John Dashwood and recommend a position at Norland for them. Shamelessly, she even hopes for Mrs. Ferrars' demise, so that Edward can get his share of the property. Elinor and Lucy love the same man, but the manner of their love differs greatly. Elinor is selfless in her love for Edward. She blames neither him nor Lucy for the turn of events. She is highly in control of her emotions. Lucy is selfish and insecure about her hold over Edward. She is crude in her manner of expression and displays her emotions openly. Of the two, Elinor undoubtedly deserves Edward. CHAPTER 25 Summary Mrs. Jennings decides to go back to town to occupy her house at Portman Square. She invites the Dashwood sisters to accompany her to London. The sisters decline the invitation at first, as they are reluctant to part with their mother. But when Mrs. Dashwood gives her consent readily, they have no excuse to offer. In fact, Marianne looks forward to the trip, as it will afford her an opportunity to meet Willoughby. Elinor is happy for her sister although she herself is not very enthusiastic about visiting the city. Notes Jane Austen creates the appropriate setting for the heroines to meet with their lover interests. The fate of both Elinor and Marianne will be decided in London. Austen evokes curiosity in the reader's mind about the future of her protagonists. The reaction of the two sisters to Mrs. Jennings' invitation is different. Marianne is too eager to go to London, and hence shows impatience, while Elinor hesitates to make a decision. Marianne is even prepared to tolerate Mrs. Jennings' company in London, as long as she has the opportunity to meet Willoughby. Her reason for going to London is entirely selfish. Elinor characteristically weighs the pros and cons before making a decision. She hesitates to leave for London because she has to part with her mother. Also, she is apprehensive about staying in London with Mrs. Jennings, whose constant company might prove irksome. Left to herself, she neither desires nor dislikes going to London. However, when she becomes aware of Marianne's enthusiasm, she decides to accompany her sister to the city."}

Though Mrs. Jennings was in the habit of spending a large portion of the year at the houses of her children and friends, she was not without a settled habitation of her own. Since the death of her husband, who had traded with success in a less elegant part of the town, she had resided every winter in a house in one of the streets near Portman Square. Towards this home, she began on the approach of January to turn her thoughts, and thither she one day abruptly, and very unexpectedly by them, asked the elder Misses Dashwood to accompany her. Elinor, without observing the varying complexion of her sister, and the animated look which spoke no indifference to the plan, immediately gave a grateful but absolute denial for both, in which she believed herself to be speaking their united inclinations. The reason alleged was their determined resolution of not leaving their mother at that time of the year. Mrs. Jennings received the refusal with some surprise, and repeated her invitation immediately. "Oh, Lord! I am sure your mother can spare you very well, and I DO beg you will favour me with your company, for I've quite set my heart upon it. Don't fancy that you will be any inconvenience to me, for I shan't put myself at all out of my way for you. It will only be sending Betty by the coach, and I hope I can afford THAT. We three shall be able to go very well in my chaise; and when we are in town, if you do not like to go wherever I do, well and good, you may always go with one of my daughters. I am sure your mother will not object to it; for I have had such good luck in getting my own children off my hands that she will think me a very fit person to have the charge of you; and if I don't get one of you at least well married before I have done with you, it shall not be my fault. I shall speak a good word for you to all the young men, you may depend upon it." "I have a notion," said Sir John, "that Miss Marianne would not object to such a scheme, if her elder sister would come into it. It is very hard indeed that she should not have a little pleasure, because Miss Dashwood does not wish it. So I would advise you two, to set off for town, when you are tired of Barton, without saying a word to Miss Dashwood about it." "Nay," cried Mrs. Jennings, "I am sure I shall be monstrous glad of Miss Marianne's company, whether Miss Dashwood will go or not, only the more the merrier say I, and I thought it would be more comfortable for them to be together; because, if they got tired of me, they might talk to one another, and laugh at my old ways behind my back. But one or the other, if not both of them, I must have. Lord bless me! how do you think I can live poking by myself, I who have been always used till this winter to have Charlotte with me. Come, Miss Marianne, let us strike hands upon the bargain, and if Miss Dashwood will change her mind by and bye, why so much the better." "I thank you, ma'am, sincerely thank you," said Marianne, with warmth: "your invitation has insured my gratitude for ever, and it would give me such happiness, yes, almost the greatest happiness I am capable of, to be able to accept it. But my mother, my dearest, kindest mother,--I feel the justice of what Elinor has urged, and if she were to be made less happy, less comfortable by our absence--Oh! no, nothing should tempt me to leave her. It should not, must not be a struggle." Mrs. Jennings repeated her assurance that Mrs. Dashwood could spare them perfectly well; and Elinor, who now understood her sister, and saw to what indifference to almost every thing else she was carried by her eagerness to be with Willoughby again, made no farther direct opposition to the plan, and merely referred it to her mother's decision, from whom however she scarcely expected to receive any support in her endeavour to prevent a visit, which she could not approve of for Marianne, and which on her own account she had particular reasons to avoid. Whatever Marianne was desirous of, her mother would be eager to promote--she could not expect to influence the latter to cautiousness of conduct in an affair respecting which she had never been able to inspire her with distrust; and she dared not explain the motive of her own disinclination for going to London. That Marianne, fastidious as she was, thoroughly acquainted with Mrs. Jennings' manners, and invariably disgusted by them, should overlook every inconvenience of that kind, should disregard whatever must be most wounding to her irritable feelings, in her pursuit of one object, was such a proof, so strong, so full, of the importance of that object to her, as Elinor, in spite of all that had passed, was not prepared to witness. On being informed of the invitation, Mrs. Dashwood, persuaded that such an excursion would be productive of much amusement to both her daughters, and perceiving through all her affectionate attention to herself, how much the heart of Marianne was in it, would not hear of their declining the offer upon HER account; insisted on their both accepting it directly; and then began to foresee, with her usual cheerfulness, a variety of advantages that would accrue to them all, from this separation. "I am delighted with the plan," she cried, "it is exactly what I could wish. Margaret and I shall be as much benefited by it as yourselves. When you and the Middletons are gone, we shall go on so quietly and happily together with our books and our music! You will find Margaret so improved when you come back again! I have a little plan of alteration for your bedrooms too, which may now be performed without any inconvenience to any one. It is very right that you SHOULD go to town; I would have every young woman of your condition in life acquainted with the manners and amusements of London. You will be under the care of a motherly good sort of woman, of whose kindness to you I can have no doubt. And in all probability you will see your brother, and whatever may be his faults, or the faults of his wife, when I consider whose son he is, I cannot bear to have you so wholly estranged from each other." "Though with your usual anxiety for our happiness," said Elinor, "you have been obviating every impediment to the present scheme which occurred to you, there is still one objection which, in my opinion, cannot be so easily removed." Marianne's countenance sunk. "And what," said Mrs. Dashwood, "is my dear prudent Elinor going to suggest? What formidable obstacle is she now to bring forward? Do let me hear a word about the expense of it." "My objection is this; though I think very well of Mrs. Jennings's heart, she is not a woman whose society can afford us pleasure, or whose protection will give us consequence." "That is very true," replied her mother, "but of her society, separately from that of other people, you will scarcely have any thing at all, and you will almost always appear in public with Lady Middleton." "If Elinor is frightened away by her dislike of Mrs. Jennings," said Marianne, "at least it need not prevent MY accepting her invitation. I have no such scruples, and I am sure I could put up with every unpleasantness of that kind with very little effort." Elinor could not help smiling at this display of indifference towards the manners of a person, to whom she had often had difficulty in persuading Marianne to behave with tolerable politeness; and resolved within herself, that if her sister persisted in going, she would go likewise, as she did not think it proper that Marianne should be left to the sole guidance of her own judgment, or that Mrs. Jennings should be abandoned to the mercy of Marianne for all the comfort of her domestic hours. To this determination she was the more easily reconciled, by recollecting that Edward Ferrars, by Lucy's account, was not to be in town before February; and that their visit, without any unreasonable abridgement, might be previously finished. "I will have you BOTH go," said Mrs. Dashwood; "these objections are nonsensical. You will have much pleasure in being in London, and especially in being together; and if Elinor would ever condescend to anticipate enjoyment, she would foresee it there from a variety of sources; she would, perhaps, expect some from improving her acquaintance with her sister-in-law's family." Elinor had often wished for an opportunity of attempting to weaken her mother's dependence on the attachment of Edward and herself, that the shock might be less when the whole truth were revealed, and now on this attack, though almost hopeless of success, she forced herself to begin her design by saying, as calmly as she could, "I like Edward Ferrars very much, and shall always be glad to see him; but as to the rest of the family, it is a matter of perfect indifference to me, whether I am ever known to them or not." Mrs. Dashwood smiled, and said nothing. Marianne lifted up her eyes in astonishment, and Elinor conjectured that she might as well have held her tongue. After very little farther discourse, it was finally settled that the invitation should be fully accepted. Mrs. Jennings received the information with a great deal of joy, and many assurances of kindness and care; nor was it a matter of pleasure merely to her. Sir John was delighted; for to a man, whose prevailing anxiety was the dread of being alone, the acquisition of two, to the number of inhabitants in London, was something. Even Lady Middleton took the trouble of being delighted, which was putting herself rather out of her way; and as for the Miss Steeles, especially Lucy, they had never been so happy in their lives as this intelligence made them. Elinor submitted to the arrangement which counteracted her wishes with less reluctance than she had expected to feel. With regard to herself, it was now a matter of unconcern whether she went to town or not, and when she saw her mother so thoroughly pleased with the plan, and her sister exhilarated by it in look, voice, and manner, restored to all her usual animation, and elevated to more than her usual gaiety, she could not be dissatisfied with the cause, and would hardly allow herself to distrust the consequence. Marianne's joy was almost a degree beyond happiness, so great was the perturbation of her spirits and her impatience to be gone. Her unwillingness to quit her mother was her only restorative to calmness; and at the moment of parting her grief on that score was excessive. Her mother's affliction was hardly less, and Elinor was the only one of the three, who seemed to consider the separation as any thing short of eternal. Their departure took place in the first week in January. The Middletons were to follow in about a week. The Miss Steeles kept their station at the park, and were to quit it only with the rest of the family.

Chapter 25

https://web.archive.org/web/20180820034609/http://www.pinkmonkey.com/booknotes/monkeynotes/pmSenseSensibility39.asp

Elinor is troubled by Lucy's confession. Although she is inclined to believe the truth of Lucy's statements, she is not sure about Edward's feelings in the matter. So she decides to talk to Lucy again on the subject. She gets the opportunity to do so when she visits the Park on the invitation of John Middleton. While Lady Middleton sits down to play Casino with the others and Marianne plays the piano, Elinor helps Lucy to make a basket for Annamaria.

Notes Elinor is as composed as she is sensible. After hearing about the engagement of Lucy and Edward, she neither breaks down nor indulges in brooding. She ponders over the truth of Lucy's statements and tries to analyze Edward's emotions towards Lucy. She does not condemn Edward for his actions. She tries to connect the sequence of events leading to their engagement. She tries to remember Edward's state of mind when she met him at Norland. She decides to talk to Lucy again before passing judgment. At home, Elinor behaves normally. She is in admirable control of her emotions. She thus spares her mother and sisters from the anxiety that would naturally result from such a disclosure. She realizes the futility of seeking advice or conversing with them on the subject. She feels that "she was stronger alone, and her own good sense so well supported her, that her firmness was as unshaken, her appearance of cheerfulness as invariable, as with regrets so poignant and so fresh, it was possible for them to be. " Indisputably, then, she is a paragon of endurance. CHAPTER 24 Summary At the first opportunity, Elinor brings up the topic of Lucy and Edward. Lucy readily gives information about Edward's insufficient income, which might not be enough for them to settle down. However, she expresses confidence in Edward's love for her. She also voices her desire to have Edward take orders in the Church. To realize her wish, she seeks the help of Elinor to persuade her brother to give the Norland parish to them. She further reveals a plan to visit London later on, in order to meet Edward. Notes Elinor elicits information from Lucy with commendable tact and persuasion. She encourages Lucy to talk about Edward and observes her in order to gauge her actual feelings for Edward. Lucy is pragmatic enough to want Edward to be well-settled before their marriage. She takes the first opportunity to ask Elinor to speak to John Dashwood and recommend a position at Norland for them. Shamelessly, she even hopes for Mrs. Ferrars' demise, so that Edward can get his share of the property. Elinor and Lucy love the same man, but the manner of their love differs greatly. Elinor is selfless in her love for Edward. She blames neither him nor Lucy for the turn of events. She is highly in control of her emotions. Lucy is selfish and insecure about her hold over Edward. She is crude in her manner of expression and displays her emotions openly. Of the two, Elinor undoubtedly deserves Edward. CHAPTER 25 Summary Mrs. Jennings decides to go back to town to occupy her house at Portman Square. She invites the Dashwood sisters to accompany her to London. The sisters decline the invitation at first, as they are reluctant to part with their mother. But when Mrs. Dashwood gives her consent readily, they have no excuse to offer. In fact, Marianne looks forward to the trip, as it will afford her an opportunity to meet Willoughby. Elinor is happy for her sister although she herself is not very enthusiastic about visiting the city. Notes Jane Austen creates the appropriate setting for the heroines to meet with their lover interests. The fate of both Elinor and Marianne will be decided in London. Austen evokes curiosity in the reader's mind about the future of her protagonists. The reaction of the two sisters to Mrs. Jennings' invitation is different. Marianne is too eager to go to London, and hence shows impatience, while Elinor hesitates to make a decision. Marianne is even prepared to tolerate Mrs. Jennings' company in London, as long as she has the opportunity to meet Willoughby. Her reason for going to London is entirely selfish. Elinor characteristically weighs the pros and cons before making a decision. She hesitates to leave for London because she has to part with her mother. Also, she is apprehensive about staying in London with Mrs. Jennings, whose constant company might prove irksome. Left to herself, she neither desires nor dislikes going to London. However, when she becomes aware of Marianne's enthusiasm, she decides to accompany her sister to the city.

sparknotes

all_chapterized_books/5658-chapters/chapters_6_to_7.txt

finished_summaries/sparknotes/Lord Jim/section_2_part_0.txt

Lord Jim.chapters 6-7

chapters 6-7

{"name": "Chapters 6 and 7", "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20210126121516/https://www.sparknotes.com/lit/lordjim/section3/", "summary": "Marlow offers his take on the inquiry. The facts of the Patna case were already known with as much certainty as possible, he claims, and the inquiry is merely being held to satisfy some deep psychological need of the community of sailors. Marlow thinks about Captain Brierly, one of the judges at the inquiry. Brierly is a well-regarded, well-known sailor who commands one of the best ships in the East, a man who has been recognized for his feats of heroism and good seamanship. Yet, Marlow tells us, Brierly commits suicide soon after the inquiry into the Patna affair. Brierly's chief mate, whom Marlow encounters later, tells of Brierly's careful preparations before jumping overboard to drown in the middle of a passage. Marlow reflects that the man's suicide, not attributable to any other cause, must have been a result of a self-condemnation provoked by some identification with Jim. Marlow encounters Brierly on the street during the inquiry and has a terse conversation with him. Agreeing with Marlow that Jim is being tormented because he assents to being tormented, Brierly proposes to Marlow that the two put up a fund of money with which Jim can flee, on the condition that Marlow make the offer to Jim. The next day, Marlow finally has occasion to speak to Jim. Leaving court, Jim is just in front of Marlow. Someone outside the court has a dog with them, which trips up the crowd. Another person in the crowd makes reference to the dog, calling it a \"cur.\" Jim whirls around and accuses Marlow of insulting him, thinking it was Marlow who uttered the word and that it was directed at him. He also tells Marlow that he's noticed him staring during the inquiry. Marlow points out the dog in the crowd and explains the mistake. Jim is abashed but defiant; he runs off. Marlow follows him, unsure why he is doing so, and invites him to dine at his hotel. Jim agrees, and the two eat in a dining room full of package tourists. Slowly, Jim begins to talk, first of his torment, then of his shame at his family's knowledge of his trial, then of his desire to be understood by someone, anyone. Marlow will do, he says. Marlow again notes that Jim is \"one of us.\" Jim begins to describe the events following the Patna's collision: going below again, he found that the bulkhead separating the flooded compartment from the rest of the hold was bulging and about to fail. If it were to fail, the ship would surely sink. Jim begins to reflect on \"the chance missed,\" eventually getting to the heart of \"the impossible world of romantic achievements\" that could have been his, given this opportunity. Through a series of indirect references by both men, the reader is given to understand that the Patna's officers, sure that the bulkhead would fail and the ship sink, had abandoned the ship, leaving its cargo of pilgrims behind. The officers were picked up a few days later by another vessel, whose captain they told that the Patna had sunk. Apparently, however, the bulkhead did not fail, and the ship did not sink. This is why Jim has been put on trial; he missed his chance to do the heroic thing by staying with the damaged ship, and instead made the worst possible mistake a seaman could make, abandoning a still-floating ship. Jim recalls watching the sleeping pilgrims, aware that, due to a lack of lifeboats, they were all already dead. Paralyzed by some unnameable emotion, he does not wake any of them.", "analysis": "Commentary Brierly's story, which begins this section, reinforces Marlow's idea about Jim being \"one of us.\" Although Brierly is one of the most successful merchant seamen in the Pacific, he nevertheless has something in common with Jim, something that drives him to pass the ultimate judgment on himself. The actual act of Brierly's suicide is significant in two ways. First, Brierly's actual jump overboard is not narrated. There is a void where the action should be, as will be the case with the two most significant moments of Jim's life, when we finally get to them. Instead, Brierly's chief mate is only able to describe the events and preparations surrounding Brierly's death. From this description it is obvious that the suicide has been carefully planned, the culmination of many hours of fantasy about the event itself. This is the second significant aspect of the suicide: its analogous relation to Jim's fantasy world of heroic deeds. Like Jim, Brierly rehearses the act in his head, imagining all the circumstances leading up to it and considering himself particularly qualified to undertake this action. Unlike Jim's, though, Brierly's fantasies become reality. The significance of Brierly's death will become even more apparent when Jim resumes the story of what happened on the Patna, when we see him faced with a jump of his own. The \"cur\" incident will also have a parallel aboard the Patna, as Jim will reveal in Chapter 8. The scene with the dog also serves as another instance of indecipherability. While the actual use of the word \"cur\" is directed to the dog outside the courthouse, the inquiry underway within the courthouse represents the community of seamen implicitly accusing Jim of being a \"cur.\" And, as his subsequent conversation with Marlow reveals, his resentment over the implied slur has him at a boiling point. In a novel full of vague words and indirect conversations, this moment also stands out as one where language achieves an unusual sharpness. Most importantly for us, though, it gives Jim and Marlow a chance to meet. Each has noticed the other. While Marlow is drawn to Jim for deep psychological reasons, Jim is interested in Marlow because he thinks Marlow has been staring at him with undue curiosity and in a condemnatory way. It is a sign of the strong fascination each has with the other that they come together over an insult that wasn't meant to be one. Jim, still convinced that his true self is based in his heroic fantasies, rejects the term \"cur,\" while Marlow, initially put in the position of the giver of the insult, finds himself rushing after Jim to make explanations and amends. Marlow is barely offended when Jim, during the course of their conversation, suggests that the epithet may better apply to Marlow himself. Note, too, that Marlow is often cutting or insensitive to Jim in the course of their conversation. The entangling of the judging and the judged that takes place over the word \"cur\" foreshadows the way the two men's stories will become entangled. Jim chooses Marlow as a recipient for his narrative, wanting only to find someone who will \"understand.\" Jim's desire to perpetuate and justify himself through his story calls to mind traditional notions of poetic immortality; if Jim's story lives on, so too, in some way, does Jim. Marlow, though, is not a neutral recipient of the tale. Seeing something in Jim that corresponds to a part of himself, he co-opts it; Lord Jim becomes a story that can say something about Marlow, that is perhaps in the end more Marlow's story than Jim's."}

'The authorities were evidently of the same opinion. The inquiry was not adjourned. It was held on the appointed day to satisfy the law, and it was well attended because of its human interest, no doubt. There was no incertitude as to facts--as to the one material fact, I mean. How the Patna came by her hurt it was impossible to find out; the court did not expect to find out; and in the whole audience there was not a man who cared. Yet, as I've told you, all the sailors in the port attended, and the waterside business was fully represented. Whether they knew it or not, the interest that drew them here was purely psychological--the expectation of some essential disclosure as to the strength, the power, the horror, of human emotions. Naturally nothing of the kind could be disclosed. The examination of the only man able and willing to face it was beating futilely round the well-known fact, and the play of questions upon it was as instructive as the tapping with a hammer on an iron box, were the object to find out what's inside. However, an official inquiry could not be any other thing. Its object was not the fundamental why, but the superficial how, of this affair. 'The young chap could have told them, and, though that very thing was the thing that interested the audience, the questions put to him necessarily led him away from what to me, for instance, would have been the only truth worth knowing. You can't expect the constituted authorities to inquire into the state of a man's soul--or is it only of his liver? Their business was to come down upon the consequences, and frankly, a casual police magistrate and two nautical assessors are not much good for anything else. I don't mean to imply these fellows were stupid. The magistrate was very patient. One of the assessors was a sailing-ship skipper with a reddish beard, and of a pious disposition. Brierly was the other. Big Brierly. Some of you must have heard of Big Brierly--the captain of the crack ship of the Blue Star line. That's the man. 'He seemed consumedly bored by the honour thrust upon him. He had never in his life made a mistake, never had an accident, never a mishap, never a check in his steady rise, and he seemed to be one of those lucky fellows who know nothing of indecision, much less of self-mistrust. At thirty-two he had one of the best commands going in the Eastern trade--and, what's more, he thought a lot of what he had. There was nothing like it in the world, and I suppose if you had asked him point-blank he would have confessed that in his opinion there was not such another commander. The choice had fallen upon the right man. The rest of mankind that did not command the sixteen-knot steel steamer Ossa were rather poor creatures. He had saved lives at sea, had rescued ships in distress, had a gold chronometer presented to him by the underwriters, and a pair of binoculars with a suitable inscription from some foreign Government, in commemoration of these services. He was acutely aware of his merits and of his rewards. I liked him well enough, though some I know--meek, friendly men at that--couldn't stand him at any price. I haven't the slightest doubt he considered himself vastly my superior--indeed, had you been Emperor of East and West, you could not have ignored your inferiority in his presence--but I couldn't get up any real sentiment of offence. He did not despise me for anything I could help, for anything I was--don't you know? I was a negligible quantity simply because I was not _the_ fortunate man of the earth, not Montague Brierly in command of the Ossa, not the owner of an inscribed gold chronometer and of silver-mounted binoculars testifying to the excellence of my seamanship and to my indomitable pluck; not possessed of an acute sense of my merits and of my rewards, besides the love and worship of a black retriever, the most wonderful of its kind--for never was such a man loved thus by such a dog. No doubt, to have all this forced upon you was exasperating enough; but when I reflected that I was associated in these fatal disadvantages with twelve hundred millions of other more or less human beings, I found I could bear my share of his good-natured and contemptuous pity for the sake of something indefinite and attractive in the man. I have never defined to myself this attraction, but there were moments when I envied him. The sting of life could do no more to his complacent soul than the scratch of a pin to the smooth face of a rock. This was enviable. As I looked at him, flanking on one side the unassuming pale-faced magistrate who presided at the inquiry, his self-satisfaction presented to me and to the world a surface as hard as granite. He committed suicide very soon after. 'No wonder Jim's case bored him, and while I thought with something akin to fear of the immensity of his contempt for the young man under examination, he was probably holding silent inquiry into his own case. The verdict must have been of unmitigated guilt, and he took the secret of the evidence with him in that leap into the sea. If I understand anything of men, the matter was no doubt of the gravest import, one of those trifles that awaken ideas--start into life some thought with which a man unused to such a companionship finds it impossible to live. I am in a position to know that it wasn't money, and it wasn't drink, and it wasn't woman. He jumped overboard at sea barely a week after the end of the inquiry, and less than three days after leaving port on his outward passage; as though on that exact spot in the midst of waters he had suddenly perceived the gates of the other world flung open wide for his reception. 'Yet it was not a sudden impulse. His grey-headed mate, a first-rate sailor and a nice old chap with strangers, but in his relations with his commander the surliest chief officer I've ever seen, would tell the story with tears in his eyes. It appears that when he came on deck in the morning Brierly had been writing in the chart-room. "It was ten minutes to four," he said, "and the middle watch was not relieved yet of course. He heard my voice on the bridge speaking to the second mate, and called me in. I was loth to go, and that's the truth, Captain Marlow--I couldn't stand poor Captain Brierly, I tell you with shame; we never know what a man is made of. He had been promoted over too many heads, not counting my own, and he had a damnable trick of making you feel small, nothing but by the way he said 'Good morning.' I never addressed him, sir, but on matters of duty, and then it was as much as I could do to keep a civil tongue in my head." (He flattered himself there. I often wondered how Brierly could put up with his manners for more than half a voyage.) "I've a wife and children," he went on, "and I had been ten years in the Company, always expecting the next command--more fool I. Says he, just like this: 'Come in here, Mr. Jones,' in that swagger voice of his--'Come in here, Mr. Jones.' In I went. 'We'll lay down her position,' says he, stooping over the chart, a pair of dividers in hand. By the standing orders, the officer going off duty would have done that at the end of his watch. However, I said nothing, and looked on while he marked off the ship's position with a tiny cross and wrote the date and the time. I can see him this moment writing his neat figures: seventeen, eight, four A.M. The year would be written in red ink at the top of the chart. He never used his charts more than a year, Captain Brierly didn't. I've the chart now. When he had done he stands looking down at the mark he had made and smiling to himself, then looks up at me. 'Thirty-two miles more as she goes,' says he, 'and then we shall be clear, and you may alter the course twenty degrees to the southward.' '"We were passing to the north of the Hector Bank that voyage. I said, 'All right, sir,' wondering what he was fussing about, since I had to call him before altering the course anyhow. Just then eight bells were struck: we came out on the bridge, and the second mate before going off mentions in the usual way--'Seventy-one on the log.' Captain Brierly looks at the compass and then all round. It was dark and clear, and all the stars were out as plain as on a frosty night in high latitudes. Suddenly he says with a sort of a little sigh: 'I am going aft, and shall set the log at zero for you myself, so that there can be no mistake. Thirty-two miles more on this course and then you are safe. Let's see--the correction on the log is six per cent. additive; say, then, thirty by the dial to run, and you may come twenty degrees to starboard at once. No use losing any distance--is there?' I had never heard him talk so much at a stretch, and to no purpose as it seemed to me. I said nothing. He went down the ladder, and the dog, that was always at his heels whenever he moved, night or day, followed, sliding nose first, after him. I heard his boot-heels tap, tap on the after-deck, then he stopped and spoke to the dog--'Go back, Rover. On the bridge, boy! Go on--get.' Then he calls out to me from the dark, 'Shut that dog up in the chart-room, Mr. Jones--will you?' '"This was the last time I heard his voice, Captain Marlow. These are the last words he spoke in the hearing of any living human being, sir." At this point the old chap's voice got quite unsteady. "He was afraid the poor brute would jump after him, don't you see?" he pursued with a quaver. "Yes, Captain Marlow. He set the log for me; he--would you believe it?--he put a drop of oil in it too. There was the oil-feeder where he left it near by. The boat-swain's mate got the hose along aft to wash down at half-past five; by-and-by he knocks off and runs up on the bridge--'Will you please come aft, Mr. Jones,' he says. 'There's a funny thing. I don't like to touch it.' It was Captain Brierly's gold chronometer watch carefully hung under the rail by its chain. '"As soon as my eyes fell on it something struck me, and I knew, sir. My legs got soft under me. It was as if I had seen him go over; and I could tell how far behind he was left too. The taffrail-log marked eighteen miles and three-quarters, and four iron belaying-pins were missing round the mainmast. Put them in his pockets to help him down, I suppose; but, Lord! what's four iron pins to a powerful man like Captain Brierly. Maybe his confidence in himself was just shook a bit at the last. That's the only sign of fluster he gave in his whole life, I should think; but I am ready to answer for him, that once over he did not try to swim a stroke, the same as he would have had pluck enough to keep up all day long on the bare chance had he fallen overboard accidentally. Yes, sir. He was second to none--if he said so himself, as I heard him once. He had written two letters in the middle watch, one to the Company and the other to me. He gave me a lot of instructions as to the passage--I had been in the trade before he was out of his time--and no end of hints as to my conduct with our people in Shanghai, so that I should keep the command of the Ossa. He wrote like a father would to a favourite son, Captain Marlow, and I was five-and-twenty years his senior and had tasted salt water before he was fairly breeched. In his letter to the owners--it was left open for me to see--he said that he had always done his duty by them--up to that moment--and even now he was not betraying their confidence, since he was leaving the ship to as competent a seaman as could be found--meaning me, sir, meaning me! He told them that if the last act of his life didn't take away all his credit with them, they would give weight to my faithful service and to his warm recommendation, when about to fill the vacancy made by his death. And much more like this, sir. I couldn't believe my eyes. It made me feel queer all over," went on the old chap, in great perturbation, and squashing something in the corner of his eye with the end of a thumb as broad as a spatula. "You would think, sir, he had jumped overboard only to give an unlucky man a last show to get on. What with the shock of him going in this awful rash way, and thinking myself a made man by that chance, I was nearly off my chump for a week. But no fear. The captain of the Pelion was shifted into the Ossa--came aboard in Shanghai--a little popinjay, sir, in a grey check suit, with his hair parted in the middle. 'Aw--I am--aw--your new captain, Mister--Mister--aw--Jones.' He was drowned in scent--fairly stunk with it, Captain Marlow. I dare say it was the look I gave him that made him stammer. He mumbled something about my natural disappointment--I had better know at once that his chief officer got the promotion to the Pelion--he had nothing to do with it, of course--supposed the office knew best--sorry. . . . Says I, 'Don't you mind old Jones, sir; dam' his soul, he's used to it.' I could see directly I had shocked his delicate ear, and while we sat at our first tiffin together he began to find fault in a nasty manner with this and that in the ship. I never heard such a voice out of a Punch and Judy show. I set my teeth hard, and glued my eyes to my plate, and held my peace as long as I could; but at last I had to say something. Up he jumps tiptoeing, ruffling all his pretty plumes, like a little fighting-cock. 'You'll find you have a different person to deal with than the late Captain Brierly.' 'I've found it,' says I, very glum, but pretending to be mighty busy with my steak. 'You are an old ruffian, Mister--aw--Jones; and what's more, you are known for an old ruffian in the employ,' he squeaks at me. The damned bottle-washers stood about listening with their mouths stretched from ear to ear. 'I may be a hard case,' answers I, 'but I ain't so far gone as to put up with the sight of you sitting in Captain Brierly's chair.' With that I lay down my knife and fork. 'You would like to sit in it yourself--that's where the shoe pinches,' he sneers. I left the saloon, got my rags together, and was on the quay with all my dunnage about my feet before the stevedores had turned to again. Yes. Adrift--on shore--after ten years' service--and with a poor woman and four children six thousand miles off depending on my half-pay for every mouthful they ate. Yes, sir! I chucked it rather than hear Captain Brierly abused. He left me his night-glasses--here they are; and he wished me to take care of the dog--here he is. Hallo, Rover, poor boy. Where's the captain, Rover?" The dog looked up at us with mournful yellow eyes, gave one desolate bark, and crept under the table. 'All this was taking place, more than two years afterwards, on board that nautical ruin the Fire-Queen this Jones had got charge of--quite by a funny accident, too--from Matherson--mad Matherson they generally called him--the same who used to hang out in Hai-phong, you know, before the occupation days. The old chap snuffled on-- '"Ay, sir, Captain Brierly will be remembered here, if there's no other place on earth. I wrote fully to his father and did not get a word in reply--neither Thank you, nor Go to the devil!--nothing! Perhaps they did not want to know." 'The sight of that watery-eyed old Jones mopping his bald head with a red cotton handkerchief, the sorrowing yelp of the dog, the squalor of that fly-blown cuddy which was the only shrine of his memory, threw a veil of inexpressibly mean pathos over Brierly's remembered figure, the posthumous revenge of fate for that belief in his own splendour which had almost cheated his life of its legitimate terrors. Almost! Perhaps wholly. Who can tell what flattering view he had induced himself to take of his own suicide? '"Why did he commit the rash act, Captain Marlow--can you think?" asked Jones, pressing his palms together. "Why? It beats me! Why?" He slapped his low and wrinkled forehead. "If he had been poor and old and in debt--and never a show--or else mad. But he wasn't of the kind that goes mad, not he. You trust me. What a mate don't know about his skipper isn't worth knowing. Young, healthy, well off, no cares. . . . I sit here sometimes thinking, thinking, till my head fairly begins to buzz. There was some reason." '"You may depend on it, Captain Jones," said I, "it wasn't anything that would have disturbed much either of us two," I said; and then, as if a light had been flashed into the muddle of his brain, poor old Jones found a last word of amazing profundity. He blew his nose, nodding at me dolefully: "Ay, ay! neither you nor I, sir, had ever thought so much of ourselves." 'Of course the recollection of my last conversation with Brierly is tinged with the knowledge of his end that followed so close upon it. I spoke with him for the last time during the progress of the inquiry. It was after the first adjournment, and he came up with me in the street. He was in a state of irritation, which I noticed with surprise, his usual behaviour when he condescended to converse being perfectly cool, with a trace of amused tolerance, as if the existence of his interlocutor had been a rather good joke. "They caught me for that inquiry, you see," he began, and for a while enlarged complainingly upon the inconveniences of daily attendance in court. "And goodness knows how long it will last. Three days, I suppose." I heard him out in silence; in my then opinion it was a way as good as another of putting on side. "What's the use of it? It is the stupidest set-out you can imagine," he pursued hotly. I remarked that there was no option. He interrupted me with a sort of pent-up violence. "I feel like a fool all the time." I looked up at him. This was going very far--for Brierly--when talking of Brierly. He stopped short, and seizing the lapel of my coat, gave it a slight tug. "Why are we tormenting that young chap?" he asked. This question chimed in so well to the tolling of a certain thought of mine that, with the image of the absconding renegade in my eye, I answered at once, "Hanged if I know, unless it be that he lets you." I was astonished to see him fall into line, so to speak, with that utterance, which ought to have been tolerably cryptic. He said angrily, "Why, yes. Can't he see that wretched skipper of his has cleared out? What does he expect to happen? Nothing can save him. He's done for." We walked on in silence a few steps. "Why eat all that dirt?" he exclaimed, with an oriental energy of expression--about the only sort of energy you can find a trace of east of the fiftieth meridian. I wondered greatly at the direction of his thoughts, but now I strongly suspect it was strictly in character: at bottom poor Brierly must have been thinking of himself. I pointed out to him that the skipper of the Patna was known to have feathered his nest pretty well, and could procure almost anywhere the means of getting away. With Jim it was otherwise: the Government was keeping him in the Sailors' Home for the time being, and probably he hadn't a penny in his pocket to bless himself with. It costs some money to run away. "Does it? Not always," he said, with a bitter laugh, and to some further remark of mine--"Well, then, let him creep twenty feet underground and stay there! By heavens! _I_ would." I don't know why his tone provoked me, and I said, "There is a kind of courage in facing it out as he does, knowing very well that if he went away nobody would trouble to run after him." "Courage be hanged!" growled Brierly. "That sort of courage is of no use to keep a man straight, and I don't care a snap for such courage. If you were to say it was a kind of cowardice now--of softness. I tell you what, I will put up two hundred rupees if you put up another hundred and undertake to make the beggar clear out early to-morrow morning. The fellow's a gentleman if he ain't fit to be touched--he will understand. He must! This infernal publicity is too shocking: there he sits while all these confounded natives, serangs, lascars, quartermasters, are giving evidence that's enough to burn a man to ashes with shame. This is abominable. Why, Marlow, don't you think, don't you feel, that this is abominable; don't you now--come--as a seaman? If he went away all this would stop at once." Brierly said these words with a most unusual animation, and made as if to reach after his pocket-book. I restrained him, and declared coldly that the cowardice of these four men did not seem to me a matter of such great importance. "And you call yourself a seaman, I suppose," he pronounced angrily. I said that's what I called myself, and I hoped I was too. He heard me out, and made a gesture with his big arm that seemed to deprive me of my individuality, to push me away into the crowd. "The worst of it," he said, "is that all you fellows have no sense of dignity; you don't think enough of what you are supposed to be." 'We had been walking slowly meantime, and now stopped opposite the harbour office, in sight of the very spot from which the immense captain of the Patna had vanished as utterly as a tiny feather blown away in a hurricane. I smiled. Brierly went on: "This is a disgrace. We've got all kinds amongst us--some anointed scoundrels in the lot; but, hang it, we must preserve professional decency or we become no better than so many tinkers going about loose. We are trusted. Do you understand?--trusted! Frankly, I don't care a snap for all the pilgrims that ever came out of Asia, but a decent man would not have behaved like this to a full cargo of old rags in bales. We aren't an organised body of men, and the only thing that holds us together is just the name for that kind of decency. Such an affair destroys one's confidence. A man may go pretty near through his whole sea-life without any call to show a stiff upper lip. But when the call comes . . . Aha! . . . If I . . ." 'He broke off, and in a changed tone, "I'll give you two hundred rupees now, Marlow, and you just talk to that chap. Confound him! I wish he had never come out here. Fact is, I rather think some of my people know his. The old man's a parson, and I remember now I met him once when staying with my cousin in Essex last year. If I am not mistaken, the old chap seemed rather to fancy his sailor son. Horrible. I can't do it myself--but you . . ." 'Thus, apropos of Jim, I had a glimpse of the real Brierly a few days before he committed his reality and his sham together to the keeping of the sea. Of course I declined to meddle. The tone of this last "but you" (poor Brierly couldn't help it), that seemed to imply I was no more noticeable than an insect, caused me to look at the proposal with indignation, and on account of that provocation, or for some other reason, I became positive in my mind that the inquiry was a severe punishment to that Jim, and that his facing it--practically of his own free will--was a redeeming feature in his abominable case. I hadn't been so sure of it before. Brierly went off in a huff. At the time his state of mind was more of a mystery to me than it is now. 'Next day, coming into court late, I sat by myself. Of course I could not forget the conversation I had with Brierly, and now I had them both under my eyes. The demeanour of one suggested gloomy impudence and of the other a contemptuous boredom; yet one attitude might not have been truer than the other, and I was aware that one was not true. Brierly was not bored--he was exasperated; and if so, then Jim might not have been impudent. According to my theory he was not. I imagined he was hopeless. Then it was that our glances met. They met, and the look he gave me was discouraging of any intention I might have had to speak to him. Upon either hypothesis--insolence or despair--I felt I could be of no use to him. This was the second day of the proceedings. Very soon after that exchange of glances the inquiry was adjourned again to the next day. The white men began to troop out at once. Jim had been told to stand down some time before, and was able to leave amongst the first. I saw his broad shoulders and his head outlined in the light of the door, and while I made my way slowly out talking with some one--some stranger who had addressed me casually--I could see him from within the court-room resting both elbows on the balustrade of the verandah and turning his back on the small stream of people trickling down the few steps. There was a murmur of voices and a shuffle of boots. 'The next case was that of assault and battery committed upon a money-lender, I believe; and the defendant--a venerable villager with a straight white beard--sat on a mat just outside the door with his sons, daughters, sons-in-law, their wives, and, I should think, half the population of his village besides, squatting or standing around him. A slim dark woman, with part of her back and one black shoulder bared, and with a thin gold ring in her nose, suddenly began to talk in a high-pitched, shrewish tone. The man with me instinctively looked up at her. We were then just through the door, passing behind Jim's burly back. 'Whether those villagers had brought the yellow dog with them, I don't know. Anyhow, a dog was there, weaving himself in and out amongst people's legs in that mute stealthy way native dogs have, and my companion stumbled over him. The dog leaped away without a sound; the man, raising his voice a little, said with a slow laugh, "Look at that wretched cur," and directly afterwards we became separated by a lot of people pushing in. I stood back for a moment against the wall while the stranger managed to get down the steps and disappeared. I saw Jim spin round. He made a step forward and barred my way. We were alone; he glared at me with an air of stubborn resolution. I became aware I was being held up, so to speak, as if in a wood. The verandah was empty by then, the noise and movement in court had ceased: a great silence fell upon the building, in which, somewhere far within, an oriental voice began to whine abjectly. The dog, in the very act of trying to sneak in at the door, sat down hurriedly to hunt for fleas. '"Did you speak to me?" asked Jim very low, and bending forward, not so much towards me but at me, if you know what I mean. I said "No" at once. Something in the sound of that quiet tone of his warned me to be on my defence. I watched him. It was very much like a meeting in a wood, only more uncertain in its issue, since he could possibly want neither my money nor my life--nothing that I could simply give up or defend with a clear conscience. "You say you didn't," he said, very sombre. "But I heard." "Some mistake," I protested, utterly at a loss, and never taking my eyes off him. To watch his face was like watching a darkening sky before a clap of thunder, shade upon shade imperceptibly coming on, the doom growing mysteriously intense in the calm of maturing violence. '"As far as I know, I haven't opened my lips in your hearing," I affirmed with perfect truth. I was getting a little angry, too, at the absurdity of this encounter. It strikes me now I have never in my life been so near a beating--I mean it literally; a beating with fists. I suppose I had some hazy prescience of that eventuality being in the air. Not that he was actively threatening me. On the contrary, he was strangely passive--don't you know? but he was lowering, and, though not exceptionally big, he looked generally fit to demolish a wall. The most reassuring symptom I noticed was a kind of slow and ponderous hesitation, which I took as a tribute to the evident sincerity of my manner and of my tone. We faced each other. In the court the assault case was proceeding. I caught the words: "Well--buffalo--stick--in the greatness of my fear. . . ." '"What did you mean by staring at me all the morning?" said Jim at last. He looked up and looked down again. "Did you expect us all to sit with downcast eyes out of regard for your susceptibilities?" I retorted sharply. I was not going to submit meekly to any of his nonsense. He raised his eyes again, and this time continued to look me straight in the face. "No. That's all right," he pronounced with an air of deliberating with himself upon the truth of this statement--"that's all right. I am going through with that. Only"--and there he spoke a little faster--"I won't let any man call me names outside this court. There was a fellow with you. You spoke to him--oh yes--I know; 'tis all very fine. You spoke to him, but you meant me to hear. . . ." 'I assured him he was under some extraordinary delusion. I had no conception how it came about. "You thought I would be afraid to resent this," he said, with just a faint tinge of bitterness. I was interested enough to discern the slightest shades of expression, but I was not in the least enlightened; yet I don't know what in these words, or perhaps just the intonation of that phrase, induced me suddenly to make all possible allowances for him. I ceased to be annoyed at my unexpected predicament. It was some mistake on his part; he was blundering, and I had an intuition that the blunder was of an odious, of an unfortunate nature. I was anxious to end this scene on grounds of decency, just as one is anxious to cut short some unprovoked and abominable confidence. The funniest part was, that in the midst of all these considerations of the higher order I was conscious of a certain trepidation as to the possibility--nay, likelihood--of this encounter ending in some disreputable brawl which could not possibly be explained, and would make me ridiculous. I did not hanker after a three days' celebrity as the man who got a black eye or something of the sort from the mate of the Patna. He, in all probability, did not care what he did, or at any rate would be fully justified in his own eyes. It took no magician to see he was amazingly angry about something, for all his quiet and even torpid demeanour. I don't deny I was extremely desirous to pacify him at all costs, had I only known what to do. But I didn't know, as you may well imagine. It was a blackness without a single gleam. We confronted each other in silence. He hung fire for about fifteen seconds, then made a step nearer, and I made ready to ward off a blow, though I don't think I moved a muscle. "If you were as big as two men and as strong as six," he said very softly, "I would tell you what I think of you. You . . ." "Stop!" I exclaimed. This checked him for a second. "Before you tell me what you think of me," I went on quickly, "will you kindly tell me what it is I've said or done?" During the pause that ensued he surveyed me with indignation, while I made supernatural efforts of memory, in which I was hindered by the oriental voice within the court-room expostulating with impassioned volubility against a charge of falsehood. Then we spoke almost together. "I will soon show you I am not," he said, in a tone suggestive of a crisis. "I declare I don't know," I protested earnestly at the same time. He tried to crush me by the scorn of his glance. "Now that you see I am not afraid you try to crawl out of it," he said. "Who's a cur now--hey?" Then, at last, I understood. 'He had been scanning my features as though looking for a place where he would plant his fist. "I will allow no man," . . . he mumbled threateningly. It was, indeed, a hideous mistake; he had given himself away utterly. I can't give you an idea how shocked I was. I suppose he saw some reflection of my feelings in my face, because his expression changed just a little. "Good God!" I stammered, "you don't think I . . ." "But I am sure I've heard," he persisted, raising his voice for the first time since the beginning of this deplorable scene. Then with a shade of disdain he added, "It wasn't you, then? Very well; I'll find the other." "Don't be a fool," I cried in exasperation; "it wasn't that at all." "I've heard," he said again with an unshaken and sombre perseverance. 'There may be those who could have laughed at his pertinacity; I didn't. Oh, I didn't! There had never been a man so mercilessly shown up by his own natural impulse. A single word had stripped him of his discretion--of that discretion which is more necessary to the decencies of our inner being than clothing is to the decorum of our body. "Don't be a fool," I repeated. "But the other man said it, you don't deny that?" he pronounced distinctly, and looking in my face without flinching. "No, I don't deny," said I, returning his gaze. At last his eyes followed downwards the direction of my pointing finger. He appeared at first uncomprehending, then confounded, and at last amazed and scared as though a dog had been a monster and he had never seen a dog before. "Nobody dreamt of insulting you," I said. 'He contemplated the wretched animal, that moved no more than an effigy: it sat with ears pricked and its sharp muzzle pointed into the doorway, and suddenly snapped at a fly like a piece of mechanism. 'I looked at him. The red of his fair sunburnt complexion deepened suddenly under the down of his cheeks, invaded his forehead, spread to the roots of his curly hair. His ears became intensely crimson, and even the clear blue of his eyes was darkened many shades by the rush of blood to his head. His lips pouted a little, trembling as though he had been on the point of bursting into tears. I perceived he was incapable of pronouncing a word from the excess of his humiliation. From disappointment too--who knows? Perhaps he looked forward to that hammering he was going to give me for rehabilitation, for appeasement? Who can tell what relief he expected from this chance of a row? He was naive enough to expect anything; but he had given himself away for nothing in this case. He had been frank with himself--let alone with me--in the wild hope of arriving in that way at some effective refutation, and the stars had been ironically unpropitious. He made an inarticulate noise in his throat like a man imperfectly stunned by a blow on the head. It was pitiful. 'I didn't catch up again with him till well outside the gate. I had even to trot a bit at the last, but when, out of breath at his elbow, I taxed him with running away, he said, "Never!" and at once turned at bay. I explained I never meant to say he was running away from _me_. "From no man--from not a single man on earth," he affirmed with a stubborn mien. I forbore to point out the one obvious exception which would hold good for the bravest of us; I thought he would find out by himself very soon. He looked at me patiently while I was thinking of something to say, but I could find nothing on the spur of the moment, and he began to walk on. I kept up, and anxious not to lose him, I said hurriedly that I couldn't think of leaving him under a false impression of my--of my--I stammered. The stupidity of the phrase appalled me while I was trying to finish it, but the power of sentences has nothing to do with their sense or the logic of their construction. My idiotic mumble seemed to please him. He cut it short by saying, with courteous placidity that argued an immense power of self-control or else a wonderful elasticity of spirits--"Altogether my mistake." I marvelled greatly at this expression: he might have been alluding to some trifling occurrence. Hadn't he understood its deplorable meaning? "You may well forgive me," he continued, and went on a little moodily, "All these staring people in court seemed such fools that--that it might have been as I supposed." 'This opened suddenly a new view of him to my wonder. I looked at him curiously and met his unabashed and impenetrable eyes. "I can't put up with this kind of thing," he said, very simply, "and I don't mean to. In court it's different; I've got to stand that--and I can do it too." 'I don't pretend I understood him. The views he let me have of himself were like those glimpses through the shifting rents in a thick fog--bits of vivid and vanishing detail, giving no connected idea of the general aspect of a country. They fed one's curiosity without satisfying it; they were no good for purposes of orientation. Upon the whole he was misleading. That's how I summed him up to myself after he left me late in the evening. I had been staying at the Malabar House for a few days, and on my pressing invitation he dined with me there.''An outward-bound mail-boat had come in that afternoon, and the big dining-room of the hotel was more than half full of people with a-hundred-pounds-round-the-world tickets in their pockets. There were married couples looking domesticated and bored with each other in the midst of their travels; there were small parties and large parties, and lone individuals dining solemnly or feasting boisterously, but all thinking, conversing, joking, or scowling as was their wont at home; and just as intelligently receptive of new impressions as their trunks upstairs. Henceforth they would be labelled as having passed through this and that place, and so would be their luggage. They would cherish this distinction of their persons, and preserve the gummed tickets on their portmanteaus as documentary evidence, as the only permanent trace of their improving enterprise. The dark-faced servants tripped without noise over the vast and polished floor; now and then a girl's laugh would be heard, as innocent and empty as her mind, or, in a sudden hush of crockery, a few words in an affected drawl from some wit embroidering for the benefit of a grinning tableful the last funny story of shipboard scandal. Two nomadic old maids, dressed up to kill, worked acrimoniously through the bill of fare, whispering to each other with faded lips, wooden-faced and bizarre, like two sumptuous scarecrows. A little wine opened Jim's heart and loosened his tongue. His appetite was good, too, I noticed. He seemed to have buried somewhere the opening episode of our acquaintance. It was like a thing of which there would be no more question in this world. And all the time I had before me these blue, boyish eyes looking straight into mine, this young face, these capable shoulders, the open bronzed forehead with a white line under the roots of clustering fair hair, this appearance appealing at sight to all my sympathies: this frank aspect, the artless smile, the youthful seriousness. He was of the right sort; he was one of us. He talked soberly, with a sort of composed unreserve, and with a quiet bearing that might have been the outcome of manly self-control, of impudence, of callousness, of a colossal unconsciousness, of a gigantic deception. Who can tell! From our tone we might have been discussing a third person, a football match, last year's weather. My mind floated in a sea of conjectures till the turn of the conversation enabled me, without being offensive, to remark that, upon the whole, this inquiry must have been pretty trying to him. He darted his arm across the tablecloth, and clutching my hand by the side of my plate, glared fixedly. I was startled. "It must be awfully hard," I stammered, confused by this display of speechless feeling. "It is--hell," he burst out in a muffled voice. 'This movement and these words caused two well-groomed male globe-trotters at a neighbouring table to look up in alarm from their iced pudding. I rose, and we passed into the front gallery for coffee and cigars. 'On little octagon tables candles burned in glass globes; clumps of stiff-leaved plants separated sets of cosy wicker chairs; and between the pairs of columns, whose reddish shafts caught in a long row the sheen from the tall windows, the night, glittering and sombre, seemed to hang like a splendid drapery. The riding lights of ships winked afar like setting stars, and the hills across the roadstead resembled rounded black masses of arrested thunder-clouds. '"I couldn't clear out," Jim began. "The skipper did--that's all very well for him. I couldn't, and I wouldn't. They all got out of it in one way or another, but it wouldn't do for me." 'I listened with concentrated attention, not daring to stir in my chair; I wanted to know--and to this day I don't know, I can only guess. He would be confident and depressed all in the same breath, as if some conviction of innate blamelessness had checked the truth writhing within him at every turn. He began by saying, in the tone in which a man would admit his inability to jump a twenty-foot wall, that he could never go home now; and this declaration recalled to my mind what Brierly had said, "that the old parson in Essex seemed to fancy his sailor son not a little." 'I can't tell you whether Jim knew he was especially "fancied," but the tone of his references to "my Dad" was calculated to give me a notion that the good old rural dean was about the finest man that ever had been worried by the cares of a large family since the beginning of the world. This, though never stated, was implied with an anxiety that there should be no mistake about it, which was really very true and charming, but added a poignant sense of lives far off to the other elements of the story. "He has seen it all in the home papers by this time," said Jim. "I can never face the poor old chap." I did not dare to lift my eyes at this till I heard him add, "I could never explain. He wouldn't understand." Then I looked up. He was smoking reflectively, and after a moment, rousing himself, began to talk again. He discovered at once a desire that I should not confound him with his partners in--in crime, let us call it. He was not one of them; he was altogether of another sort. I gave no sign of dissent. I had no intention, for the sake of barren truth, to rob him of the smallest particle of any saving grace that would come in his way. I didn't know how much of it he believed himself. I didn't know what he was playing up to--if he was playing up to anything at all--and I suspect he did not know either; for it is my belief no man ever understands quite his own artful dodges to escape from the grim shadow of self-knowledge. I made no sound all the time he was wondering what he had better do after "that stupid inquiry was over." 'Apparently he shared Brierly's contemptuous opinion of these proceedings ordained by law. He would not know where to turn, he confessed, clearly thinking aloud rather than talking to me. Certificate gone, career broken, no money to get away, no work that he could obtain as far as he could see. At home he could perhaps get something; but it meant going to his people for help, and that he would not do. He saw nothing for it but ship before the mast--could get perhaps a quartermaster's billet in some steamer. Would do for a quartermaster. . . . "Do you think you would?" I asked pitilessly. He jumped up, and going to the stone balustrade looked out into the night. In a moment he was back, towering above my chair with his youthful face clouded yet by the pain of a conquered emotion. He had understood very well I did not doubt his ability to steer a ship. In a voice that quavered a bit he asked me why did I say that? I had been "no end kind" to him. I had not even laughed at him when--here he began to mumble--"that mistake, you know--made a confounded ass of myself." I broke in by saying rather warmly that for me such a mistake was not a matter to laugh at. He sat down and drank deliberately some coffee, emptying the small cup to the last drop. "That does not mean I admit for a moment the cap fitted," he declared distinctly. "No?" I said. "No," he affirmed with quiet decision. "Do you know what _you_ would have done? Do you? And you don't think yourself" . . . he gulped something . . . "you don't think yourself a--a--cur?" 'And with this--upon my honour!--he looked up at me inquisitively. It was a question it appears--a bona fide question! However, he didn't wait for an answer. Before I could recover he went on, with his eyes straight before him, as if reading off something written on the body of the night. "It is all in being ready. I wasn't; not--not then. I don't want to excuse myself; but I would like to explain--I would like somebody to understand--somebody--one person at least! You! Why not you?" 'It was solemn, and a little ridiculous too, as they always are, those struggles of an individual trying to save from the fire his idea of what his moral identity should be, this precious notion of a convention, only one of the rules of the game, nothing more, but all the same so terribly effective by its assumption of unlimited power over natural instincts, by the awful penalties of its failure. He began his story quietly enough. On board that Dale Line steamer that had picked up these four floating in a boat upon the discreet sunset glow of the sea, they had been after the first day looked askance upon. The fat skipper told some story, the others had been silent, and at first it had been accepted. You don't cross-examine poor castaways you had the good luck to save, if not from cruel death, then at least from cruel suffering. Afterwards, with time to think it over, it might have struck the officers of the Avondale that there was "something fishy" in the affair; but of course they would keep their doubts to themselves. They had picked up the captain, the mate, and two engineers of the steamer Patna sunk at sea, and that, very properly, was enough for them. I did not ask Jim about the nature of his feelings during the ten days he spent on board. From the way he narrated that part I was at liberty to infer he was partly stunned by the discovery he had made--the discovery about himself--and no doubt was at work trying to explain it away to the only man who was capable of appreciating all its tremendous magnitude. You must understand he did not try to minimise its importance. Of that I am sure; and therein lies his distinction. As to what sensations he experienced when he got ashore and heard the unforeseen conclusion of the tale in which he had taken such a pitiful part, he told me nothing of them, and it is difficult to imagine. 'I wonder whether he felt the ground cut from under his feet? I wonder? But no doubt he managed to get a fresh foothold very soon. He was ashore a whole fortnight waiting in the Sailors' Home, and as there were six or seven men staying there at the time, I had heard of him a little. Their languid opinion seemed to be that, in addition to his other shortcomings, he was a sulky brute. He had passed these days on the verandah, buried in a long chair, and coming out of his place of sepulture only at meal-times or late at night, when he wandered on the quays all by himself, detached from his surroundings, irresolute and silent, like a ghost without a home to haunt. "I don't think I've spoken three words to a living soul in all that time," he said, making me very sorry for him; and directly he added, "One of these fellows would have been sure to blurt out something I had made up my mind not to put up with, and I didn't want a row. No! Not then. I was too--too . . . I had no heart for it." "So that bulkhead held out after all," I remarked cheerfully. "Yes," he murmured, "it held. And yet I swear to you I felt it bulge under my hand." "It's extraordinary what strains old iron will stand sometimes," I said. Thrown back in his seat, his legs stiffly out and arms hanging down, he nodded slightly several times. You could not conceive a sadder spectacle. Suddenly he lifted his head; he sat up; he slapped his thigh. "Ah! what a chance missed! My God! what a chance missed!" he blazed out, but the ring of the last "missed" resembled a cry wrung out by pain. 'He was silent again with a still, far-away look of fierce yearning after that missed distinction, with his nostrils for an instant dilated, sniffing the intoxicating breath of that wasted opportunity. If you think I was either surprised or shocked you do me an injustice in more ways than one! Ah, he was an imaginative beggar! He would give himself away; he would give himself up. I could see in his glance darted into the night all his inner being carried on, projected headlong into the fanciful realm of recklessly heroic aspirations. He had no leisure to regret what he had lost, he was so wholly and naturally concerned for what he had failed to obtain. He was very far away from me who watched him across three feet of space. With every instant he was penetrating deeper into the impossible world of romantic achievements. He got to the heart of it at last! A strange look of beatitude overspread his features, his eyes sparkled in the light of the candle burning between us; he positively smiled! He had penetrated to the very heart--to the very heart. It was an ecstatic smile that your faces--or mine either--will never wear, my dear boys. I whisked him back by saying, "If you had stuck to the ship, you mean!" 'He turned upon me, his eyes suddenly amazed and full of pain, with a bewildered, startled, suffering face, as though he had tumbled down from a star. Neither you nor I will ever look like this on any man. He shuddered profoundly, as if a cold finger-tip had touched his heart. Last of all he sighed. 'I was not in a merciful mood. He provoked one by his contradictory indiscretions. "It is unfortunate you didn't know beforehand!" I said with every unkind intention; but the perfidious shaft fell harmless--dropped at his feet like a spent arrow, as it were, and he did not think of picking it up. Perhaps he had not even seen it. Presently, lolling at ease, he said, "Dash it all! I tell you it bulged. I was holding up my lamp along the angle-iron in the lower deck when a flake of rust as big as the palm of my hand fell off the plate, all of itself." He passed his hand over his forehead. "The thing stirred and jumped off like something alive while I was looking at it." "That made you feel pretty bad," I observed casually. "Do you suppose," he said, "that I was thinking of myself, with a hundred and sixty people at my back, all fast asleep in that fore-'tween-deck alone--and more of them aft; more on the deck--sleeping--knowing nothing about it--three times as many as there were boats for, even if there had been time? I expected to see the iron open out as I stood there and the rush of water going over them as they lay. . . . What could I do--what?" 'I can easily picture him to myself in the peopled gloom of the cavernous place, with the light of the globe-lamp falling on a small portion of the bulkhead that had the weight of the ocean on the other side, and the breathing of unconscious sleepers in his ears. I can see him glaring at the iron, startled by the falling rust, overburdened by the knowledge of an imminent death. This, I gathered, was the second time he had been sent forward by that skipper of his, who, I rather think, wanted to keep him away from the bridge. He told me that his first impulse was to shout and straightway make all those people leap out of sleep into terror; but such an overwhelming sense of his helplessness came over him that he was not able to produce a sound. This is, I suppose, what people mean by the tongue cleaving to the roof of the mouth. "Too dry," was the concise expression he used in reference to this state. Without a sound, then, he scrambled out on deck through the number one hatch. A windsail rigged down there swung against him accidentally, and he remembered that the light touch of the canvas on his face nearly knocked him off the hatchway ladder. 'He confessed that his knees wobbled a good deal as he stood on the foredeck looking at another sleeping crowd. The engines having been stopped by that time, the steam was blowing off. Its deep rumble made the whole night vibrate like a bass string. The ship trembled to it. 'He saw here and there a head lifted off a mat, a vague form uprise in sitting posture, listen sleepily for a moment, sink down again into the billowy confusion of boxes, steam-winches, ventilators. He was aware all these people did not know enough to take intelligent notice of that strange noise. The ship of iron, the men with white faces, all the sights, all the sounds, everything on board to that ignorant and pious multitude was strange alike, and as trustworthy as it would for ever remain incomprehensible. It occurred to him that the fact was fortunate. The idea of it was simply terrible. 'You must remember he believed, as any other man would have done in his place, that the ship would go down at any moment; the bulging, rust-eaten plates that kept back the ocean, fatally must give way, all at once like an undermined dam, and let in a sudden and overwhelming flood. He stood still looking at these recumbent bodies, a doomed man aware of his fate, surveying the silent company of the dead. They _were_ dead! Nothing could save them! There were boats enough for half of them perhaps, but there was no time. No time! No time! It did not seem worth while to open his lips, to stir hand or foot. Before he could shout three words, or make three steps, he would be floundering in a sea whitened awfully by the desperate struggles of human beings, clamorous with the distress of cries for help. There was no help. He imagined what would happen perfectly; he went through it all motionless by the hatchway with the lamp in his hand--he went through it to the very last harrowing detail. I think he went through it again while he was telling me these things he could not tell the court. '"I saw as clearly as I see you now that there was nothing I could do. It seemed to take all life out of my limbs. I thought I might just as well stand where I was and wait. I did not think I had many seconds. . . ." Suddenly the steam ceased blowing off. The noise, he remarked, had been distracting, but the silence at once became intolerably oppressive. '"I thought I would choke before I got drowned," he said. 'He protested he did not think of saving himself. The only distinct thought formed, vanishing, and re-forming in his brain, was: eight hundred people and seven boats; eight hundred people and seven boats. '"Somebody was speaking aloud inside my head," he said a little wildly. "Eight hundred people and seven boats--and no time! Just think of it." He leaned towards me across the little table, and I tried to avoid his stare. "Do you think I was afraid of death?" he asked in a voice very fierce and low. He brought down his open hand with a bang that made the coffee-cups dance. "I am ready to swear I was not--I was not. . . . By God--no!" He hitched himself upright and crossed his arms; his chin fell on his breast. 'The soft clashes of crockery reached us faintly through the high windows. There was a burst of voices, and several men came out in high good-humour into the gallery. They were exchanging jocular reminiscences of the donkeys in Cairo. A pale anxious youth stepping softly on long legs was being chaffed by a strutting and rubicund globe-trotter about his purchases in the bazaar. "No, really--do you think I've been done to that extent?" he inquired very earnest and deliberate. The band moved away, dropping into chairs as they went; matches flared, illuminating for a second faces without the ghost of an expression and the flat glaze of white shirt-fronts; the hum of many conversations animated with the ardour of feasting sounded to me absurd and infinitely remote. '"Some of the crew were sleeping on the number one hatch within reach of my arm," began Jim again. 'You must know they kept Kalashee watch in that ship, all hands sleeping through the night, and only the reliefs of quartermasters and look-out men being called. He was tempted to grip and shake the shoulder of the nearest lascar, but he didn't. Something held his arms down along his sides. He was not afraid--oh no! only he just couldn't--that's all. He was not afraid of death perhaps, but I'll tell you what, he was afraid of the emergency. His confounded imagination had evoked for him all the horrors of panic, the trampling rush, the pitiful screams, boats swamped--all the appalling incidents of a disaster at sea he had ever heard of. He might have been resigned to die but I suspect he wanted to die without added terrors, quietly, in a sort of peaceful trance. A certain readiness to perish is not so very rare, but it is seldom that you meet men whose souls, steeled in the impenetrable armour of resolution, are ready to fight a losing battle to the last; the desire of peace waxes stronger as hope declines, till at last it conquers the very desire of life. Which of us here has not observed this, or maybe experienced something of that feeling in his own person--this extreme weariness of emotions, the vanity of effort, the yearning for rest? Those striving with unreasonable forces know it well,--the shipwrecked castaways in boats, wanderers lost in a desert, men battling against the unthinking might of nature, or the stupid brutality of crowds.'

Chapters 6 and 7

https://web.archive.org/web/20210126121516/https://www.sparknotes.com/lit/lordjim/section3/

Marlow offers his take on the inquiry. The facts of the Patna case were already known with as much certainty as possible, he claims, and the inquiry is merely being held to satisfy some deep psychological need of the community of sailors. Marlow thinks about Captain Brierly, one of the judges at the inquiry. Brierly is a well-regarded, well-known sailor who commands one of the best ships in the East, a man who has been recognized for his feats of heroism and good seamanship. Yet, Marlow tells us, Brierly commits suicide soon after the inquiry into the Patna affair. Brierly's chief mate, whom Marlow encounters later, tells of Brierly's careful preparations before jumping overboard to drown in the middle of a passage. Marlow reflects that the man's suicide, not attributable to any other cause, must have been a result of a self-condemnation provoked by some identification with Jim. Marlow encounters Brierly on the street during the inquiry and has a terse conversation with him. Agreeing with Marlow that Jim is being tormented because he assents to being tormented, Brierly proposes to Marlow that the two put up a fund of money with which Jim can flee, on the condition that Marlow make the offer to Jim. The next day, Marlow finally has occasion to speak to Jim. Leaving court, Jim is just in front of Marlow. Someone outside the court has a dog with them, which trips up the crowd. Another person in the crowd makes reference to the dog, calling it a "cur." Jim whirls around and accuses Marlow of insulting him, thinking it was Marlow who uttered the word and that it was directed at him. He also tells Marlow that he's noticed him staring during the inquiry. Marlow points out the dog in the crowd and explains the mistake. Jim is abashed but defiant; he runs off. Marlow follows him, unsure why he is doing so, and invites him to dine at his hotel. Jim agrees, and the two eat in a dining room full of package tourists. Slowly, Jim begins to talk, first of his torment, then of his shame at his family's knowledge of his trial, then of his desire to be understood by someone, anyone. Marlow will do, he says. Marlow again notes that Jim is "one of us." Jim begins to describe the events following the Patna's collision: going below again, he found that the bulkhead separating the flooded compartment from the rest of the hold was bulging and about to fail. If it were to fail, the ship would surely sink. Jim begins to reflect on "the chance missed," eventually getting to the heart of "the impossible world of romantic achievements" that could have been his, given this opportunity. Through a series of indirect references by both men, the reader is given to understand that the Patna's officers, sure that the bulkhead would fail and the ship sink, had abandoned the ship, leaving its cargo of pilgrims behind. The officers were picked up a few days later by another vessel, whose captain they told that the Patna had sunk. Apparently, however, the bulkhead did not fail, and the ship did not sink. This is why Jim has been put on trial; he missed his chance to do the heroic thing by staying with the damaged ship, and instead made the worst possible mistake a seaman could make, abandoning a still-floating ship. Jim recalls watching the sleeping pilgrims, aware that, due to a lack of lifeboats, they were all already dead. Paralyzed by some unnameable emotion, he does not wake any of them.

Commentary Brierly's story, which begins this section, reinforces Marlow's idea about Jim being "one of us." Although Brierly is one of the most successful merchant seamen in the Pacific, he nevertheless has something in common with Jim, something that drives him to pass the ultimate judgment on himself. The actual act of Brierly's suicide is significant in two ways. First, Brierly's actual jump overboard is not narrated. There is a void where the action should be, as will be the case with the two most significant moments of Jim's life, when we finally get to them. Instead, Brierly's chief mate is only able to describe the events and preparations surrounding Brierly's death. From this description it is obvious that the suicide has been carefully planned, the culmination of many hours of fantasy about the event itself. This is the second significant aspect of the suicide: its analogous relation to Jim's fantasy world of heroic deeds. Like Jim, Brierly rehearses the act in his head, imagining all the circumstances leading up to it and considering himself particularly qualified to undertake this action. Unlike Jim's, though, Brierly's fantasies become reality. The significance of Brierly's death will become even more apparent when Jim resumes the story of what happened on the Patna, when we see him faced with a jump of his own. The "cur" incident will also have a parallel aboard the Patna, as Jim will reveal in Chapter 8. The scene with the dog also serves as another instance of indecipherability. While the actual use of the word "cur" is directed to the dog outside the courthouse, the inquiry underway within the courthouse represents the community of seamen implicitly accusing Jim of being a "cur." And, as his subsequent conversation with Marlow reveals, his resentment over the implied slur has him at a boiling point. In a novel full of vague words and indirect conversations, this moment also stands out as one where language achieves an unusual sharpness. Most importantly for us, though, it gives Jim and Marlow a chance to meet. Each has noticed the other. While Marlow is drawn to Jim for deep psychological reasons, Jim is interested in Marlow because he thinks Marlow has been staring at him with undue curiosity and in a condemnatory way. It is a sign of the strong fascination each has with the other that they come together over an insult that wasn't meant to be one. Jim, still convinced that his true self is based in his heroic fantasies, rejects the term "cur," while Marlow, initially put in the position of the giver of the insult, finds himself rushing after Jim to make explanations and amends. Marlow is barely offended when Jim, during the course of their conversation, suggests that the epithet may better apply to Marlow himself. Note, too, that Marlow is often cutting or insensitive to Jim in the course of their conversation. The entangling of the judging and the judged that takes place over the word "cur" foreshadows the way the two men's stories will become entangled. Jim chooses Marlow as a recipient for his narrative, wanting only to find someone who will "understand." Jim's desire to perpetuate and justify himself through his story calls to mind traditional notions of poetic immortality; if Jim's story lives on, so too, in some way, does Jim. Marlow, though, is not a neutral recipient of the tale. Seeing something in Jim that corresponds to a part of himself, he co-opts it; Lord Jim becomes a story that can say something about Marlow, that is perhaps in the end more Marlow's story than Jim's.

gradesaver

all_chapterized_books/151-chapters/3.txt

finished_summaries/gradesaver/The Rime of the Ancient Mariner/section_2_part_0.txt

The Rime of the Ancient Mariner.part 3

part 3

{"name": "Part 3", "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20210422155712/https://www.gradesaver.com/the-rime-of-the-ancient-mariner/study-guide/summary-part-3", "summary": "The sailors were trapped in their ship on the windless ocean for some time, and eventually became delirious with thirst. One day, the Ancient Mariner noticed something approaching from the West. As it moved closer, the sailors realized it was a ship, but no one could cry out because their throats were dry and their lips badly sunburned. The Ancient Mariner bit his own arm and sipped the blood so that he could wet his mouth enough to cry out: \"A sail! A sail!\" Mysteriously, the approaching ship managed to turn its course to them, even though there was still no wind. Suddenly, it crossed the path of the setting sun, and its masts made the sun look as though it was imprisoned, \"As if through a dungeon-grate he peered.\" The Ancient Mariner's initial joy turned to dread as he noticed that the ship was approaching menacingly quickly, and had sails that looked like cobwebs. The ship came near enough for the Ancient Mariner to see who manned it: Death, embodied in a naked man, and The Night-mare Life-in-Death, embodied in a naked woman. The latter was eerily beautiful, with red lips, golden hair, and skin \"as white as leprosy.\" Death and Life-in-Death were gambling with dice for the Ancient Mariner's soul, and Life-in-Death won. She whistled three times just as the last of the sun sank into the ocean; night fell in an instant, and the ghost ship sped away, though its crew's whispers could be heard long after it was out of sight. The crescent moon rose above the ship with \"one bright star\" just inside its bottom rim, and all at once, the sailors turned towards the Ancient Mariner and cursed him with their eyes. Then all two hundred of them dropped dead without a sound. The Ancient Mariner watched each sailor's soul zoom out of his body like the arrow he shot at the Albatross: \"And every soul, it passed me by, / Like the whiz of my cross-bow!\"", "analysis": "In Part 3, the poem becomes more fantastical as the spiritual world continues to punish the Ancient Mariner and his fellow sailors. Although later in the poem Coleridge reveals that a specific spirit is responsible for their demise, it seems as though the spiritual world as a whole is punishing the men, using the natural world as its weapon: the wind refuses to blow, the ocean churns with dreadful creatures, and the sun's relentless heat chars the men. The ghost ship, however, is separate from the natural world - it sails without wind, and its inhabitants are spirits. Death and Life-in-Death are allegorical figures who become frighteningly real for the sailors, especially the Ancient Mariner, whose soul Life-in-Death \"wins\", thereby dooming him to a fate worse than death. Even those sailors whose souls go to hell seem freer than the Ancient Mariner; while their souls fly unencumbered out of their bodies, he is destined to be trapped in his indefinitely - a living hell. Life-in-Death, who takes on the form of an alluring naked woman, represents perpetual temptation. Because she wins the Ancient Mariner's soul, he is doomed to die only when he has paid his due...perhaps never. As we learn later, the Ancient Mariner is cursed to continually feel the agonizing compulsion to tell his tale to others; although telling the tale allows him temporary relief, he may never be free. First, he and the sailors are denied the satisfaction of drinking; now the Ancient Mariner will be denied the satisfaction of being able to die. His spirit is trapped in his own body, in an excruciating state of limbo - the realm of Life-in-Death. His \"glittering eye\" suggests more than madness; it is also a synecdoche representing his soul, which longs to be released from living death. It yearns to fly out of his body like the two hundred other sailors' souls did. In fact, when the sailors' souls are released, they fly past the Ancient Mariner with the same sound as the arrow he shot at the Albatross. Initially, the Ancient Mariner is relieved to have survived his shipmates, but in retrospect the sound tantalizes him, as it reminds him that his impulsive sin is the reason for his torture. Part 3 introduces the theme of imprisonment. As we have said, the Ancient Mariner is doomed to be trapped in a state of deathlike life; his own immortal body is his prison. The ship itself is a prison for the sailors when there is no wind to carry it. Even before the ghost ship comes near enough for the Ancient Mariner to see its crew, it seems to imprison the very sun with its masts. This symbolizes Death and Life-in-Death's level of power; they have so much sway over the natural world and its inhabitants that they can jail the sun itself. The natural world seems to have this power, as well: the sailors are trapped in the \"rime\" by impenetrable ice until the Albatross sets them free. For this reason, many have interpreted the Albatross as Christ, and the Ancient Mariner as the archetypal sinner. The Albatross has the power to guide the sailors just as Christ has the ability to guide men's souls to heaven. By sinning on impulse, the Ancient Mariner ruins his chances at salvation, and is condemned to the eternal limbo of Life-in-Death. This interpretation implies that every time a person sins, he destroys his relationship with Christ and his chances of reaching heaven, and must redeem himself through acts of atonement. Just as people wear crucifixes around their necks to remind them of Christ's sacrifice and their responsibility to him, the sailors hang the Albatross around the Ancient Mariner's neck to remind him of his sin."}

PART THE THIRD. There passed a weary time. Each throat Was parched, and glazed each eye. A weary time! a weary time! How glazed each weary eye, When looking westward, I beheld A something in the sky. At first it seemed a little speck, And then it seemed a mist: It moved and moved, and took at last A certain shape, I wist. A speck, a mist, a shape, I wist! And still it neared and neared: As if it dodged a water-sprite, It plunged and tacked and veered. With throats unslaked, with black lips baked, We could not laugh nor wail; Through utter drought all dumb we stood! I bit my arm, I sucked the blood, And cried, A sail! a sail! With throats unslaked, with black lips baked, Agape they heard me call: Gramercy! they for joy did grin, And all at once their breath drew in, As they were drinking all. See! see! (I cried) she tacks no more! Hither to work us weal; Without a breeze, without a tide, She steadies with upright keel! The western wave was all a-flame The day was well nigh done! Almost upon the western wave Rested the broad bright Sun; When that strange shape drove suddenly Betwixt us and the Sun. And straight the Sun was flecked with bars, (Heaven's Mother send us grace!) As if through a dungeon-grate he peered, With broad and burning face. Alas! (thought I, and my heart beat loud) How fast she nears and nears! Are those her sails that glance in the Sun, Like restless gossameres! Are those her ribs through which the Sun Did peer, as through a grate? And is that Woman all her crew? Is that a DEATH? and are there two? Is DEATH that woman's mate? Her lips were red, her looks were free, Her locks were yellow as gold: Her skin was as white as leprosy, The Night-Mare LIFE-IN-DEATH was she, Who thicks man's blood with cold. The naked hulk alongside came, And the twain were casting dice; "The game is done! I've won! I've won!" Quoth she, and whistles thrice. The Sun's rim dips; the stars rush out: At one stride comes the dark; With far-heard whisper, o'er the sea. Off shot the spectre-bark. We listened and looked sideways up! Fear at my heart, as at a cup, My life-blood seemed to sip! The stars were dim, and thick the night, The steersman's face by his lamp gleamed white; From the sails the dew did drip-- Till clombe above the eastern bar The horned Moon, with one bright star Within the nether tip. One after one, by the star-dogged Moon Too quick for groan or sigh, Each turned his face with a ghastly pang, And cursed me with his eye. Four times fifty living men, (And I heard nor sigh nor groan) With heavy thump, a lifeless lump, They dropped down one by one. The souls did from their bodies fly,-- They fled to bliss or woe! And every soul, it passed me by, Like the whizz of my CROSS-BOW!

Part 3

https://web.archive.org/web/20210422155712/https://www.gradesaver.com/the-rime-of-the-ancient-mariner/study-guide/summary-part-3

The sailors were trapped in their ship on the windless ocean for some time, and eventually became delirious with thirst. One day, the Ancient Mariner noticed something approaching from the West. As it moved closer, the sailors realized it was a ship, but no one could cry out because their throats were dry and their lips badly sunburned. The Ancient Mariner bit his own arm and sipped the blood so that he could wet his mouth enough to cry out: "A sail! A sail!" Mysteriously, the approaching ship managed to turn its course to them, even though there was still no wind. Suddenly, it crossed the path of the setting sun, and its masts made the sun look as though it was imprisoned, "As if through a dungeon-grate he peered." The Ancient Mariner's initial joy turned to dread as he noticed that the ship was approaching menacingly quickly, and had sails that looked like cobwebs. The ship came near enough for the Ancient Mariner to see who manned it: Death, embodied in a naked man, and The Night-mare Life-in-Death, embodied in a naked woman. The latter was eerily beautiful, with red lips, golden hair, and skin "as white as leprosy." Death and Life-in-Death were gambling with dice for the Ancient Mariner's soul, and Life-in-Death won. She whistled three times just as the last of the sun sank into the ocean; night fell in an instant, and the ghost ship sped away, though its crew's whispers could be heard long after it was out of sight. The crescent moon rose above the ship with "one bright star" just inside its bottom rim, and all at once, the sailors turned towards the Ancient Mariner and cursed him with their eyes. Then all two hundred of them dropped dead without a sound. The Ancient Mariner watched each sailor's soul zoom out of his body like the arrow he shot at the Albatross: "And every soul, it passed me by, / Like the whiz of my cross-bow!"

In Part 3, the poem becomes more fantastical as the spiritual world continues to punish the Ancient Mariner and his fellow sailors. Although later in the poem Coleridge reveals that a specific spirit is responsible for their demise, it seems as though the spiritual world as a whole is punishing the men, using the natural world as its weapon: the wind refuses to blow, the ocean churns with dreadful creatures, and the sun's relentless heat chars the men. The ghost ship, however, is separate from the natural world - it sails without wind, and its inhabitants are spirits. Death and Life-in-Death are allegorical figures who become frighteningly real for the sailors, especially the Ancient Mariner, whose soul Life-in-Death "wins", thereby dooming him to a fate worse than death. Even those sailors whose souls go to hell seem freer than the Ancient Mariner; while their souls fly unencumbered out of their bodies, he is destined to be trapped in his indefinitely - a living hell. Life-in-Death, who takes on the form of an alluring naked woman, represents perpetual temptation. Because she wins the Ancient Mariner's soul, he is doomed to die only when he has paid his due...perhaps never. As we learn later, the Ancient Mariner is cursed to continually feel the agonizing compulsion to tell his tale to others; although telling the tale allows him temporary relief, he may never be free. First, he and the sailors are denied the satisfaction of drinking; now the Ancient Mariner will be denied the satisfaction of being able to die. His spirit is trapped in his own body, in an excruciating state of limbo - the realm of Life-in-Death. His "glittering eye" suggests more than madness; it is also a synecdoche representing his soul, which longs to be released from living death. It yearns to fly out of his body like the two hundred other sailors' souls did. In fact, when the sailors' souls are released, they fly past the Ancient Mariner with the same sound as the arrow he shot at the Albatross. Initially, the Ancient Mariner is relieved to have survived his shipmates, but in retrospect the sound tantalizes him, as it reminds him that his impulsive sin is the reason for his torture. Part 3 introduces the theme of imprisonment. As we have said, the Ancient Mariner is doomed to be trapped in a state of deathlike life; his own immortal body is his prison. The ship itself is a prison for the sailors when there is no wind to carry it. Even before the ghost ship comes near enough for the Ancient Mariner to see its crew, it seems to imprison the very sun with its masts. This symbolizes Death and Life-in-Death's level of power; they have so much sway over the natural world and its inhabitants that they can jail the sun itself. The natural world seems to have this power, as well: the sailors are trapped in the "rime" by impenetrable ice until the Albatross sets them free. For this reason, many have interpreted the Albatross as Christ, and the Ancient Mariner as the archetypal sinner. The Albatross has the power to guide the sailors just as Christ has the ability to guide men's souls to heaven. By sinning on impulse, the Ancient Mariner ruins his chances at salvation, and is condemned to the eternal limbo of Life-in-Death. This interpretation implies that every time a person sins, he destroys his relationship with Christ and his chances of reaching heaven, and must redeem himself through acts of atonement. Just as people wear crucifixes around their necks to remind them of Christ's sacrifice and their responsibility to him, the sailors hang the Albatross around the Ancient Mariner's neck to remind him of his sin.

shmoop

all_chapterized_books/1526-chapters/15.txt

finished_summaries/shmoop/Twelfth Night, or What You Will/section_14_part_0.txt

Twelfth Night, or What You Will.act 4.scene 1

act 4, scene 1

{"name": "Act 4, Scene 1", "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20210415161814/https://www.shmoop.com/study-guides/literature/twelfth-night/summary/act-4-scene-1", "summary": "Meanwhile, outside of Olivia's house, Feste has stumbled across Sebastian and has mistaken him for \"Cesario\" . Feste says to Sebastian that Olivia's looking for him but Sebastian tells him to beat it--he's not in the mood for Feste's screwing around. Besides, Sebastian has no idea who this \"Cesario\" person is. Feste's pretty insistent, so Sebastian gives him some money to go away and threatens to give him a knuckle sandwich if he doesn't scram. Feste takes his money and jokes that wise men who give money to fools can get good reputations...if they keep up the payments. Just then, Sir Andrew Aguecheek, Sir Toby Belch, and Fabian show up looking for \"Cesario.\" Aguecheek and Toby try to punk Sebastian and Aguecheek gives Sebastian a little slap. Feste runs inside Olivia's house to tattle. Sebastian is about to go ape on Toby and Andrew when Olivia runs outside and breaks up the fight. Olivia tells her uncle Toby to get out of her sight and apologizes to Sebastian, who she thinks is her \"Cesario.\" Sebastian wonders if he's dreaming or has lost his mind, but he clearly thinks Olivia is pretty hot because he says that if he is dreaming, he doesn't want to wake up. Olivia says something like \"Come with me, big boy,\" and Sebastian is all over that as the two run off together.", "analysis": ""}

ACT IV. SCENE I. The Street before OLIVIA'S House. [Enter SEBASTIAN and CLOWN.] CLOWN. Will you make me believe that I am not sent for you? SEBASTIAN. Go to, go to, thou art a foolish fellow; Let me be clear of thee. CLOWN. Well held out, i' faith! No, I do not know you; nor I am not sent to you by my lady, to bid you come speak with her; nor your name is not Master Cesario; nor this is not my nose neither.-- Nothing that is so is so. SEBASTIAN. I pr'ythee vent thy folly somewhere else. Thou know'st not me. CLOWN. Vent my folly! he has heard that word of some great man, and now applies it to a fool. Vent my folly! I am afraid this great lubber, the world, will prove a cockney.--I pr'ythee now, ungird thy strangeness, and tell me what I shall vent to my lady. Shall I vent to her that thou art coming? SEBASTIAN. I pr'ythee, foolish Greek, depart from me; There's money for thee; if you tarry longer I shall give worse payment. CLOWN. By my troth, thou hast an open hand:--These wise men that give fools money get themselves a good report after fourteen years' purchase. [Enter SIR ANDREW, SIR TOBY, and FABIAN.] SIR ANDREW. Now, sir, have I met you again? there's for you. [Striking SEBASTIAN.] SEBASTIAN. Why, there's for thee, and there, and there. Are all the people mad? [Beating SIR ANDREW.] SIR TOBY. Hold, sir, or I'll throw your dagger o'er the house. CLOWN. This will I tell my lady straight. I would not be in some of your coats for twopence. [Exit CLOWN.] SIR TOBY. Come on, sir; hold. [Holding SEBASTIAN.] SIR ANDREW. Nay, let him alone; I'll go another way to work with him; I'll have an action of battery against him, if there be any law in Illyria: though I struck him first, yet it's no matter for that. SEBASTIAN. Let go thy hand. SIR TOBY. Come, sir, I will not let you go. Come, my young soldier, put up your iron: you are well fleshed; come on. SEBASTIAN. I will be free from thee. What wouldst thou now? If thou dar'st tempt me further, draw thy sword. [Draws.] SIR TOBY. What, what? Nay, then I must have an ounce or two of this malapert blood from you. [Draws.] [Enter OLIVIA.] OLIVIA. Hold, Toby; on thy life, I charge thee hold. SIR TOBY. Madam? OLIVIA. Will it be ever thus? Ungracious wretch, Fit for the mountains and the barbarous caves, Where manners ne'er were preach'd! Out of my sight! Be not offended, dear Cesario!-- Rudesby, be gone!--I pr'ythee, gentle friend, [Exeunt SIR TOBY, SIR ANDREW, and FABIAN.] Let thy fair wisdom, not thy passion, sway In this uncivil and unjust extent Against thy peace. Go with me to my house, And hear thou there how many fruitless pranks This ruffian hath botch'd up, that thou thereby Mayst smile at this: thou shalt not choose but go; Do not deny. Beshrew his soul for me, He started one poor heart of mine in thee. SEBASTIAN. What relish is in this? how runs the stream? Or I am mad/ or else this is a dream:-- Let fancy still my sense in Lethe steep; If it be thus to dream, still let me sleep! OLIVIA. Nay, come, I pr'ythee. Would thou'dst be ruled by me! SEBASTIAN. Madam, I will. OLIVIA. O, say so, and so be! [Exeunt.]

Act 4, Scene 1

https://web.archive.org/web/20210415161814/https://www.shmoop.com/study-guides/literature/twelfth-night/summary/act-4-scene-1

Meanwhile, outside of Olivia's house, Feste has stumbled across Sebastian and has mistaken him for "Cesario" . Feste says to Sebastian that Olivia's looking for him but Sebastian tells him to beat it--he's not in the mood for Feste's screwing around. Besides, Sebastian has no idea who this "Cesario" person is. Feste's pretty insistent, so Sebastian gives him some money to go away and threatens to give him a knuckle sandwich if he doesn't scram. Feste takes his money and jokes that wise men who give money to fools can get good reputations...if they keep up the payments. Just then, Sir Andrew Aguecheek, Sir Toby Belch, and Fabian show up looking for "Cesario." Aguecheek and Toby try to punk Sebastian and Aguecheek gives Sebastian a little slap. Feste runs inside Olivia's house to tattle. Sebastian is about to go ape on Toby and Andrew when Olivia runs outside and breaks up the fight. Olivia tells her uncle Toby to get out of her sight and apologizes to Sebastian, who she thinks is her "Cesario." Sebastian wonders if he's dreaming or has lost his mind, but he clearly thinks Olivia is pretty hot because he says that if he is dreaming, he doesn't want to wake up. Olivia says something like "Come with me, big boy," and Sebastian is all over that as the two run off together.

gradesaver

all_chapterized_books/110-chapters/07.txt

finished_summaries/gradesaver/Tess of the D'Urbervilles/section_0_part_7.txt

Tess of the D'Urbervilles.chapter 7

chapter 7

{"name": "Chapter 7", "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20210410060617/https://www.gradesaver.com/tess-of-the-durbervilles/study-guide/summary-phase-1-chapters-1-11", "summary": "The day that Tess is to leave, her mother scolds her for not dressing well, even though Tess dresses in proper clothes for working. Tess submits to her mother's wishes and has her hair washed. Although Joan expects her daughter to be married, she feels a slight misgiving as Tess leaves. The younger children cry when Tess leaves, but Tess scolds them for thinking that she will marry a gentleman. As Tess leaves, Joan remarks that Tess will do well as long as she plays her trump card. This trump card is not her d'Urberville blood, as her father believes, but her face.", "analysis": "Joan Durbeyfield continues to promote the idea of Tess going to Trantridge Cross to marry in this chapter, in which she dresses her daughter for attracting men, and not for her labor tending Mrs. d'Urberville's chickens. Her remark that Tess's trump card' is her face is the most explicit declaration that Joan is sending her daughter to find a husband and not to work in a job. Likewise, Tess continues to resist the idea that she is a sexual object sent for a commercial transaction that will save her family's financial situation. However, Joan exhibits her first signs of guilt and self-awareness concerning her actions toward her daughter. This further foreshadows the impending danger that Tess faces in going to Trantridge Cross"}

On the morning appointed for her departure Tess was awake before dawn--at the marginal minute of the dark when the grove is still mute, save for one prophetic bird who sings with a clear-voiced conviction that he at least knows the correct time of day, the rest preserving silence as if equally convinced that he is mistaken. She remained upstairs packing till breakfast-time, and then came down in her ordinary week-day clothes, her Sunday apparel being carefully folded in her box. Her mother expostulated. "You will never set out to see your folks without dressing up more the dand than that?" "But I am going to work!" said Tess. "Well, yes," said Mrs Durbeyfield; and in a private tone, "at first there mid be a little pretence o't ... But I think it will be wiser of 'ee to put your best side outward," she added. "Very well; I suppose you know best," replied Tess with calm abandonment. And to please her parent the girl put herself quite in Joan's hands, saying serenely--"Do what you like with me, mother." Mrs Durbeyfield was only too delighted at this tractability. First she fetched a great basin, and washed Tess's hair with such thoroughness that when dried and brushed it looked twice as much as at other times. She tied it with a broader pink ribbon than usual. Then she put upon her the white frock that Tess had worn at the club-walking, the airy fulness of which, supplementing her enlarged _coiffure_, imparted to her developing figure an amplitude which belied her age, and might cause her to be estimated as a woman when she was not much more than a child. "I declare there's a hole in my stocking-heel!" said Tess. "Never mind holes in your stockings--they don't speak! When I was a maid, so long as I had a pretty bonnet the devil might ha' found me in heels." Her mother's pride in the girl's appearance led her to step back, like a painter from his easel, and survey her work as a whole. "You must zee yourself!" she cried. "It is much better than you was t'other day." As the looking-glass was only large enough to reflect a very small portion of Tess's person at one time, Mrs Durbeyfield hung a black cloak outside the casement, and so made a large reflector of the panes, as it is the wont of bedecking cottagers to do. After this she went downstairs to her husband, who was sitting in the lower room. "I'll tell 'ee what 'tis, Durbeyfield," said she exultingly; "he'll never have the heart not to love her. But whatever you do, don't zay too much to Tess of his fancy for her, and this chance she has got. She is such an odd maid that it mid zet her against him, or against going there, even now. If all goes well, I shall certainly be for making some return to pa'son at Stagfoot Lane for telling us--dear, good man!" However, as the moment for the girl's setting out drew nigh, when the first excitement of the dressing had passed off, a slight misgiving found place in Joan Durbeyfield's mind. It prompted the matron to say that she would walk a little way--as far as to the point where the acclivity from the valley began its first steep ascent to the outer world. At the top Tess was going to be met with the spring-cart sent by the Stoke-d'Urbervilles, and her box had already been wheeled ahead towards this summit by a lad with trucks, to be in readiness. Seeing their mother put on her bonnet, the younger children clamoured to go with her. "I do want to walk a little-ways wi' Sissy, now she's going to marry our gentleman-cousin, and wear fine cloze!" "Now," said Tess, flushing and turning quickly, "I'll hear no more o' that! Mother, how could you ever put such stuff into their heads?" "Going to work, my dears, for our rich relation, and help get enough money for a new horse," said Mrs Durbeyfield pacifically. "Goodbye, father," said Tess, with a lumpy throat. "Goodbye, my maid," said Sir John, raising his head from his breast as he suspended his nap, induced by a slight excess this morning in honour of the occasion. "Well, I hope my young friend will like such a comely sample of his own blood. And tell'n, Tess, that being sunk, quite, from our former grandeur, I'll sell him the title--yes, sell it--and at no onreasonable figure." "Not for less than a thousand pound!" cried Lady Durbeyfield. "Tell'n--I'll take a thousand pound. Well, I'll take less, when I come to think o't. He'll adorn it better than a poor lammicken feller like myself can. Tell'n he shall hae it for a hundred. But I won't stand upon trifles--tell'n he shall hae it for fifty--for twenty pound! Yes, twenty pound--that's the lowest. Dammy, family honour is family honour, and I won't take a penny less!" Tess's eyes were too full and her voice too choked to utter the sentiments that were in her. She turned quickly, and went out. So the girls and their mother all walked together, a child on each side of Tess, holding her hand and looking at her meditatively from time to time, as at one who was about to do great things; her mother just behind with the smallest; the group forming a picture of honest beauty flanked by innocence, and backed by simple-souled vanity. They followed the way till they reached the beginning of the ascent, on the crest of which the vehicle from Trantridge was to receive her, this limit having been fixed to save the horse the labour of the last slope. Far away behind the first hills the cliff-like dwellings of Shaston broke the line of the ridge. Nobody was visible in the elevated road which skirted the ascent save the lad whom they had sent on before them, sitting on the handle of the barrow that contained all Tess's worldly possessions. "Bide here a bit, and the cart will soon come, no doubt," said Mrs Durbeyfield. "Yes, I see it yonder!" It had come--appearing suddenly from behind the forehead of the nearest upland, and stopping beside the boy with the barrow. Her mother and the children thereupon decided to go no farther, and bidding them a hasty goodbye, Tess bent her steps up the hill. They saw her white shape draw near to the spring-cart, on which her box was already placed. But before she had quite reached it another vehicle shot out from a clump of trees on the summit, came round the bend of the road there, passed the luggage-cart, and halted beside Tess, who looked up as if in great surprise. Her mother perceived, for the first time, that the second vehicle was not a humble conveyance like the first, but a spick-and-span gig or dog-cart, highly varnished and equipped. The driver was a young man of three- or four-and-twenty, with a cigar between his teeth; wearing a dandy cap, drab jacket, breeches of the same hue, white neckcloth, stick-up collar, and brown driving-gloves--in short, he was the handsome, horsey young buck who had visited Joan a week or two before to get her answer about Tess. Mrs Durbeyfield clapped her hands like a child. Then she looked down, then stared again. Could she be deceived as to the meaning of this? "Is dat the gentleman-kinsman who'll make Sissy a lady?" asked the youngest child. Meanwhile the muslined form of Tess could be seen standing still, undecided, beside this turn-out, whose owner was talking to her. Her seeming indecision was, in fact, more than indecision: it was misgiving. She would have preferred the humble cart. The young man dismounted, and appeared to urge her to ascend. She turned her face down the hill to her relatives, and regarded the little group. Something seemed to quicken her to a determination; possibly the thought that she had killed Prince. She suddenly stepped up; he mounted beside her, and immediately whipped on the horse. In a moment they had passed the slow cart with the box, and disappeared behind the shoulder of the hill. Directly Tess was out of sight, and the interest of the matter as a drama was at an end, the little ones' eyes filled with tears. The youngest child said, "I wish poor, poor Tess wasn't gone away to be a lady!" and, lowering the corners of his lips, burst out crying. The new point of view was infectious, and the next child did likewise, and then the next, till the whole three of them wailed loud. There were tears also in Joan Durbeyfield's eyes as she turned to go home. But by the time she had got back to the village she was passively trusting to the favour of accident. However, in bed that night she sighed, and her husband asked her what was the matter. "Oh, I don't know exactly," she said. "I was thinking that perhaps it would ha' been better if Tess had not gone." "Oughtn't ye to have thought of that before?" "Well, 'tis a chance for the maid--Still, if 'twere the doing again, I wouldn't let her go till I had found out whether the gentleman is really a good-hearted young man and choice over her as his kinswoman." "Yes, you ought, perhaps, to ha' done that," snored Sir John. Joan Durbeyfield always managed to find consolation somewhere: "Well, as one of the genuine stock, she ought to make her way with 'en, if she plays her trump card aright. And if he don't marry her afore he will after. For that he's all afire wi' love for her any eye can see." "What's her trump card? Her d'Urberville blood, you mean?" "No, stupid; her face--as 'twas mine."

Chapter 7

https://web.archive.org/web/20210410060617/https://www.gradesaver.com/tess-of-the-durbervilles/study-guide/summary-phase-1-chapters-1-11

The day that Tess is to leave, her mother scolds her for not dressing well, even though Tess dresses in proper clothes for working. Tess submits to her mother's wishes and has her hair washed. Although Joan expects her daughter to be married, she feels a slight misgiving as Tess leaves. The younger children cry when Tess leaves, but Tess scolds them for thinking that she will marry a gentleman. As Tess leaves, Joan remarks that Tess will do well as long as she plays her trump card. This trump card is not her d'Urberville blood, as her father believes, but her face.

Joan Durbeyfield continues to promote the idea of Tess going to Trantridge Cross to marry in this chapter, in which she dresses her daughter for attracting men, and not for her labor tending Mrs. d'Urberville's chickens. Her remark that Tess's trump card' is her face is the most explicit declaration that Joan is sending her daughter to find a husband and not to work in a job. Likewise, Tess continues to resist the idea that she is a sexual object sent for a commercial transaction that will save her family's financial situation. However, Joan exhibits her first signs of guilt and self-awareness concerning her actions toward her daughter. This further foreshadows the impending danger that Tess faces in going to Trantridge Cross

shmoop

all_chapterized_books/44747-chapters/35.txt

finished_summaries/shmoop/The Red and the Black/section_34_part_0.txt

The Red and the Black.part 2.chapter 5

part 2, chapter 5

{"name": "Part 2, Chapter 5", "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20200920104425/https://www.shmoop.com/study-guides/literature/red-and-the-black/summary/part-2-chapter-5", "summary": "Julien gets more and more bored with life at the de La Moles' house. He can't stand the way that no one ever says what they're actually thinking, or if they do, it's something super petty. Julien soon realizes that Madame de La Mole wants her daughter to marry a local baron named Baron de La Joumate.", "analysis": ""}

CHAPTER XXXV SENSIBILITY AND A GREAT PIOUS LADY An idea which has any life in it seems like a crudity, so accustomed are they to colourless expression. Woe to him who introduces new ideas into his conversation! --_Faublas_. This was the stage Julien had reached, when after several months of probation the steward of the household handed him the third quarter of his wages. M. de la Mole had entrusted him with the administration of his estates in Brittany and Normandy. Julien made frequent journeys there. He had chief control of the correspondence relating to the famous lawsuit with the abbe de Frilair. M. Pirard had instructed him. On the data of the short notes which the marquis would scribble on the margin of all the various paper which were addressed to him, Julien would compose answers which were nearly all signed. At the Theology School his professors complained of his lack of industry, but they did not fail to regard him as one of their most distinguished pupils. This varied work, tackled as it was with all the ardour of suffering ambition, soon robbed Julien of that fresh complexion which he had brought from the provinces. His pallor constituted one of his merits in the eyes of his comrades, the young seminarist; he found them much less malicious, much less ready to bow down to a silver crown than those of Besancon; they thought he was consumptive. The marquis had given him a horse. Julien fearing that he might meet people during his rides on horseback, had given out that this exercise had been prescribed by the doctors. The abbe Pirard had taken him into several Jansenist Societies. Julien was astonished; the idea of religion was indissolubly connected in his mind with the ideas of hypocrisy and covetousness. He admired those austere pious men who never gave a thought to their income. Several Jansenists became friendly with him and would give him advice. A new world opened before him. At the Jansenists he got to know a comte Altamira, who was nearly six feet high, was a Liberal, a believer, and had been condemned to death in his own country. He was struck by the strange contrast of devoutness and love of liberty. Julien's relations with the young comte had become cool. Norbert had thought that he answered the jokes of his friends with too much sharpness. Julien had committed one or two breaches of social etiquette and vowed to himself that he would never speak to mademoiselle Mathilde. They were always perfectly polite to him in the Hotel de la Mole but he felt himself quite lost. His provincial common sense explained this result by the vulgar proverb _Tout beau tout nouveau_. He gradually came to have a little more penetration than during his first days, or it may have been that the first glamour of Parisian urbanity had passed off. As soon as he left off working, he fell a prey to a mortal boredom. He was experiencing the withering effects of that admirable politeness so typical of good society, which is so perfectly modulated to every degree of the social hierarchy. No doubt the provinces can be reproached with a commonness and lack of polish in their tone; but they show a certain amount of passion, when they answer you. Julien's self-respect was never wounded at the Hotel de la Mole, but he often felt at the end of the day as though he would like to cry. A cafe-waiter in the provinces will take an interest in you if you happen to have some accident as you enter his cafe, but if this accident has everything about it which is disagreeable to your vanity, he will repeat ten times in succession the very word which tortures you, as he tells you how sorry he is. At Paris they make a point of laughing in secret, but you always remain a stranger. We pass in silence over a number of little episodes which would have made Julien ridiculous, if he had not been to some extent above ridicule. A foolish sensibility resulted in his committing innumerable acts of bad taste. All his pleasures were precautions; he practiced pistol shooting every day, he was one of the promising pupils of the most famous maitres d'armes. As soon as he had an instant to himself, instead of employing it in reading as he did before, he would rush off to the riding school and ask for the most vicious horses. When he went out with the master of the riding school he was almost invariably thrown. The marquis found him convenient by reason of his persistent industry, his silence and his intelligence, and gradually took him into his confidence with regard to all his affairs, which were in any way difficult to unravel. The marquis was a sagacious business man on all those occasions when his lofty ambition gave him some respite; having special information within his reach, he would speculate successfully on the Exchange. He would buy mansions and forests; but he would easily lose his temper. He would give away hundreds of louis, and would go to law for a few hundred francs. Rich men with a lofty spirit have recourse to business not so much for results as for distraction. The marquis needed a chief of staff who would put all his money affairs into clear and lucid order. Madame de la Mole, although of so even a character, sometimes made fun of Julien. Great ladies have a horror of those unexpected incidents which are produced by a sensitive character; they constitute the opposite pole of etiquette. On two or three occasions the marquis took his part. "If he is ridiculous in your salon, he triumphs in his office." Julien on his side thought he had caught the marquise's secret. She deigned to manifest an interest in everything the minute the Baron de la Joumate was announced. He was a cold individual with an expressionless physiognomy. He was tall, thin, ugly, very well dressed, passed his life in his chateau, and generally speaking said nothing about anything. Such was his outlook on life. Madame de la Mole would have been happy for the first time in her life if she could have made him her daughter's husband.

Part 2, Chapter 5

https://web.archive.org/web/20200920104425/https://www.shmoop.com/study-guides/literature/red-and-the-black/summary/part-2-chapter-5

Julien gets more and more bored with life at the de La Moles' house. He can't stand the way that no one ever says what they're actually thinking, or if they do, it's something super petty. Julien soon realizes that Madame de La Mole wants her daughter to marry a local baron named Baron de La Joumate.

sparknotes

all_chapterized_books/28054-chapters/91.txt

finished_summaries/sparknotes/The Brothers Karamazov/section_14_part_12.txt

The Brothers Karamazov.book 12.chapter 12

book 12, chapter 12

{"name": "book 12, Chapter 12", "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20210305110438/https://www.sparknotes.com/lit/brothersk/section15/", "summary": "No Murder Either Finally, Fetyukovich says, even if Dmitri had killed Fyodor Pavlovich, he would not have been murdering his father, because the repugnant old man never acted as his father and forgot about the boy the moment he was born", "analysis": ""}

Chapter XII. And There Was No Murder Either "Allow me, gentlemen of the jury, to remind you that a man's life is at stake and that you must be careful. We have heard the prosecutor himself admit that until to-day he hesitated to accuse the prisoner of a full and conscious premeditation of the crime; he hesitated till he saw that fatal drunken letter which was produced in court to-day. 'All was done as written.' But, I repeat again, he was running to her, to seek her, solely to find out where she was. That's a fact that can't be disputed. Had she been at home, he would not have run away, but would have remained at her side, and so would not have done what he promised in the letter. He ran unexpectedly and accidentally, and by that time very likely he did not even remember his drunken letter. 'He snatched up the pestle,' they say, and you will remember how a whole edifice of psychology was built on that pestle--why he was bound to look at that pestle as a weapon, to snatch it up, and so on, and so on. A very commonplace idea occurs to me at this point: What if that pestle had not been in sight, had not been lying on the shelf from which it was snatched by the prisoner, but had been put away in a cupboard? It would not have caught the prisoner's eye, and he would have run away without a weapon, with empty hands, and then he would certainly not have killed any one. How then can I look upon the pestle as a proof of premeditation? "Yes, but he talked in the taverns of murdering his father, and two days before, on the evening when he wrote his drunken letter, he was quiet and only quarreled with a shopman in the tavern, because a Karamazov could not help quarreling, forsooth! But my answer to that is, that, if he was planning such a murder in accordance with his letter, he certainly would not have quarreled even with a shopman, and probably would not have gone into the tavern at all, because a person plotting such a crime seeks quiet and retirement, seeks to efface himself, to avoid being seen and heard, and that not from calculation, but from instinct. Gentlemen of the jury, the psychological method is a two-edged weapon, and we, too, can use it. As for all this shouting in taverns throughout the month, don't we often hear children, or drunkards coming out of taverns shout, 'I'll kill you'? but they don't murder any one. And that fatal letter--isn't that simply drunken irritability, too? Isn't that simply the shout of the brawler outside the tavern, 'I'll kill you! I'll kill the lot of you!' Why not, why could it not be that? What reason have we to call that letter 'fatal' rather than absurd? Because his father has been found murdered, because a witness saw the prisoner running out of the garden with a weapon in his hand, and was knocked down by him: therefore, we are told, everything was done as he had planned in writing, and the letter was not 'absurd,' but 'fatal.' "Now, thank God! we've come to the real point: 'since he was in the garden, he must have murdered him.' In those few words: 'since he _was_, then he _must_' lies the whole case for the prosecution. He was there, so he must have. And what if there is no _must_ about it, even if he was there? Oh, I admit that the chain of evidence--the coincidences--are really suggestive. But examine all these facts separately, regardless of their connection. Why, for instance, does the prosecution refuse to admit the truth of the prisoner's statement that he ran away from his father's window? Remember the sarcasms in which the prosecutor indulged at the expense of the respectful and 'pious' sentiments which suddenly came over the murderer. But what if there were something of the sort, a feeling of religious awe, if not of filial respect? 'My mother must have been praying for me at that moment,' were the prisoner's words at the preliminary inquiry, and so he ran away as soon as he convinced himself that Madame Svyetlov was not in his father's house. 'But he could not convince himself by looking through the window,' the prosecutor objects. But why couldn't he? Why? The window opened at the signals given by the prisoner. Some word might have been uttered by Fyodor Pavlovitch, some exclamation which showed the prisoner that she was not there. Why should we assume everything as we imagine it, as we make up our minds to imagine it? A thousand things may happen in reality which elude the subtlest imagination. " 'Yes, but Grigory saw the door open and so the prisoner certainly was in the house, therefore he killed him.' Now about that door, gentlemen of the jury.... Observe that we have only the statement of one witness as to that door, and he was at the time in such a condition, that-- But supposing the door was open; supposing the prisoner has lied in denying it, from an instinct of self-defense, natural in his position; supposing he did go into the house--well, what then? How does it follow that because he was there he committed the murder? He might have dashed in, run through the rooms; might have pushed his father away; might have struck him; but as soon as he had made sure Madame Svyetlov was not there, he may have run away rejoicing that she was not there and that he had not killed his father. And it was perhaps just because he had escaped from the temptation to kill his father, because he had a clear conscience and was rejoicing at not having killed him, that he was capable of a pure feeling, the feeling of pity and compassion, and leapt off the fence a minute later to the assistance of Grigory after he had, in his excitement, knocked him down. "With terrible eloquence the prosecutor has described to us the dreadful state of the prisoner's mind at Mokroe when love again lay before him calling him to new life, while love was impossible for him because he had his father's bloodstained corpse behind him and beyond that corpse--retribution. And yet the prosecutor allowed him love, which he explained, according to his method, talking about his drunken condition, about a criminal being taken to execution, about it being still far off, and so on and so on. But again I ask, Mr. Prosecutor, have you not invented a new personality? Is the prisoner so coarse and heartless as to be able to think at that moment of love and of dodges to escape punishment, if his hands were really stained with his father's blood? No, no, no! As soon as it was made plain to him that she loved him and called him to her side, promising him new happiness, oh! then, I protest he must have felt the impulse to suicide doubled, trebled, and must have killed himself, if he had his father's murder on his conscience. Oh, no! he would not have forgotten where his pistols lay! I know the prisoner: the savage, stony heartlessness ascribed to him by the prosecutor is inconsistent with his character. He would have killed himself, that's certain. He did not kill himself just because 'his mother's prayers had saved him,' and he was innocent of his father's blood. He was troubled, he was grieving that night at Mokroe only about old Grigory and praying to God that the old man would recover, that his blow had not been fatal, and that he would not have to suffer for it. Why not accept such an interpretation of the facts? What trustworthy proof have we that the prisoner is lying? "But we shall be told at once again, 'There is his father's corpse! If he ran away without murdering him, who did murder him?' Here, I repeat, you have the whole logic of the prosecution. Who murdered him, if not he? There's no one to put in his place. "Gentlemen of the jury, is that really so? Is it positively, actually true that there is no one else at all? We've heard the prosecutor count on his fingers all the persons who were in that house that night. They were five in number; three of them, I agree, could not have been responsible--the murdered man himself, old Grigory, and his wife. There are left then the prisoner and Smerdyakov, and the prosecutor dramatically exclaims that the prisoner pointed to Smerdyakov because he had no one else to fix on, that had there been a sixth person, even a phantom of a sixth person, he would have abandoned the charge against Smerdyakov at once in shame and have accused that other. But, gentlemen of the jury, why may I not draw the very opposite conclusion? There are two persons--the prisoner and Smerdyakov. Why can I not say that you accuse my client, simply because you have no one else to accuse? And you have no one else only because you have determined to exclude Smerdyakov from all suspicion. "It's true, indeed, Smerdyakov is accused only by the prisoner, his two brothers, and Madame Svyetlov. But there are others who accuse him: there are vague rumors of a question, of a suspicion, an obscure report, a feeling of expectation. Finally, we have the evidence of a combination of facts very suggestive, though, I admit, inconclusive. In the first place we have precisely on the day of the catastrophe that fit, for the genuineness of which the prosecutor, for some reason, has felt obliged to make a careful defense. Then Smerdyakov's sudden suicide on the eve of the trial. Then the equally startling evidence given in court to-day by the elder of the prisoner's brothers, who had believed in his guilt, but has to-day produced a bundle of notes and proclaimed Smerdyakov as the murderer. Oh, I fully share the court's and the prosecutor's conviction that Ivan Karamazov is suffering from brain fever, that his statement may really be a desperate effort, planned in delirium, to save his brother by throwing the guilt on the dead man. But again Smerdyakov's name is pronounced, again there is a suggestion of mystery. There is something unexplained, incomplete. And perhaps it may one day be explained. But we won't go into that now. Of that later. "The court has resolved to go on with the trial, but, meantime, I might make a few remarks about the character-sketch of Smerdyakov drawn with subtlety and talent by the prosecutor. But while I admire his talent I cannot agree with him. I have visited Smerdyakov, I have seen him and talked to him, and he made a very different impression on me. He was weak in health, it is true; but in character, in spirit, he was by no means the weak man the prosecutor has made him out to be. I found in him no trace of the timidity on which the prosecutor so insisted. There was no simplicity about him, either. I found in him, on the contrary, an extreme mistrustfulness concealed under a mask of _naivete_, and an intelligence of considerable range. The prosecutor was too simple in taking him for weak-minded. He made a very definite impression on me: I left him with the conviction that he was a distinctly spiteful creature, excessively ambitious, vindictive, and intensely envious. I made some inquiries: he resented his parentage, was ashamed of it, and would clench his teeth when he remembered that he was the son of 'stinking Lizaveta.' He was disrespectful to the servant Grigory and his wife, who had cared for him in his childhood. He cursed and jeered at Russia. He dreamed of going to France and becoming a Frenchman. He used often to say that he hadn't the means to do so. I fancy he loved no one but himself and had a strangely high opinion of himself. His conception of culture was limited to good clothes, clean shirt-fronts and polished boots. Believing himself to be the illegitimate son of Fyodor Pavlovitch (there is evidence of this), he might well have resented his position, compared with that of his master's legitimate sons. They had everything, he nothing. They had all the rights, they had the inheritance, while he was only the cook. He told me himself that he had helped Fyodor Pavlovitch to put the notes in the envelope. The destination of that sum--a sum which would have made his career--must have been hateful to him. Moreover, he saw three thousand roubles in new rainbow-colored notes. (I asked him about that on purpose.) Oh, beware of showing an ambitious and envious man a large sum of money at once! And it was the first time he had seen so much money in the hands of one man. The sight of the rainbow-colored notes may have made a morbid impression on his imagination, but with no immediate results. "The talented prosecutor, with extraordinary subtlety, sketched for us all the arguments for and against the hypothesis of Smerdyakov's guilt, and asked us in particular what motive he had in feigning a fit. But he may not have been feigning at all, the fit may have happened quite naturally, but it may have passed off quite naturally, and the sick man may have recovered, not completely perhaps, but still regaining consciousness, as happens with epileptics. "The prosecutor asks at what moment could Smerdyakov have committed the murder. But it is very easy to point out that moment. He might have waked up from deep sleep (for he was only asleep--an epileptic fit is always followed by a deep sleep) at that moment when the old Grigory shouted at the top of his voice 'Parricide!' That shout in the dark and stillness may have waked Smerdyakov whose sleep may have been less sound at the moment: he might naturally have waked up an hour before. "Getting out of bed, he goes almost unconsciously and with no definite motive towards the sound to see what's the matter. His head is still clouded with his attack, his faculties are half asleep; but, once in the garden, he walks to the lighted windows and he hears terrible news from his master, who would be, of course, glad to see him. His mind sets to work at once. He hears all the details from his frightened master, and gradually in his disordered brain there shapes itself an idea--terrible, but seductive and irresistibly logical. To kill the old man, take the three thousand, and throw all the blame on to his young master. A terrible lust of money, of booty, might seize upon him as he realized his security from detection. Oh! these sudden and irresistible impulses come so often when there is a favorable opportunity, and especially with murderers who have had no idea of committing a murder beforehand. And Smerdyakov may have gone in and carried out his plan. With what weapon? Why, with any stone picked up in the garden. But what for, with what object? Why, the three thousand which means a career for him. Oh, I am not contradicting myself--the money may have existed. And perhaps Smerdyakov alone knew where to find it, where his master kept it. And the covering of the money--the torn envelope on the floor? "Just now, when the prosecutor was explaining his subtle theory that only an inexperienced thief like Karamazov would have left the envelope on the floor, and not one like Smerdyakov, who would have avoided leaving a piece of evidence against himself, I thought as I listened that I was hearing something very familiar, and, would you believe it, I have heard that very argument, that very conjecture, of how Karamazov would have behaved, precisely two days before, from Smerdyakov himself. What's more, it struck me at the time. I fancied that there was an artificial simplicity about him; that he was in a hurry to suggest this idea to me that I might fancy it was my own. He insinuated it, as it were. Did he not insinuate the same idea at the inquiry and suggest it to the talented prosecutor? "I shall be asked, 'What about the old woman, Grigory's wife? She heard the sick man moaning close by, all night.' Yes, she heard it, but that evidence is extremely unreliable. I knew a lady who complained bitterly that she had been kept awake all night by a dog in the yard. Yet the poor beast, it appeared, had only yelped once or twice in the night. And that's natural. If any one is asleep and hears a groan he wakes up, annoyed at being waked, but instantly falls asleep again. Two hours later, again a groan, he wakes up and falls asleep again; and the same thing again two hours later--three times altogether in the night. Next morning the sleeper wakes up and complains that some one has been groaning all night and keeping him awake. And it is bound to seem so to him: the intervals of two hours of sleep he does not remember, he only remembers the moments of waking, so he feels he has been waked up all night. "But why, why, asks the prosecutor, did not Smerdyakov confess in his last letter? Why did his conscience prompt him to one step and not to both? But, excuse me, conscience implies penitence, and the suicide may not have felt penitence, but only despair. Despair and penitence are two very different things. Despair may be vindictive and irreconcilable, and the suicide, laying his hands on himself, may well have felt redoubled hatred for those whom he had envied all his life. "Gentlemen of the jury, beware of a miscarriage of justice! What is there unlikely in all I have put before you just now? Find the error in my reasoning; find the impossibility, the absurdity. And if there is but a shade of possibility, but a shade of probability in my propositions, do not condemn him. And is there only a shade? I swear by all that is sacred, I fully believe in the explanation of the murder I have just put forward. What troubles me and makes me indignant is that of all the mass of facts heaped up by the prosecution against the prisoner, there is not a single one certain and irrefutable. And yet the unhappy man is to be ruined by the accumulation of these facts. Yes, the accumulated effect is awful: the blood, the blood dripping from his fingers, the bloodstained shirt, the dark night resounding with the shout 'Parricide!' and the old man falling with a broken head. And then the mass of phrases, statements, gestures, shouts! Oh! this has so much influence, it can so bias the mind; but, gentlemen of the jury, can it bias your minds? Remember, you have been given absolute power to bind and to loose, but the greater the power, the more terrible its responsibility. "I do not draw back one iota from what I have said just now, but suppose for one moment I agreed with the prosecution that my luckless client had stained his hands with his father's blood. This is only hypothesis, I repeat; I never for one instant doubt of his innocence. But, so be it, I assume that my client is guilty of parricide. Even so, hear what I have to say. I have it in my heart to say something more to you, for I feel that there must be a great conflict in your hearts and minds.... Forgive my referring to your hearts and minds, gentlemen of the jury, but I want to be truthful and sincere to the end. Let us all be sincere!" At this point the speech was interrupted by rather loud applause. The last words, indeed, were pronounced with a note of such sincerity that every one felt that he really might have something to say, and that what he was about to say would be of the greatest consequence. But the President, hearing the applause, in a loud voice threatened to clear the court if such an incident were repeated. Every sound was hushed and Fetyukovitch began in a voice full of feeling quite unlike the tone he had used hitherto.

book 12, Chapter 12

https://web.archive.org/web/20210305110438/https://www.sparknotes.com/lit/brothersk/section15/

No Murder Either Finally, Fetyukovich says, even if Dmitri had killed Fyodor Pavlovich, he would not have been murdering his father, because the repugnant old man never acted as his father and forgot about the boy the moment he was born

shmoop

all_chapterized_books/161-chapters/47.txt

finished_summaries/shmoop/Sense and Sensibility/section_46_part_0.txt

Sense and Sensibility.chapter 47

chapter 47

{"name": "Chapter 47", "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20210421140324/https://www.shmoop.com/study-guides/literature/sense-and-sensibility/summary/chapter-47", "summary": "Mrs. Dashwood hears Willoughby's story, and is just as touched as everyone else - she feels bad for him, and hopes he can be happy. However, nobody can really restore their faith in him, knowing what he's done. Elinor, as always, just wanted to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth; she seems to have succeeded. That evening, Marianne shares her opinion on the whole matter for the first time - she's glad she knows everything, and doesn't wish her circumstances to be any different; after all, it's better that she didn't marry Willoughby. Elinor elaborates upon this, thinking of all the reasons why it was better to escape from Willoughby unmarried: he's self-indulgent, selfish, and they would have been poor. Everyone concludes that all was for the best, and there's nothing to regret but their own imprudence. Days pass; Marianne's condition is stable, and Margaret returns - everyone is settled. Elinor wants to know what's up with Edward. She hasn't heard anything from him since she left London, and even John and Fanny don't know what he's up to. One day, their servant, Thomas, goes to Exeter on business. When he returns, he informs the ladies that \"Mr. Ferrars\" is married. Marianne flips out, and Elinor's face silently expresses her horror. Mrs. Dashwood isn't sure which of her daughters to comfort. Thomas apparently ran into Lucy Steele and her new husband getting into a carriage. She said hello to him and asked him to pass on her greetings to everyone back at Barton, saying that she'll stop by and say hi soon. He caught sight of Mr. Ferrars getting into the carriage, but the latter didn't look up or say hello. Elinor comments that they're probably going to see Lucy's uncle, Edward's tutor, Mr. Pratt. Thomas says that Lucy was looking very well in general. Everyone is sobered by this whole announcement. Mrs. Dashwood is struck dumb - she's not sure how best to comfort Elinor. She realizes that despite Elinor's calm conduct, she's been majorly hurting on the inside. By being distracted by Marianne's dramatic tragedy, she's neglected to notice her quieter daughter's misery.", "analysis": ""}

Mrs. Dashwood did not hear unmoved the vindication of her former favourite. She rejoiced in his being cleared from some part of his imputed guilt;--she was sorry for him;--she wished him happy. But the feelings of the past could not be recalled.--Nothing could restore him with a faith unbroken--a character unblemished, to Marianne. Nothing could do away the knowledge of what the latter had suffered through his means, nor remove the guilt of his conduct towards Eliza. Nothing could replace him, therefore, in her former esteem, nor injure the interests of Colonel Brandon. Had Mrs. Dashwood, like her daughter, heard Willoughby's story from himself--had she witnessed his distress, and been under the influence of his countenance and his manner, it is probable that her compassion would have been greater. But it was neither in Elinor's power, nor in her wish, to rouse such feelings in another, by her retailed explanation, as had at first been called forth in herself. Reflection had given calmness to her judgment, and sobered her own opinion of Willoughby's deserts;--she wished, therefore, to declare only the simple truth, and lay open such facts as were really due to his character, without any embellishment of tenderness to lead the fancy astray. In the evening, when they were all three together, Marianne began voluntarily to speak of him again;--but that it was not without an effort, the restless, unquiet thoughtfulness in which she had been for some time previously sitting--her rising colour, as she spoke,--and her unsteady voice, plainly shewed. "I wish to assure you both," said she, "that I see every thing--as you can desire me to do." Mrs. Dashwood would have interrupted her instantly with soothing tenderness, had not Elinor, who really wished to hear her sister's unbiased opinion, by an eager sign, engaged her silence. Marianne slowly continued-- "It is a great relief to me--what Elinor told me this morning--I have now heard exactly what I wished to hear."--For some moments her voice was lost; but recovering herself, she added, and with greater calmness than before--"I am now perfectly satisfied, I wish for no change. I never could have been happy with him, after knowing, as sooner or later I must have known, all this.--I should have had no confidence, no esteem. Nothing could have done it away to my feelings." "I know it--I know it," cried her mother. "Happy with a man of libertine practices!--With one who so injured the peace of the dearest of our friends, and the best of men!--No--my Marianne has not a heart to be made happy with such a man!--Her conscience, her sensitive conscience, would have felt all that the conscience of her husband ought to have felt." Marianne sighed, and repeated, "I wish for no change." "You consider the matter," said Elinor, "exactly as a good mind and a sound understanding must consider it; and I dare say you perceive, as well as myself, not only in this, but in many other circumstances, reason enough to be convinced that your marriage must have involved you in many certain troubles and disappointments, in which you would have been poorly supported by an affection, on his side, much less certain. Had you married, you must have been always poor. His expensiveness is acknowledged even by himself, and his whole conduct declares that self-denial is a word hardly understood by him. His demands and your inexperience together, on a small, very small income, must have brought on distresses which would not be the LESS grievous to you, from having been entirely unknown and unthought of before. YOUR sense of honour and honesty would have led you, I know, when aware of your situation, to attempt all the economy that would appear to you possible: and, perhaps, as long as your frugality retrenched only on your own comfort, you might have been suffered to practice it, but beyond that--and how little could the utmost of your single management do to stop the ruin which had begun before your marriage?-- Beyond THAT, had you endeavoured, however reasonably, to abridge HIS enjoyments, is it not to be feared, that instead of prevailing on feelings so selfish to consent to it, you would have lessened your own influence on his heart, and made him regret the connection which had involved him in such difficulties?" Marianne's lips quivered, and she repeated the word "Selfish?" in a tone that implied--"do you really think him selfish?" "The whole of his behaviour," replied Elinor, "from the beginning to the end of the affair, has been grounded on selfishness. It was selfishness which first made him sport with your affections; which afterwards, when his own were engaged, made him delay the confession of it, and which finally carried him from Barton. His own enjoyment, or his own ease, was, in every particular, his ruling principle." "It is very true. MY happiness never was his object." "At present," continued Elinor, "he regrets what he has done. And why does he regret it?--Because he finds it has not answered towards himself. It has not made him happy. His circumstances are now unembarrassed--he suffers from no evil of that kind; and he thinks only that he has married a woman of a less amiable temper than yourself. But does it follow that had he married you, he would have been happy?--The inconveniences would have been different. He would then have suffered under the pecuniary distresses which, because they are removed, he now reckons as nothing. He would have had a wife of whose temper he could make no complaint, but he would have been always necessitous--always poor; and probably would soon have learned to rank the innumerable comforts of a clear estate and good income as of far more importance, even to domestic happiness, than the mere temper of a wife." "I have not a doubt of it," said Marianne; "and I have nothing to regret--nothing but my own folly." "Rather say your mother's imprudence, my child," said Mrs. Dashwood; "SHE must be answerable." Marianne would not let her proceed;--and Elinor, satisfied that each felt their own error, wished to avoid any survey of the past that might weaken her sister's spirits; she, therefore, pursuing the first subject, immediately continued, "One observation may, I think, be fairly drawn from the whole of the story--that all Willoughby's difficulties have arisen from the first offence against virtue, in his behaviour to Eliza Williams. That crime has been the origin of every lesser one, and of all his present discontents." Marianne assented most feelingly to the remark; and her mother was led by it to an enumeration of Colonel Brandon's injuries and merits, warm as friendship and design could unitedly dictate. Her daughter did not look, however, as if much of it were heard by her. Elinor, according to her expectation, saw on the two or three following days, that Marianne did not continue to gain strength as she had done; but while her resolution was unsubdued, and she still tried to appear cheerful and easy, her sister could safely trust to the effect of time upon her health. Margaret returned, and the family were again all restored to each other, again quietly settled at the cottage; and if not pursuing their usual studies with quite so much vigour as when they first came to Barton, at least planning a vigorous prosecution of them in future. Elinor grew impatient for some tidings of Edward. She had heard nothing of him since her leaving London, nothing new of his plans, nothing certain even of his present abode. Some letters had passed between her and her brother, in consequence of Marianne's illness; and in the first of John's, there had been this sentence:-- "We know nothing of our unfortunate Edward, and can make no enquiries on so prohibited a subject, but conclude him to be still at Oxford;" which was all the intelligence of Edward afforded her by the correspondence, for his name was not even mentioned in any of the succeeding letters. She was not doomed, however, to be long in ignorance of his measures. Their man-servant had been sent one morning to Exeter on business; and when, as he waited at table, he had satisfied the inquiries of his mistress as to the event of his errand, this was his voluntary communication-- "I suppose you know, ma'am, that Mr. Ferrars is married." Marianne gave a violent start, fixed her eyes upon Elinor, saw her turning pale, and fell back in her chair in hysterics. Mrs. Dashwood, whose eyes, as she answered the servant's inquiry, had intuitively taken the same direction, was shocked to perceive by Elinor's countenance how much she really suffered, and a moment afterwards, alike distressed by Marianne's situation, knew not on which child to bestow her principal attention. The servant, who saw only that Miss Marianne was taken ill, had sense enough to call one of the maids, who, with Mrs. Dashwood's assistance, supported her into the other room. By that time, Marianne was rather better, and her mother leaving her to the care of Margaret and the maid, returned to Elinor, who, though still much disordered, had so far recovered the use of her reason and voice as to be just beginning an inquiry of Thomas, as to the source of his intelligence. Mrs. Dashwood immediately took all that trouble on herself; and Elinor had the benefit of the information without the exertion of seeking it. "Who told you that Mr. Ferrars was married, Thomas?" "I see Mr. Ferrars myself, ma'am, this morning in Exeter, and his lady too, Miss Steele as was. They was stopping in a chaise at the door of the New London Inn, as I went there with a message from Sally at the Park to her brother, who is one of the post-boys. I happened to look up as I went by the chaise, and so I see directly it was the youngest Miss Steele; so I took off my hat, and she knew me and called to me, and inquired after you, ma'am, and the young ladies, especially Miss Marianne, and bid me I should give her compliments and Mr. Ferrars's, their best compliments and service, and how sorry they was they had not time to come on and see you, but they was in a great hurry to go forwards, for they was going further down for a little while, but howsever, when they come back, they'd make sure to come and see you." "But did she tell you she was married, Thomas?" "Yes, ma'am. She smiled, and said how she had changed her name since she was in these parts. She was always a very affable and free-spoken young lady, and very civil behaved. So, I made free to wish her joy." "Was Mr. Ferrars in the carriage with her?" "Yes, ma'am, I just see him leaning back in it, but he did not look up;--he never was a gentleman much for talking." Elinor's heart could easily account for his not putting himself forward; and Mrs. Dashwood probably found the same explanation. "Was there no one else in the carriage?" "No, ma'am, only they two." "Do you know where they came from?" "They come straight from town, as Miss Lucy--Mrs. Ferrars told me." "And are they going farther westward?" "Yes, ma'am--but not to bide long. They will soon be back again, and then they'd be sure and call here." Mrs. Dashwood now looked at her daughter; but Elinor knew better than to expect them. She recognised the whole of Lucy in the message, and was very confident that Edward would never come near them. She observed in a low voice, to her mother, that they were probably going down to Mr. Pratt's, near Plymouth. Thomas's intelligence seemed over. Elinor looked as if she wished to hear more. "Did you see them off, before you came away?" "No, ma'am--the horses were just coming out, but I could not bide any longer; I was afraid of being late." "Did Mrs. Ferrars look well?" "Yes, ma'am, she said how she was very well; and to my mind she was always a very handsome young lady--and she seemed vastly contented." Mrs. Dashwood could think of no other question, and Thomas and the tablecloth, now alike needless, were soon afterwards dismissed. Marianne had already sent to say, that she should eat nothing more. Mrs. Dashwood's and Elinor's appetites were equally lost, and Margaret might think herself very well off, that with so much uneasiness as both her sisters had lately experienced, so much reason as they had often had to be careless of their meals, she had never been obliged to go without her dinner before. When the dessert and the wine were arranged, and Mrs. Dashwood and Elinor were left by themselves, they remained long together in a similarity of thoughtfulness and silence. Mrs. Dashwood feared to hazard any remark, and ventured not to offer consolation. She now found that she had erred in relying on Elinor's representation of herself; and justly concluded that every thing had been expressly softened at the time, to spare her from an increase of unhappiness, suffering as she then had suffered for Marianne. She found that she had been misled by the careful, the considerate attention of her daughter, to think the attachment, which once she had so well understood, much slighter in reality, than she had been wont to believe, or than it was now proved to be. She feared that under this persuasion she had been unjust, inattentive, nay, almost unkind, to her Elinor;--that Marianne's affliction, because more acknowledged, more immediately before her, had too much engrossed her tenderness, and led her away to forget that in Elinor she might have a daughter suffering almost as much, certainly with less self-provocation, and greater fortitude.

Chapter 47

https://web.archive.org/web/20210421140324/https://www.shmoop.com/study-guides/literature/sense-and-sensibility/summary/chapter-47

Mrs. Dashwood hears Willoughby's story, and is just as touched as everyone else - she feels bad for him, and hopes he can be happy. However, nobody can really restore their faith in him, knowing what he's done. Elinor, as always, just wanted to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth; she seems to have succeeded. That evening, Marianne shares her opinion on the whole matter for the first time - she's glad she knows everything, and doesn't wish her circumstances to be any different; after all, it's better that she didn't marry Willoughby. Elinor elaborates upon this, thinking of all the reasons why it was better to escape from Willoughby unmarried: he's self-indulgent, selfish, and they would have been poor. Everyone concludes that all was for the best, and there's nothing to regret but their own imprudence. Days pass; Marianne's condition is stable, and Margaret returns - everyone is settled. Elinor wants to know what's up with Edward. She hasn't heard anything from him since she left London, and even John and Fanny don't know what he's up to. One day, their servant, Thomas, goes to Exeter on business. When he returns, he informs the ladies that "Mr. Ferrars" is married. Marianne flips out, and Elinor's face silently expresses her horror. Mrs. Dashwood isn't sure which of her daughters to comfort. Thomas apparently ran into Lucy Steele and her new husband getting into a carriage. She said hello to him and asked him to pass on her greetings to everyone back at Barton, saying that she'll stop by and say hi soon. He caught sight of Mr. Ferrars getting into the carriage, but the latter didn't look up or say hello. Elinor comments that they're probably going to see Lucy's uncle, Edward's tutor, Mr. Pratt. Thomas says that Lucy was looking very well in general. Everyone is sobered by this whole announcement. Mrs. Dashwood is struck dumb - she's not sure how best to comfort Elinor. She realizes that despite Elinor's calm conduct, she's been majorly hurting on the inside. By being distracted by Marianne's dramatic tragedy, she's neglected to notice her quieter daughter's misery.

shmoop

all_chapterized_books/5658-chapters/05.txt

finished_summaries/shmoop/Lord Jim/section_4_part_0.txt

Lord Jim.chapter 5

chapter 5

{"name": "Chapter 5", "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20210118112654/https://www.shmoop.com/study-guides/literature/lord-jim/summary/chapter-5", "summary": "Meet Marlow, who is chilling on a verandah after dinner. He starts telling a story to a motley crew of nameless dudes. You might as well get comfortable, Shmoopers, because Marlow plans on talking for a while. This story is a long one. Apparently the Patna affair has become notorious, and Marlow will be the one to fill us in on everything that happens. He begins his tale at the moment he learned about the Patna. Here's the scene: Reports have started trickling in of the onboard shenanigans, and then Marlow sees the Patna crew members arrive at the port and report to the harbor office. The harbor-master, a man named Captain Elliot, chews out the Patna captain. Marlow, however, is busy fixating on Jim, noting how different he looks from the other crew members. Meanwhile, the captain of the Patna hops into a rickshaw and disappears. He's on the lam. Too bad Tommy Lee Jones is nowhere to be found. In any case, Cap'n is off the hook for now, the lucky duck. The second engineer has a broken arm and goes to the hospital, and the chief engineer goes on a drinking bender and winds up in the same hospital. Nice one. When he goes to the hospital to visit a friend, Marlow winds up trying to talk to the chief engineer, who is having a seriously tough time detoxing from all the alcohol he has drunk. He rants and raves at Marlow, saying that the Patna was full of \"reptiles.\" This guy's a regular peach. A freaked out Marlow flees the scene.", "analysis": ""}

'Oh yes. I attended the inquiry,' he would say, 'and to this day I haven't left off wondering why I went. I am willing to believe each of us has a guardian angel, if you fellows will concede to me that each of us has a familiar devil as well. I want you to own up, because I don't like to feel exceptional in any way, and I know I have him--the devil, I mean. I haven't seen him, of course, but I go upon circumstantial evidence. He is there right enough, and, being malicious, he lets me in for that kind of thing. What kind of thing, you ask? Why, the inquiry thing, the yellow-dog thing--you wouldn't think a mangy, native tyke would be allowed to trip up people in the verandah of a magistrate's court, would you?--the kind of thing that by devious, unexpected, truly diabolical ways causes me to run up against men with soft spots, with hard spots, with hidden plague spots, by Jove! and loosens their tongues at the sight of me for their infernal confidences; as though, forsooth, I had no confidences to make to myself, as though--God help me!--I didn't have enough confidential information about myself to harrow my own soul till the end of my appointed time. And what I have done to be thus favoured I want to know. I declare I am as full of my own concerns as the next man, and I have as much memory as the average pilgrim in this valley, so you see I am not particularly fit to be a receptacle of confessions. Then why? Can't tell--unless it be to make time pass away after dinner. Charley, my dear chap, your dinner was extremely good, and in consequence these men here look upon a quiet rubber as a tumultuous occupation. They wallow in your good chairs and think to themselves, "Hang exertion. Let that Marlow talk." 'Talk? So be it. And it's easy enough to talk of Master Jim, after a good spread, two hundred feet above the sea-level, with a box of decent cigars handy, on a blessed evening of freshness and starlight that would make the best of us forget we are only on sufferance here and got to pick our way in cross lights, watching every precious minute and every irremediable step, trusting we shall manage yet to go out decently in the end--but not so sure of it after all--and with dashed little help to expect from those we touch elbows with right and left. Of course there are men here and there to whom the whole of life is like an after-dinner hour with a cigar; easy, pleasant, empty, perhaps enlivened by some fable of strife to be forgotten before the end is told--before the end is told--even if there happens to be any end to it. 'My eyes met his for the first time at that inquiry. You must know that everybody connected in any way with the sea was there, because the affair had been notorious for days, ever since that mysterious cable message came from Aden to start us all cackling. I say mysterious, because it was so in a sense though it contained a naked fact, about as naked and ugly as a fact can well be. The whole waterside talked of nothing else. First thing in the morning as I was dressing in my state-room, I would hear through the bulkhead my Parsee Dubash jabbering about the Patna with the steward, while he drank a cup of tea, by favour, in the pantry. No sooner on shore I would meet some acquaintance, and the first remark would be, "Did you ever hear of anything to beat this?" and according to his kind the man would smile cynically, or look sad, or let out a swear or two. Complete strangers would accost each other familiarly, just for the sake of easing their minds on the subject: every confounded loafer in the town came in for a harvest of drinks over this affair: you heard of it in the harbour office, at every ship-broker's, at your agent's, from whites, from natives, from half-castes, from the very boatmen squatting half naked on the stone steps as you went up--by Jove! There was some indignation, not a few jokes, and no end of discussions as to what had become of them, you know. This went on for a couple of weeks or more, and the opinion that whatever was mysterious in this affair would turn out to be tragic as well, began to prevail, when one fine morning, as I was standing in the shade by the steps of the harbour office, I perceived four men walking towards me along the quay. I wondered for a while where that queer lot had sprung from, and suddenly, I may say, I shouted to myself, "Here they are!" 'There they were, sure enough, three of them as large as life, and one much larger of girth than any living man has a right to be, just landed with a good breakfast inside of them from an outward-bound Dale Line steamer that had come in about an hour after sunrise. There could be no mistake; I spotted the jolly skipper of the Patna at the first glance: the fattest man in the whole blessed tropical belt clear round that good old earth of ours. Moreover, nine months or so before, I had come across him in Samarang. His steamer was loading in the Roads, and he was abusing the tyrannical institutions of the German empire, and soaking himself in beer all day long and day after day in De Jongh's back-shop, till De Jongh, who charged a guilder for every bottle without as much as the quiver of an eyelid, would beckon me aside, and, with his little leathery face all puckered up, declare confidentially, "Business is business, but this man, captain, he make me very sick. Tfui!" 'I was looking at him from the shade. He was hurrying on a little in advance, and the sunlight beating on him brought out his bulk in a startling way. He made me think of a trained baby elephant walking on hind-legs. He was extravagantly gorgeous too--got up in a soiled sleeping-suit, bright green and deep orange vertical stripes, with a pair of ragged straw slippers on his bare feet, and somebody's cast-off pith hat, very dirty and two sizes too small for him, tied up with a manilla rope-yarn on the top of his big head. You understand a man like that hasn't the ghost of a chance when it comes to borrowing clothes. Very well. On he came in hot haste, without a look right or left, passed within three feet of me, and in the innocence of his heart went on pelting upstairs into the harbour office to make his deposition, or report, or whatever you like to call it. 'It appears he addressed himself in the first instance to the principal shipping-master. Archie Ruthvel had just come in, and, as his story goes, was about to begin his arduous day by giving a dressing-down to his chief clerk. Some of you might have known him--an obliging little Portuguese half-caste with a miserably skinny neck, and always on the hop to get something from the shipmasters in the way of eatables--a piece of salt pork, a bag of biscuits, a few potatoes, or what not. One voyage, I recollect, I tipped him a live sheep out of the remnant of my sea-stock: not that I wanted him to do anything for me--he couldn't, you know--but because his childlike belief in the sacred right to perquisites quite touched my heart. It was so strong as to be almost beautiful. The race--the two races rather--and the climate . . . However, never mind. I know where I have a friend for life. 'Well, Ruthvel says he was giving him a severe lecture--on official morality, I suppose--when he heard a kind of subdued commotion at his back, and turning his head he saw, in his own words, something round and enormous, resembling a sixteen-hundred-weight sugar-hogshead wrapped in striped flannelette, up-ended in the middle of the large floor space in the office. He declares he was so taken aback that for quite an appreciable time he did not realise the thing was alive, and sat still wondering for what purpose and by what means that object had been transported in front of his desk. The archway from the ante-room was crowded with punkah-pullers, sweepers, police peons, the coxswain and crew of the harbour steam-launch, all craning their necks and almost climbing on each other's backs. Quite a riot. By that time the fellow had managed to tug and jerk his hat clear of his head, and advanced with slight bows at Ruthvel, who told me the sight was so discomposing that for some time he listened, quite unable to make out what that apparition wanted. It spoke in a voice harsh and lugubrious but intrepid, and little by little it dawned upon Archie that this was a development of the Patna case. He says that as soon as he understood who it was before him he felt quite unwell--Archie is so sympathetic and easily upset--but pulled himself together and shouted "Stop! I can't listen to you. You must go to the Master Attendant. I can't possibly listen to you. Captain Elliot is the man you want to see. This way, this way." He jumped up, ran round that long counter, pulled, shoved: the other let him, surprised but obedient at first, and only at the door of the private office some sort of animal instinct made him hang back and snort like a frightened bullock. "Look here! what's up? Let go! Look here!" Archie flung open the door without knocking. "The master of the Patna, sir," he shouts. "Go in, captain." He saw the old man lift his head from some writing so sharp that his nose-nippers fell off, banged the door to, and fled to his desk, where he had some papers waiting for his signature: but he says the row that burst out in there was so awful that he couldn't collect his senses sufficiently to remember the spelling of his own name. Archie's the most sensitive shipping-master in the two hemispheres. He declares he felt as though he had thrown a man to a hungry lion. No doubt the noise was great. I heard it down below, and I have every reason to believe it was heard clear across the Esplanade as far as the band-stand. Old father Elliot had a great stock of words and could shout--and didn't mind who he shouted at either. He would have shouted at the Viceroy himself. As he used to tell me: "I am as high as I can get; my pension is safe. I've a few pounds laid by, and if they don't like my notions of duty I would just as soon go home as not. I am an old man, and I have always spoken my mind. All I care for now is to see my girls married before I die." He was a little crazy on that point. His three daughters were awfully nice, though they resembled him amazingly, and on the mornings he woke up with a gloomy view of their matrimonial prospects the office would read it in his eye and tremble, because, they said, he was sure to have somebody for breakfast. However, that morning he did not eat the renegade, but, if I may be allowed to carry on the metaphor, chewed him up very small, so to speak, and--ah! ejected him again. 'Thus in a very few moments I saw his monstrous bulk descend in haste and stand still on the outer steps. He had stopped close to me for the purpose of profound meditation: his large purple cheeks quivered. He was biting his thumb, and after a while noticed me with a sidelong vexed look. The other three chaps that had landed with him made a little group waiting at some distance. There was a sallow-faced, mean little chap with his arm in a sling, and a long individual in a blue flannel coat, as dry as a chip and no stouter than a broomstick, with drooping grey moustaches, who looked about him with an air of jaunty imbecility. The third was an upstanding, broad-shouldered youth, with his hands in his pockets, turning his back on the other two who appeared to be talking together earnestly. He stared across the empty Esplanade. A ramshackle gharry, all dust and venetian blinds, pulled up short opposite the group, and the driver, throwing up his right foot over his knee, gave himself up to the critical examination of his toes. The young chap, making no movement, not even stirring his head, just stared into the sunshine. This was my first view of Jim. He looked as unconcerned and unapproachable as only the young can look. There he stood, clean-limbed, clean-faced, firm on his feet, as promising a boy as the sun ever shone on; and, looking at him, knowing all he knew and a little more too, I was as angry as though I had detected him trying to get something out of me by false pretences. He had no business to look so sound. I thought to myself--well, if this sort can go wrong like that . . . and I felt as though I could fling down my hat and dance on it from sheer mortification, as I once saw the skipper of an Italian barque do because his duffer of a mate got into a mess with his anchors when making a flying moor in a roadstead full of ships. I asked myself, seeing him there apparently so much at ease--is he silly? is he callous? He seemed ready to start whistling a tune. And note, I did not care a rap about the behaviour of the other two. Their persons somehow fitted the tale that was public property, and was going to be the subject of an official inquiry. "That old mad rogue upstairs called me a hound," said the captain of the Patna. I can't tell whether he recognised me--I rather think he did; but at any rate our glances met. He glared--I smiled; hound was the very mildest epithet that had reached me through the open window. "Did he?" I said from some strange inability to hold my tongue. He nodded, bit his thumb again, swore under his breath: then lifting his head and looking at me with sullen and passionate impudence--"Bah! the Pacific is big, my friendt. You damned Englishmen can do your worst; I know where there's plenty room for a man like me: I am well aguaindt in Apia, in Honolulu, in . . ." He paused reflectively, while without effort I could depict to myself the sort of people he was "aguaindt" with in those places. I won't make a secret of it that I had been "aguaindt" with not a few of that sort myself. There are times when a man must act as though life were equally sweet in any company. I've known such a time, and, what's more, I shan't now pretend to pull a long face over my necessity, because a good many of that bad company from want of moral--moral--what shall I say?--posture, or from some other equally profound cause, were twice as instructive and twenty times more amusing than the usual respectable thief of commerce you fellows ask to sit at your table without any real necessity--from habit, from cowardice, from good-nature, from a hundred sneaking and inadequate reasons. '"You Englishmen are all rogues," went on my patriotic Flensborg or Stettin Australian. I really don't recollect now what decent little port on the shores of the Baltic was defiled by being the nest of that precious bird. "What are you to shout? Eh? You tell me? You no better than other people, and that old rogue he make Gottam fuss with me." His thick carcass trembled on its legs that were like a pair of pillars; it trembled from head to foot. "That's what you English always make--make a tam' fuss--for any little thing, because I was not born in your tam' country. Take away my certificate. Take it. I don't want the certificate. A man like me don't want your verfluchte certificate. I shpit on it." He spat. "I vill an Amerigan citizen begome," he cried, fretting and fuming and shuffling his feet as if to free his ankles from some invisible and mysterious grasp that would not let him get away from that spot. He made himself so warm that the top of his bullet head positively smoked. Nothing mysterious prevented me from going away: curiosity is the most obvious of sentiments, and it held me there to see the effect of a full information upon that young fellow who, hands in pockets, and turning his back upon the sidewalk, gazed across the grass-plots of the Esplanade at the yellow portico of the Malabar Hotel with the air of a man about to go for a walk as soon as his friend is ready. That's how he looked, and it was odious. I waited to see him overwhelmed, confounded, pierced through and through, squirming like an impaled beetle--and I was half afraid to see it too--if you understand what I mean. Nothing more awful than to watch a man who has been found out, not in a crime but in a more than criminal weakness. The commonest sort of fortitude prevents us from becoming criminals in a legal sense; it is from weakness unknown, but perhaps suspected, as in some parts of the world you suspect a deadly snake in every bush--from weakness that may lie hidden, watched or unwatched, prayed against or manfully scorned, repressed or maybe ignored more than half a lifetime, not one of us is safe. We are snared into doing things for which we get called names, and things for which we get hanged, and yet the spirit may well survive--survive the condemnation, survive the halter, by Jove! And there are things--they look small enough sometimes too--by which some of us are totally and completely undone. I watched the youngster there. I liked his appearance; I knew his appearance; he came from the right place; he was one of us. He stood there for all the parentage of his kind, for men and women by no means clever or amusing, but whose very existence is based upon honest faith, and upon the instinct of courage. I don't mean military courage, or civil courage, or any special kind of courage. I mean just that inborn ability to look temptations straight in the face--a readiness unintellectual enough, goodness knows, but without pose--a power of resistance, don't you see, ungracious if you like, but priceless--an unthinking and blessed stiffness before the outward and inward terrors, before the might of nature and the seductive corruption of men--backed by a faith invulnerable to the strength of facts, to the contagion of example, to the solicitation of ideas. Hang ideas! They are tramps, vagabonds, knocking at the back-door of your mind, each taking a little of your substance, each carrying away some crumb of that belief in a few simple notions you must cling to if you want to live decently and would like to die easy! 'This has nothing to do with Jim, directly; only he was outwardly so typical of that good, stupid kind we like to feel marching right and left of us in life, of the kind that is not disturbed by the vagaries of intelligence and the perversions of--of nerves, let us say. He was the kind of fellow you would, on the strength of his looks, leave in charge of the deck--figuratively and professionally speaking. I say I would, and I ought to know. Haven't I turned out youngsters enough in my time, for the service of the Red Rag, to the craft of the sea, to the craft whose whole secret could be expressed in one short sentence, and yet must be driven afresh every day into young heads till it becomes the component part of every waking thought--till it is present in every dream of their young sleep! The sea has been good to me, but when I remember all these boys that passed through my hands, some grown up now and some drowned by this time, but all good stuff for the sea, I don't think I have done badly by it either. Were I to go home to-morrow, I bet that before two days passed over my head some sunburnt young chief mate would overtake me at some dock gateway or other, and a fresh deep voice speaking above my hat would ask: "Don't you remember me, sir? Why! little So-and-so. Such and such a ship. It was my first voyage." And I would remember a bewildered little shaver, no higher than the back of this chair, with a mother and perhaps a big sister on the quay, very quiet but too upset to wave their handkerchiefs at the ship that glides out gently between the pier-heads; or perhaps some decent middle-aged father who had come early with his boy to see him off, and stays all the morning, because he is interested in the windlass apparently, and stays too long, and has got to scramble ashore at last with no time at all to say good-bye. The mud pilot on the poop sings out to me in a drawl, "Hold her with the check line for a moment, Mister Mate. There's a gentleman wants to get ashore. . . . Up with you, sir. Nearly got carried off to Talcahuano, didn't you? Now's your time; easy does it. . . . All right. Slack away again forward there." The tugs, smoking like the pit of perdition, get hold and churn the old river into fury; the gentleman ashore is dusting his knees--the benevolent steward has shied his umbrella after him. All very proper. He has offered his bit of sacrifice to the sea, and now he may go home pretending he thinks nothing of it; and the little willing victim shall be very sea-sick before next morning. By-and-by, when he has learned all the little mysteries and the one great secret of the craft, he shall be fit to live or die as the sea may decree; and the man who had taken a hand in this fool game, in which the sea wins every toss, will be pleased to have his back slapped by a heavy young hand, and to hear a cheery sea-puppy voice: "Do you remember me, sir? The little So-and-so." 'I tell you this is good; it tells you that once in your life at least you had gone the right way to work. I have been thus slapped, and I have winced, for the slap was heavy, and I have glowed all day long and gone to bed feeling less lonely in the world by virtue of that hearty thump. Don't I remember the little So-and-so's! I tell you I ought to know the right kind of looks. I would have trusted the deck to that youngster on the strength of a single glance, and gone to sleep with both eyes--and, by Jove! it wouldn't have been safe. There are depths of horror in that thought. He looked as genuine as a new sovereign, but there was some infernal alloy in his metal. How much? The least thing--the least drop of something rare and accursed; the least drop!--but he made you--standing there with his don't-care-hang air--he made you wonder whether perchance he were nothing more rare than brass. 'I couldn't believe it. I tell you I wanted to see him squirm for the honour of the craft. The other two no-account chaps spotted their captain, and began to move slowly towards us. They chatted together as they strolled, and I did not care any more than if they had not been visible to the naked eye. They grinned at each other--might have been exchanging jokes, for all I know. I saw that with one of them it was a case of a broken arm; and as to the long individual with grey moustaches he was the chief engineer, and in various ways a pretty notorious personality. They were nobodies. They approached. The skipper gazed in an inanimate way between his feet: he seemed to be swollen to an unnatural size by some awful disease, by the mysterious action of an unknown poison. He lifted his head, saw the two before him waiting, opened his mouth with an extraordinary, sneering contortion of his puffed face--to speak to them, I suppose--and then a thought seemed to strike him. His thick, purplish lips came together without a sound, he went off in a resolute waddle to the gharry and began to jerk at the door-handle with such a blind brutality of impatience that I expected to see the whole concern overturned on its side, pony and all. The driver, shaken out of his meditation over the sole of his foot, displayed at once all the signs of intense terror, and held with both hands, looking round from his box at this vast carcass forcing its way into his conveyance. The little machine shook and rocked tumultuously, and the crimson nape of that lowered neck, the size of those straining thighs, the immense heaving of that dingy, striped green-and-orange back, the whole burrowing effort of that gaudy and sordid mass, troubled one's sense of probability with a droll and fearsome effect, like one of those grotesque and distinct visions that scare and fascinate one in a fever. He disappeared. I half expected the roof to split in two, the little box on wheels to burst open in the manner of a ripe cotton-pod--but it only sank with a click of flattened springs, and suddenly one venetian blind rattled down. His shoulders reappeared, jammed in the small opening; his head hung out, distended and tossing like a captive balloon, perspiring, furious, spluttering. He reached for the gharry-wallah with vicious flourishes of a fist as dumpy and red as a lump of raw meat. He roared at him to be off, to go on. Where? Into the Pacific, perhaps. The driver lashed; the pony snorted, reared once, and darted off at a gallop. Where? To Apia? To Honolulu? He had 6000 miles of tropical belt to disport himself in, and I did not hear the precise address. A snorting pony snatched him into "Ewigkeit" in the twinkling of an eye, and I never saw him again; and, what's more, I don't know of anybody that ever had a glimpse of him after he departed from my knowledge sitting inside a ramshackle little gharry that fled round the corner in a white smother of dust. He departed, disappeared, vanished, absconded; and absurdly enough it looked as though he had taken that gharry with him, for never again did I come across a sorrel pony with a slit ear and a lackadaisical Tamil driver afflicted by a sore foot. The Pacific is indeed big; but whether he found a place for a display of his talents in it or not, the fact remains he had flown into space like a witch on a broomstick. The little chap with his arm in a sling started to run after the carriage, bleating, "Captain! I say, Captain! I sa-a-ay!"--but after a few steps stopped short, hung his head, and walked back slowly. At the sharp rattle of the wheels the young fellow spun round where he stood. He made no other movement, no gesture, no sign, and remained facing in the new direction after the gharry had swung out of sight. 'All this happened in much less time than it takes to tell, since I am trying to interpret for you into slow speech the instantaneous effect of visual impressions. Next moment the half-caste clerk, sent by Archie to look a little after the poor castaways of the Patna, came upon the scene. He ran out eager and bareheaded, looking right and left, and very full of his mission. It was doomed to be a failure as far as the principal person was concerned, but he approached the others with fussy importance, and, almost immediately, found himself involved in a violent altercation with the chap that carried his arm in a sling, and who turned out to be extremely anxious for a row. He wasn't going to be ordered about--"not he, b'gosh." He wouldn't be terrified with a pack of lies by a cocky half-bred little quill-driver. He was not going to be bullied by "no object of that sort," if the story were true "ever so"! He bawled his wish, his desire, his determination to go to bed. "If you weren't a God-forsaken Portuguee," I heard him yell, "you would know that the hospital is the right place for me." He pushed the fist of his sound arm under the other's nose; a crowd began to collect; the half-caste, flustered, but doing his best to appear dignified, tried to explain his intentions. I went away without waiting to see the end. 'But it so happened that I had a man in the hospital at the time, and going there to see about him the day before the opening of the Inquiry, I saw in the white men's ward that little chap tossing on his back, with his arm in splints, and quite light-headed. To my great surprise the other one, the long individual with drooping white moustache, had also found his way there. I remembered I had seen him slinking away during the quarrel, in a half prance, half shuffle, and trying very hard not to look scared. He was no stranger to the port, it seems, and in his distress was able to make tracks straight for Mariani's billiard-room and grog-shop near the bazaar. That unspeakable vagabond, Mariani, who had known the man and had ministered to his vices in one or two other places, kissed the ground, in a manner of speaking, before him, and shut him up with a supply of bottles in an upstairs room of his infamous hovel. It appears he was under some hazy apprehension as to his personal safety, and wished to be concealed. However, Mariani told me a long time after (when he came on board one day to dun my steward for the price of some cigars) that he would have done more for him without asking any questions, from gratitude for some unholy favour received very many years ago--as far as I could make out. He thumped twice his brawny chest, rolled enormous black-and-white eyes glistening with tears: "Antonio never forget--Antonio never forget!" What was the precise nature of the immoral obligation I never learned, but be it what it may, he had every facility given him to remain under lock and key, with a chair, a table, a mattress in a corner, and a litter of fallen plaster on the floor, in an irrational state of funk, and keeping up his pecker with such tonics as Mariani dispensed. This lasted till the evening of the third day, when, after letting out a few horrible screams, he found himself compelled to seek safety in flight from a legion of centipedes. He burst the door open, made one leap for dear life down the crazy little stairway, landed bodily on Mariani's stomach, picked himself up, and bolted like a rabbit into the streets. The police plucked him off a garbage-heap in the early morning. At first he had a notion they were carrying him off to be hanged, and fought for liberty like a hero, but when I sat down by his bed he had been very quiet for two days. His lean bronzed head, with white moustaches, looked fine and calm on the pillow, like the head of a war-worn soldier with a child-like soul, had it not been for a hint of spectral alarm that lurked in the blank glitter of his glance, resembling a nondescript form of a terror crouching silently behind a pane of glass. He was so extremely calm, that I began to indulge in the eccentric hope of hearing something explanatory of the famous affair from his point of view. Why I longed to go grubbing into the deplorable details of an occurrence which, after all, concerned me no more than as a member of an obscure body of men held together by a community of inglorious toil and by fidelity to a certain standard of conduct, I can't explain. You may call it an unhealthy curiosity if you like; but I have a distinct notion I wished to find something. Perhaps, unconsciously, I hoped I would find that something, some profound and redeeming cause, some merciful explanation, some convincing shadow of an excuse. I see well enough now that I hoped for the impossible--for the laying of what is the most obstinate ghost of man's creation, of the uneasy doubt uprising like a mist, secret and gnawing like a worm, and more chilling than the certitude of death--the doubt of the sovereign power enthroned in a fixed standard of conduct. It is the hardest thing to stumble against; it is the thing that breeds yelling panics and good little quiet villainies; it's the true shadow of calamity. Did I believe in a miracle? and why did I desire it so ardently? Was it for my own sake that I wished to find some shadow of an excuse for that young fellow whom I had never seen before, but whose appearance alone added a touch of personal concern to the thoughts suggested by the knowledge of his weakness--made it a thing of mystery and terror--like a hint of a destructive fate ready for us all whose youth--in its day--had resembled his youth? I fear that such was the secret motive of my prying. I was, and no mistake, looking for a miracle. The only thing that at this distance of time strikes me as miraculous is the extent of my imbecility. I positively hoped to obtain from that battered and shady invalid some exorcism against the ghost of doubt. I must have been pretty desperate too, for, without loss of time, after a few indifferent and friendly sentences which he answered with languid readiness, just as any decent sick man would do, I produced the word Patna wrapped up in a delicate question as in a wisp of floss silk. I was delicate selfishly; I did not want to startle him; I had no solicitude for him; I was not furious with him and sorry for him: his experience was of no importance, his redemption would have had no point for me. He had grown old in minor iniquities, and could no longer inspire aversion or pity. He repeated Patna? interrogatively, seemed to make a short effort of memory, and said: "Quite right. I am an old stager out here. I saw her go down." I made ready to vent my indignation at such a stupid lie, when he added smoothly, "She was full of reptiles." 'This made me pause. What did he mean? The unsteady phantom of terror behind his glassy eyes seemed to stand still and look into mine wistfully. "They turned me out of my bunk in the middle watch to look at her sinking," he pursued in a reflective tone. His voice sounded alarmingly strong all at once. I was sorry for my folly. There was no snowy-winged coif of a nursing sister to be seen flitting in the perspective of the ward; but away in the middle of a long row of empty iron bedsteads an accident case from some ship in the Roads sat up brown and gaunt with a white bandage set rakishly on the forehead. Suddenly my interesting invalid shot out an arm thin like a tentacle and clawed my shoulder. "Only my eyes were good enough to see. I am famous for my eyesight. That's why they called me, I expect. None of them was quick enough to see her go, but they saw that she was gone right enough, and sang out together--like this." . . . A wolfish howl searched the very recesses of my soul. "Oh! make 'im dry up," whined the accident case irritably. "You don't believe me, I suppose," went on the other, with an air of ineffable conceit. "I tell you there are no such eyes as mine this side of the Persian Gulf. Look under the bed." 'Of course I stooped instantly. I defy anybody not to have done so. "What can you see?" he asked. "Nothing," I said, feeling awfully ashamed of myself. He scrutinised my face with wild and withering contempt. "Just so," he said, "but if I were to look I could see--there's no eyes like mine, I tell you." Again he clawed, pulling at me downwards in his eagerness to relieve himself by a confidential communication. "Millions of pink toads. There's no eyes like mine. Millions of pink toads. It's worse than seeing a ship sink. I could look at sinking ships and smoke my pipe all day long. Why don't they give me back my pipe? I would get a smoke while I watched these toads. The ship was full of them. They've got to be watched, you know." He winked facetiously. The perspiration dripped on him off my head, my drill coat clung to my wet back: the afternoon breeze swept impetuously over the row of bedsteads, the stiff folds of curtains stirred perpendicularly, rattling on brass rods, the covers of empty beds blew about noiselessly near the bare floor all along the line, and I shivered to the very marrow. The soft wind of the tropics played in that naked ward as bleak as a winter's gale in an old barn at home. "Don't you let him start his hollering, mister," hailed from afar the accident case in a distressed angry shout that came ringing between the walls like a quavering call down a tunnel. The clawing hand hauled at my shoulder; he leered at me knowingly. "The ship was full of them, you know, and we had to clear out on the strict Q.T.," he whispered with extreme rapidity. "All pink. All pink--as big as mastiffs, with an eye on the top of the head and claws all round their ugly mouths. Ough! Ough!" Quick jerks as of galvanic shocks disclosed under the flat coverlet the outlines of meagre and agitated legs; he let go my shoulder and reached after something in the air; his body trembled tensely like a released harp-string; and while I looked down, the spectral horror in him broke through his glassy gaze. Instantly his face of an old soldier, with its noble and calm outlines, became decomposed before my eyes by the corruption of stealthy cunning, of an abominable caution and of desperate fear. He restrained a cry--"Ssh! what are they doing now down there?" he asked, pointing to the floor with fantastic precautions of voice and gesture, whose meaning, borne upon my mind in a lurid flash, made me very sick of my cleverness. "They are all asleep," I answered, watching him narrowly. That was it. That's what he wanted to hear; these were the exact words that could calm him. He drew a long breath. "Ssh! Quiet, steady. I am an old stager out here. I know them brutes. Bash in the head of the first that stirs. There's too many of them, and she won't swim more than ten minutes." He panted again. "Hurry up," he yelled suddenly, and went on in a steady scream: "They are all awake--millions of them. They are trampling on me! Wait! Oh, wait! I'll smash them in heaps like flies. Wait for me! Help! H-e-elp!" An interminable and sustained howl completed my discomfiture. I saw in the distance the accident case raise deplorably both his hands to his bandaged head; a dresser, aproned to the chin showed himself in the vista of the ward, as if seen in the small end of a telescope. I confessed myself fairly routed, and without more ado, stepping out through one of the long windows, escaped into the outside gallery. The howl pursued me like a vengeance. I turned into a deserted landing, and suddenly all became very still and quiet around me, and I descended the bare and shiny staircase in a silence that enabled me to compose my distracted thoughts. Down below I met one of the resident surgeons who was crossing the courtyard and stopped me. "Been to see your man, Captain? I think we may let him go to-morrow. These fools have no notion of taking care of themselves, though. I say, we've got the chief engineer of that pilgrim ship here. A curious case. D.T.'s of the worst kind. He has been drinking hard in that Greek's or Italian's grog-shop for three days. What can you expect? Four bottles of that kind of brandy a day, I am told. Wonderful, if true. Sheeted with boiler-iron inside I should think. The head, ah! the head, of course, gone, but the curious part is there's some sort of method in his raving. I am trying to find out. Most unusual--that thread of logic in such a delirium. Traditionally he ought to see snakes, but he doesn't. Good old tradition's at a discount nowadays. Eh! His--er--visions are batrachian. Ha! ha! No, seriously, I never remember being so interested in a case of jim-jams before. He ought to be dead, don't you know, after such a festive experiment. Oh! he is a tough object. Four-and-twenty years of the tropics too. You ought really to take a peep at him. Noble-looking old boozer. Most extraordinary man I ever met--medically, of course. Won't you?" 'I have been all along exhibiting the usual polite signs of interest, but now assuming an air of regret I murmured of want of time, and shook hands in a hurry. "I say," he cried after me; "he can't attend that inquiry. Is his evidence material, you think?" '"Not in the least," I called back from the gateway.'

Chapter 5

https://web.archive.org/web/20210118112654/https://www.shmoop.com/study-guides/literature/lord-jim/summary/chapter-5

Meet Marlow, who is chilling on a verandah after dinner. He starts telling a story to a motley crew of nameless dudes. You might as well get comfortable, Shmoopers, because Marlow plans on talking for a while. This story is a long one. Apparently the Patna affair has become notorious, and Marlow will be the one to fill us in on everything that happens. He begins his tale at the moment he learned about the Patna. Here's the scene: Reports have started trickling in of the onboard shenanigans, and then Marlow sees the Patna crew members arrive at the port and report to the harbor office. The harbor-master, a man named Captain Elliot, chews out the Patna captain. Marlow, however, is busy fixating on Jim, noting how different he looks from the other crew members. Meanwhile, the captain of the Patna hops into a rickshaw and disappears. He's on the lam. Too bad Tommy Lee Jones is nowhere to be found. In any case, Cap'n is off the hook for now, the lucky duck. The second engineer has a broken arm and goes to the hospital, and the chief engineer goes on a drinking bender and winds up in the same hospital. Nice one. When he goes to the hospital to visit a friend, Marlow winds up trying to talk to the chief engineer, who is having a seriously tough time detoxing from all the alcohol he has drunk. He rants and raves at Marlow, saying that the Patna was full of "reptiles." This guy's a regular peach. A freaked out Marlow flees the scene.

shmoop

all_chapterized_books/107-chapters/47.txt

finished_summaries/shmoop/Far From the Madding Crowd/section_46_part_0.txt

Far From the Madding Crowd.chapter 47

chapter 47

{"name": "Chapter 47", "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20201219162644/https://www.shmoop.com/study-guides/literature/far-from-the-madding-crowd/summary/chapter-47", "summary": "Now we're back to following Troy, who isn't walking to Budmouth at all, but rather going south toward the ocean's shore. While walking along the shore, he decides to refresh himself with a swim, and strips off his clothing. Once inside the water, Troy decides he wants to feel a bit more of an ocean swell, so he swims out of the cove he's in a quickly gets caught in a riptide. He soon realizes that his chances of getting back to land aren't all that great. Luckily for him, though, he's picked up by a group of sailors who are rowing out to a nearby ship. They tell him that, because they picked him up, they're now behind schedule. So he decides to get away from his problems by joining them and offering to work off his debt. He returns to the shore for his clothes, but finds them gone. So he goes back with the sailors in borrowed clothes and sets sail for new adventures. He's not all that concerned about people back in Weatherbury worrying after him.", "analysis": ""}

ADVENTURES BY THE SHORE Troy wandered along towards the south. A composite feeling, made up of disgust with the, to him, humdrum tediousness of a farmer's life, gloomy images of her who lay in the churchyard, remorse, and a general averseness to his wife's society, impelled him to seek a home in any place on earth save Weatherbury. The sad accessories of Fanny's end confronted him as vivid pictures which threatened to be indelible, and made life in Bathsheba's house intolerable. At three in the afternoon he found himself at the foot of a slope more than a mile in length, which ran to the ridge of a range of hills lying parallel with the shore, and forming a monotonous barrier between the basin of cultivated country inland and the wilder scenery of the coast. Up the hill stretched a road nearly straight and perfectly white, the two sides approaching each other in a gradual taper till they met the sky at the top about two miles off. Throughout the length of this narrow and irksome inclined plane not a sign of life was visible on this garish afternoon. Troy toiled up the road with a languor and depression greater than any he had experienced for many a day and year before. The air was warm and muggy, and the top seemed to recede as he approached. At last he reached the summit, and a wide and novel prospect burst upon him with an effect almost like that of the Pacific upon Balboa's gaze. The broad steely sea, marked only by faint lines, which had a semblance of being etched thereon to a degree not deep enough to disturb its general evenness, stretched the whole width of his front and round to the right, where, near the town and port of Budmouth, the sun bristled down upon it, and banished all colour, to substitute in its place a clear oily polish. Nothing moved in sky, land, or sea, except a frill of milkwhite foam along the nearer angles of the shore, shreds of which licked the contiguous stones like tongues. He descended and came to a small basin of sea enclosed by the cliffs. Troy's nature freshened within him; he thought he would rest and bathe here before going farther. He undressed and plunged in. Inside the cove the water was uninteresting to a swimmer, being smooth as a pond, and to get a little of the ocean swell, Troy presently swam between the two projecting spurs of rock which formed the pillars of Hercules to this miniature Mediterranean. Unfortunately for Troy a current unknown to him existed outside, which, unimportant to craft of any burden, was awkward for a swimmer who might be taken in it unawares. Troy found himself carried to the left and then round in a swoop out to sea. He now recollected the place and its sinister character. Many bathers had there prayed for a dry death from time to time, and, like Gonzalo also, had been unanswered; and Troy began to deem it possible that he might be added to their number. Not a boat of any kind was at present within sight, but far in the distance Budmouth lay upon the sea, as it were quietly regarding his efforts, and beside the town the harbour showed its position by a dim meshwork of ropes and spars. After well-nigh exhausting himself in attempts to get back to the mouth of the cove, in his weakness swimming several inches deeper than was his wont, keeping up his breathing entirely by his nostrils, turning upon his back a dozen times over, swimming _en papillon_, and so on, Troy resolved as a last resource to tread water at a slight incline, and so endeavour to reach the shore at any point, merely giving himself a gentle impetus inwards whilst carried on in the general direction of the tide. This, necessarily a slow process, he found to be not altogether so difficult, and though there was no choice of a landing-place--the objects on shore passing by him in a sad and slow procession--he perceptibly approached the extremity of a spit of land yet further to the right, now well defined against the sunny portion of the horizon. While the swimmer's eyes were fixed upon the spit as his only means of salvation on this side of the Unknown, a moving object broke the outline of the extremity, and immediately a ship's boat appeared manned with several sailor lads, her bows towards the sea. All Troy's vigour spasmodically revived to prolong the struggle yet a little further. Swimming with his right arm, he held up his left to hail them, splashing upon the waves, and shouting with all his might. From the position of the setting sun his white form was distinctly visible upon the now deep-hued bosom of the sea to the east of the boat, and the men saw him at once. Backing their oars and putting the boat about, they pulled towards him with a will, and in five or six minutes from the time of his first halloo, two of the sailors hauled him in over the stern. They formed part of a brig's crew, and had come ashore for sand. Lending him what little clothing they could spare among them as a slight protection against the rapidly cooling air, they agreed to land him in the morning; and without further delay, for it was growing late, they made again towards the roadstead where their vessel lay. And now night drooped slowly upon the wide watery levels in front; and at no great distance from them, where the shoreline curved round, and formed a long riband of shade upon the horizon, a series of points of yellow light began to start into existence, denoting the spot to be the site of Budmouth, where the lamps were being lighted along the parade. The cluck of their oars was the only sound of any distinctness upon the sea, and as they laboured amid the thickening shades the lamp-lights grew larger, each appearing to send a flaming sword deep down into the waves before it, until there arose, among other dim shapes of the kind, the form of the vessel for which they were bound.

Chapter 47

https://web.archive.org/web/20201219162644/https://www.shmoop.com/study-guides/literature/far-from-the-madding-crowd/summary/chapter-47

Now we're back to following Troy, who isn't walking to Budmouth at all, but rather going south toward the ocean's shore. While walking along the shore, he decides to refresh himself with a swim, and strips off his clothing. Once inside the water, Troy decides he wants to feel a bit more of an ocean swell, so he swims out of the cove he's in a quickly gets caught in a riptide. He soon realizes that his chances of getting back to land aren't all that great. Luckily for him, though, he's picked up by a group of sailors who are rowing out to a nearby ship. They tell him that, because they picked him up, they're now behind schedule. So he decides to get away from his problems by joining them and offering to work off his debt. He returns to the shore for his clothes, but finds them gone. So he goes back with the sailors in borrowed clothes and sets sail for new adventures. He's not all that concerned about people back in Weatherbury worrying after him.

shmoop

all_chapterized_books/1130-chapters/5.txt

finished_summaries/shmoop/The Tragedy of Antony and Cleopatra/section_4_part_0.txt

The Tragedy of Antony and Cleopatra.act i.scene v

act i, scene v

{"name": "Act I, Scene v", "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20210116191009/https://www.shmoop.com/study-guides/literature/antony-cleopatra/summary/act-i-scene-v", "summary": "We're back with Cleopatra in Alexandria. She's verbally toying with Mardian, her eunuch , about whether he can feel anything for women, alluding to her self, obviously. She then returns to sighing over Antony, and laments that when she was Julius Caesar's mistress, she was \"a morsel fit for a monarch.\" Her other lover, one of the elder Pompeys, was overcome by her looks alone. She worries she's past her prime. Just then, Alexas, another of her servants, enters with a pearl. It's a gift from Antony, who made a big deal about the thing before giving it to Alexas to take to the Queen. Antony promises Cleopatra will soon be called mistress of the East, because of the kingdoms he'll win for her. Cleopatra asks Alexas how Antony looked, and is glad to hear he wasn't really sad or really happy. She praises his moderation: seeming sad would make his followers sad, while seeming merry would make it seem like he took his job in Rome lightly. She's so pleased that she demands twenty messengers immediately, so she can write a ton of love letters to Antony. She claims she never loved Julius Caesar this way, but Charmian points out she has a habit of being in and out of love. Cleopatra dismisses her sighs over Caesar as youthful folly, and goes back to penning her affections for Antony.", "analysis": ""}

SCENE V. Alexandria. CLEOPATRA'S palace Enter CLEOPATRA, CHARMIAN, IRAS, and MARDIAN CLEOPATRA. Charmian! CHARMIAN. Madam? CLEOPATRA. Ha, ha! Give me to drink mandragora. CHARMIAN. Why, madam? CLEOPATRA. That I might sleep out this great gap of time My Antony is away. CHARMIAN. You think of him too much. CLEOPATRA. O, 'tis treason! CHARMIAN. Madam, I trust, not so. CLEOPATRA. Thou, eunuch Mardian! MARDIAN. What's your Highness' pleasure? CLEOPATRA. Not now to hear thee sing; I take no pleasure In aught an eunuch has. 'Tis well for thee That, being unseminar'd, thy freer thoughts May not fly forth of Egypt. Hast thou affections? MARDIAN. Yes, gracious madam. CLEOPATRA. Indeed? MARDIAN. Not in deed, madam; for I can do nothing But what indeed is honest to be done. Yet have I fierce affections, and think What Venus did with Mars. CLEOPATRA. O Charmian, Where think'st thou he is now? Stands he or sits he? Or does he walk? or is he on his horse? O happy horse, to bear the weight of Antony! Do bravely, horse; for wot'st thou whom thou mov'st? The demi-Atlas of this earth, the arm And burgonet of men. He's speaking now, Or murmuring 'Where's my serpent of old Nile?' For so he calls me. Now I feed myself With most delicious poison. Think on me, That am with Phoebus' amorous pinches black, And wrinkled deep in time? Broad-fronted Caesar, When thou wast here above the ground, I was A morsel for a monarch; and great Pompey Would stand and make his eyes grow in my brow; There would he anchor his aspect and die With looking on his life. Enter ALEXAS ALEXAS. Sovereign of Egypt, hail! CLEOPATRA. How much unlike art thou Mark Antony! Yet, coming from him, that great med'cine hath With his tinct gilded thee. How goes it with my brave Mark Antony? ALEXAS. Last thing he did, dear Queen, He kiss'd- the last of many doubled kisses- This orient pearl. His speech sticks in my heart. CLEOPATRA. Mine ear must pluck it thence. ALEXAS. 'Good friend,' quoth he 'Say the firm Roman to great Egypt sends This treasure of an oyster; at whose foot, To mend the petty present, I will piece Her opulent throne with kingdoms. All the East, Say thou, shall call her mistress.' So he nodded, And soberly did mount an arm-gaunt steed, Who neigh'd so high that what I would have spoke Was beastly dumb'd by him. CLEOPATRA. What, was he sad or merry? ALEXAS. Like to the time o' th' year between the extremes Of hot and cold; he was nor sad nor merry. CLEOPATRA. O well-divided disposition! Note him, Note him, good Charmian; 'tis the man; but note him! He was not sad, for he would shine on those That make their looks by his; he was not merry, Which seem'd to tell them his remembrance lay In Egypt with his joy; but between both. O heavenly mingle! Be'st thou sad or merry, The violence of either thee becomes, So does it no man else. Met'st thou my posts? ALEXAS. Ay, madam, twenty several messengers. Why do you send so thick? CLEOPATRA. Who's born that day When I forget to send to Antony Shall die a beggar. Ink and paper, Charmian. Welcome, my good Alexas. Did I, Charmian, Ever love Caesar so? CHARMIAN. O that brave Caesar! CLEOPATRA. Be chok'd with such another emphasis! Say 'the brave Antony.' CHARMIAN. The valiant Caesar! CLEOPATRA. By Isis, I will give thee bloody teeth If thou with Caesar paragon again My man of men. CHARMIAN. By your most gracious pardon, I sing but after you. CLEOPATRA. My salad days, When I was green in judgment, cold in blood, To say as I said then. But come, away! Get me ink and paper. He shall have every day a several greeting, Or I'll unpeople Egypt. Exeunt

Act I, Scene v

https://web.archive.org/web/20210116191009/https://www.shmoop.com/study-guides/literature/antony-cleopatra/summary/act-i-scene-v

We're back with Cleopatra in Alexandria. She's verbally toying with Mardian, her eunuch , about whether he can feel anything for women, alluding to her self, obviously. She then returns to sighing over Antony, and laments that when she was Julius Caesar's mistress, she was "a morsel fit for a monarch." Her other lover, one of the elder Pompeys, was overcome by her looks alone. She worries she's past her prime. Just then, Alexas, another of her servants, enters with a pearl. It's a gift from Antony, who made a big deal about the thing before giving it to Alexas to take to the Queen. Antony promises Cleopatra will soon be called mistress of the East, because of the kingdoms he'll win for her. Cleopatra asks Alexas how Antony looked, and is glad to hear he wasn't really sad or really happy. She praises his moderation: seeming sad would make his followers sad, while seeming merry would make it seem like he took his job in Rome lightly. She's so pleased that she demands twenty messengers immediately, so she can write a ton of love letters to Antony. She claims she never loved Julius Caesar this way, but Charmian points out she has a habit of being in and out of love. Cleopatra dismisses her sighs over Caesar as youthful folly, and goes back to penning her affections for Antony.

cliffnotes

all_chapterized_books/107-chapters/26.txt

finished_summaries/cliffnotes/Far from the Madding Crowd/section_25_part_0.txt

Far from the Madding Crowd.chapter 26

chapter 26

{"name": "Chapter 26", "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20201101052914/https://www.cliffsnotes.com/literature/f/far-from-the-madding-crowd/summary-and-analysis/chapter-26", "summary": "Troy's first remark was an apology to Bathsheba for his brashness in their first encounter. He had inquired about her identity, he said, and should have known her to be the \"Queen of the Corn-Market,\" as someone had characterized her. He explained his presence now by saying he had always helped in the fields in her uncle's day. \"I suppose I must thank you for that, Sergeant Troy,\" said Bathsheba indifferently. At Troy's hurt look, she explained that she did not wish to be obligated to him for anything. Undaunted, Troy continued his extravagant praises of Bathsheba's beauty until she admitted her confusion, seeing no basis for his flattery and at first denying that she merited it. But then she began to weaken. \"Capitulation -- that was the purport of simple reply, guarded as it was -- capitulation, unknown to herself. Never did a fragile tailless sentence convey a more perfect meaning. The careless sergeant smiled within himself, and probably too the devil smiled from a loop-hole in Tophet, for the moment was the turning-point of a career. Her tone and mien signified beyond mistake that the seed which was to lift the foundation had taken root in the chink: the remainder was a mere question of time and natural changes.\" Sergeant Troy regretted that he could stay only a month, insisting that he had loved Bathsheba the instant he saw her. Disclaiming the possibility of such sudden feeling, she asked the time. Since she had no watch, Troy impulsively sought to bestow his own upon her. It bore the crest and motto of the earls of Severn and had been left to Troy by his natural father. Bewilderment and agitation lent Bathsheba's features an animation and beauty, which moved Troy to see the truth in phrases he had used in jest. Suddenly he blurted out: \"I did not mean you to accept it at first, for it was my one poor patent of nobility . . . but . . . I wish you would now.\" Bathsheba again refused the watch, but Troy did exact her promise that he might continue to work in her fields. In complete consternation, \"she retreated homeward, murmuring, 'O, what have I done! What does it mean! I wish I knew how much of it was true!'\"", "analysis": "This is an excellent study of the glib and suave soldier, proud of his presence, his uniform, and the adventurous elements in his background. Though Troy begins his pursuit of Bathsheba lightheartedly, she is completely taken in by him, revealing herself to be rather gullible and guileless in her confused responses. No doubt her own vanity helps to convince her that he is sincere. Troy, however, seems to have fallen into his own trap, now meaning in earnest what he had said in jest."}

SCENE ON THE VERGE OF THE HAY-MEAD "Ah, Miss Everdene!" said the sergeant, touching his diminutive cap. "Little did I think it was you I was speaking to the other night. And yet, if I had reflected, the 'Queen of the Corn-market' (truth is truth at any hour of the day or night, and I heard you so named in Casterbridge yesterday), the 'Queen of the Corn-market.' I say, could be no other woman. I step across now to beg your forgiveness a thousand times for having been led by my feelings to express myself too strongly for a stranger. To be sure I am no stranger to the place--I am Sergeant Troy, as I told you, and I have assisted your uncle in these fields no end of times when I was a lad. I have been doing the same for you to-day." "I suppose I must thank you for that, Sergeant Troy," said the Queen of the Corn-market, in an indifferently grateful tone. The sergeant looked hurt and sad. "Indeed you must not, Miss Everdene," he said. "Why could you think such a thing necessary?" "I am glad it is not." "Why? if I may ask without offence." "Because I don't much want to thank you for anything." "I am afraid I have made a hole with my tongue that my heart will never mend. O these intolerable times: that ill-luck should follow a man for honestly telling a woman she is beautiful! 'Twas the most I said--you must own that; and the least I could say--that I own myself." "There is some talk I could do without more easily than money." "Indeed. That remark is a sort of digression." "No. It means that I would rather have your room than your company." "And I would rather have curses from you than kisses from any other woman; so I'll stay here." Bathsheba was absolutely speechless. And yet she could not help feeling that the assistance he was rendering forbade a harsh repulse. "Well," continued Troy, "I suppose there is a praise which is rudeness, and that may be mine. At the same time there is a treatment which is injustice, and that may be yours. Because a plain blunt man, who has never been taught concealment, speaks out his mind without exactly intending it, he's to be snapped off like the son of a sinner." "Indeed there's no such case between us," she said, turning away. "I don't allow strangers to be bold and impudent--even in praise of me." "Ah--it is not the fact but the method which offends you," he said, carelessly. "But I have the sad satisfaction of knowing that my words, whether pleasing or offensive, are unmistakably true. Would you have had me look at you, and tell my acquaintance that you are quite a common-place woman, to save you the embarrassment of being stared at if they come near you? Not I. I couldn't tell any such ridiculous lie about a beauty to encourage a single woman in England in too excessive a modesty." "It is all pretence--what you are saying!" exclaimed Bathsheba, laughing in spite of herself at the sly method. "You have a rare invention, Sergeant Troy. Why couldn't you have passed by me that night, and said nothing?--that was all I meant to reproach you for." "Because I wasn't going to. Half the pleasure of a feeling lies in being able to express it on the spur of the moment, and I let out mine. It would have been just the same if you had been the reverse person--ugly and old--I should have exclaimed about it in the same way." "How long is it since you have been so afflicted with strong feeling, then?" "Oh, ever since I was big enough to know loveliness from deformity." "'Tis to be hoped your sense of the difference you speak of doesn't stop at faces, but extends to morals as well." "I won't speak of morals or religion--my own or anybody else's. Though perhaps I should have been a very good Christian if you pretty women hadn't made me an idolater." Bathsheba moved on to hide the irrepressible dimplings of merriment. Troy followed, whirling his crop. "But--Miss Everdene--you do forgive me?" "Hardly." "Why?" "You say such things." "I said you were beautiful, and I'll say so still; for, by G---- so you are! The most beautiful ever I saw, or may I fall dead this instant! Why, upon my ----" "Don't--don't! I won't listen to you--you are so profane!" she said, in a restless state between distress at hearing him and a _penchant_ to hear more. "I again say you are a most fascinating woman. There's nothing remarkable in my saying so, is there? I'm sure the fact is evident enough. Miss Everdene, my opinion may be too forcibly let out to please you, and, for the matter of that, too insignificant to convince you, but surely it is honest, and why can't it be excused?" "Because it--it isn't a correct one," she femininely murmured. "Oh, fie--fie! Am I any worse for breaking the third of that Terrible Ten than you for breaking the ninth?" "Well, it doesn't seem QUITE true to me that I am fascinating," she replied evasively. "Not so to you: then I say with all respect that, if so, it is owing to your modesty, Miss Everdene. But surely you must have been told by everybody of what everybody notices? And you should take their words for it." "They don't say so exactly." "Oh yes, they must!" "Well, I mean to my face, as you do," she went on, allowing herself to be further lured into a conversation that intention had rigorously forbidden. "But you know they think so?" "No--that is--I certainly have heard Liddy say they do, but--" She paused. Capitulation--that was the purport of the simple reply, guarded as it was--capitulation, unknown to herself. Never did a fragile tailless sentence convey a more perfect meaning. The careless sergeant smiled within himself, and probably too the devil smiled from a loop-hole in Tophet, for the moment was the turning-point of a career. Her tone and mien signified beyond mistake that the seed which was to lift the foundation had taken root in the chink: the remainder was a mere question of time and natural changes. "There the truth comes out!" said the soldier, in reply. "Never tell me that a young lady can live in a buzz of admiration without knowing something about it. Ah, well, Miss Everdene, you are--pardon my blunt way--you are rather an injury to our race than otherwise." "How--indeed?" she said, opening her eyes. "Oh, it is true enough. I may as well be hung for a sheep as a lamb (an old country saying, not of much account, but it will do for a rough soldier), and so I will speak my mind, regardless of your pleasure, and without hoping or intending to get your pardon. Why, Miss Everdene, it is in this manner that your good looks may do more harm than good in the world." The sergeant looked down the mead in critical abstraction. "Probably some one man on an average falls in love with each ordinary woman. She can marry him: he is content, and leads a useful life. Such women as you a hundred men always covet--your eyes will bewitch scores on scores into an unavailing fancy for you--you can only marry one of that many. Out of these say twenty will endeavour to drown the bitterness of despised love in drink; twenty more will mope away their lives without a wish or attempt to make a mark in he world, because they have no ambition apart from their attachment to you; twenty more--the susceptible person myself possibly among them--will be always draggling after you, getting where they may just see you, doing desperate things. Men are such constant fools! The rest may try to get over their passion with more or less success. But all these men will be saddened. And not only those ninety-nine men, but the ninety-nine women they might have married are saddened with them. There's my tale. That's why I say that a woman so charming as yourself, Miss Everdene, is hardly a blessing to her race." The handsome sergeant's features were during this speech as rigid and stern as John Knox's in addressing his gay young queen. Seeing she made no reply, he said, "Do you read French?" "No; I began, but when I got to the verbs, father died," she said simply. "I do--when I have an opportunity, which latterly has not been often (my mother was a Parisienne)--and there's a proverb they have, _Qui aime bien, chatie bien_--'He chastens who loves well.' Do you understand me?" "Ah!" she replied, and there was even a little tremulousness in the usually cool girl's voice; "if you can only fight half as winningly as you can talk, you are able to make a pleasure of a bayonet wound!" And then poor Bathsheba instantly perceived her slip in making this admission: in hastily trying to retrieve it, she went from bad to worse. "Don't, however, suppose that _I_ derive any pleasure from what you tell me." "I know you do not--I know it perfectly," said Troy, with much hearty conviction on the exterior of his face: and altering the expression to moodiness; "when a dozen men are ready to speak tenderly to you, and give the admiration you deserve without adding the warning you need, it stands to reason that my poor rough-and-ready mixture of praise and blame cannot convey much pleasure. Fool as I may be, I am not so conceited as to suppose that!" "I think you--are conceited, nevertheless," said Bathsheba, looking askance at a reed she was fitfully pulling with one hand, having lately grown feverish under the soldier's system of procedure--not because the nature of his cajolery was entirely unperceived, but because its vigour was overwhelming. "I would not own it to anybody else--nor do I exactly to you. Still, there might have been some self-conceit in my foolish supposition the other night. I knew that what I said in admiration might be an opinion too often forced upon you to give any pleasure, but I certainly did think that the kindness of your nature might prevent you judging an uncontrolled tongue harshly--which you have done--and thinking badly of me and wounding me this morning, when I am working hard to save your hay." "Well, you need not think more of that: perhaps you did not mean to be rude to me by speaking out your mind: indeed, I believe you did not," said the shrewd woman, in painfully innocent earnest. "And I thank you for giving help here. But--but mind you don't speak to me again in that way, or in any other, unless I speak to you." "Oh, Miss Bathsheba! That is too hard!" "No, it isn't. Why is it?" "You will never speak to me; for I shall not be here long. I am soon going back again to the miserable monotony of drill--and perhaps our regiment will be ordered out soon. And yet you take away the one little ewe-lamb of pleasure that I have in this dull life of mine. Well, perhaps generosity is not a woman's most marked characteristic." "When are you going from here?" she asked, with some interest. "In a month." "But how can it give you pleasure to speak to me?" "Can you ask Miss Everdene--knowing as you do--what my offence is based on?" "If you do care so much for a silly trifle of that kind, then, I don't mind doing it," she uncertainly and doubtingly answered. "But you can't really care for a word from me? you only say so--I think you only say so." "That's unjust--but I won't repeat the remark. I am too gratified to get such a mark of your friendship at any price to cavil at the tone. I DO, Miss Everdene, care for it. You may think a man foolish to want a mere word--just a good morning. Perhaps he is--I don't know. But you have never been a man looking upon a woman, and that woman yourself." "Well." "Then you know nothing of what such an experience is like--and Heaven forbid that you ever should!" "Nonsense, flatterer! What is it like? I am interested in knowing." "Put shortly, it is not being able to think, hear, or look in any direction except one without wretchedness, nor there without torture." "Ah, sergeant, it won't do--you are pretending!" she said, shaking her head. "Your words are too dashing to be true." "I am not, upon the honour of a soldier." "But WHY is it so?--Of course I ask for mere pastime." "Because you are so distracting--and I am so distracted." "You look like it." "I am indeed." "Why, you only saw me the other night!" "That makes no difference. The lightning works instantaneously. I loved you then, at once--as I do now." Bathsheba surveyed him curiously, from the feet upward, as high as she liked to venture her glance, which was not quite so high as his eyes. "You cannot and you don't," she said demurely. "There is no such sudden feeling in people. I won't listen to you any longer. Hear me, I wish I knew what o'clock it is--I am going--I have wasted too much time here already!" The sergeant looked at his watch and told her. "What, haven't you a watch, miss?" he inquired. "I have not just at present--I am about to get a new one." "No. You shall be given one. Yes--you shall. A gift, Miss Everdene--a gift." And before she knew what the young man was intending, a heavy gold watch was in her hand. "It is an unusually good one for a man like me to possess," he quietly said. "That watch has a history. Press the spring and open the back." She did so. "What do you see?" "A crest and a motto." "A coronet with five points, and beneath, _Cedit amor rebus_--'Love yields to circumstance.' It's the motto of the Earls of Severn. That watch belonged to the last lord, and was given to my mother's husband, a medical man, for his use till I came of age, when it was to be given to me. It was all the fortune that ever I inherited. That watch has regulated imperial interests in its time--the stately ceremonial, the courtly assignation, pompous travels, and lordly sleeps. Now it is yours." "But, Sergeant Troy, I cannot take this--I cannot!" she exclaimed, with round-eyed wonder. "A gold watch! What are you doing? Don't be such a dissembler!" The sergeant retreated to avoid receiving back his gift, which she held out persistently towards him. Bathsheba followed as he retired. "Keep it--do, Miss Everdene--keep it!" said the erratic child of impulse. "The fact of your possessing it makes it worth ten times as much to me. A more plebeian one will answer my purpose just as well, and the pleasure of knowing whose heart my old one beats against--well, I won't speak of that. It is in far worthier hands than ever it has been in before." "But indeed I can't have it!" she said, in a perfect simmer of distress. "Oh, how can you do such a thing; that is if you really mean it! Give me your dead father's watch, and such a valuable one! You should not be so reckless, indeed, Sergeant Troy!" "I loved my father: good; but better, I love you more. That's how I can do it," said the sergeant, with an intonation of such exquisite fidelity to nature that it was evidently not all acted now. Her beauty, which, whilst it had been quiescent, he had praised in jest, had in its animated phases moved him to earnest; and though his seriousness was less than she imagined, it was probably more than he imagined himself. Bathsheba was brimming with agitated bewilderment, and she said, in half-suspicious accents of feeling, "Can it be! Oh, how can it be, that you care for me, and so suddenly! You have seen so little of me: I may not be really so--so nice-looking as I seem to you. Please, do take it; Oh, do! I cannot and will not have it. Believe me, your generosity is too great. I have never done you a single kindness, and why should you be so kind to me?" A factitious reply had been again upon his lips, but it was again suspended, and he looked at her with an arrested eye. The truth was, that as she now stood--excited, wild, and honest as the day--her alluring beauty bore out so fully the epithets he had bestowed upon it that he was quite startled at his temerity in advancing them as false. He said mechanically, "Ah, why?" and continued to look at her. "And my workfolk see me following you about the field, and are wondering. Oh, this is dreadful!" she went on, unconscious of the transmutation she was effecting. "I did not quite mean you to accept it at first, for it was my one poor patent of nobility," he broke out, bluntly; "but, upon my soul, I wish you would now. Without any shamming, come! Don't deny me the happiness of wearing it for my sake? But you are too lovely even to care to be kind as others are." "No, no; don't say so! I have reasons for reserve which I cannot explain." "Let it be, then, let it be," he said, receiving back the watch at last; "I must be leaving you now. And will you speak to me for these few weeks of my stay?" "Indeed I will. Yet, I don't know if I will! Oh, why did you come and disturb me so!" "Perhaps in setting a gin, I have caught myself. Such things have happened. Well, will you let me work in your fields?" he coaxed. "Yes, I suppose so; if it is any pleasure to you." "Miss Everdene, I thank you." "No, no." "Good-bye!" The sergeant brought his hand to the cap on the slope of his head, saluted, and returned to the distant group of haymakers. Bathsheba could not face the haymakers now. Her heart erratically flitting hither and thither from perplexed excitement, hot, and almost tearful, she retreated homeward, murmuring, "Oh, what have I done! What does it mean! I wish I knew how much of it was true!"

Chapter 26

https://web.archive.org/web/20201101052914/https://www.cliffsnotes.com/literature/f/far-from-the-madding-crowd/summary-and-analysis/chapter-26

Troy's first remark was an apology to Bathsheba for his brashness in their first encounter. He had inquired about her identity, he said, and should have known her to be the "Queen of the Corn-Market," as someone had characterized her. He explained his presence now by saying he had always helped in the fields in her uncle's day. "I suppose I must thank you for that, Sergeant Troy," said Bathsheba indifferently. At Troy's hurt look, she explained that she did not wish to be obligated to him for anything. Undaunted, Troy continued his extravagant praises of Bathsheba's beauty until she admitted her confusion, seeing no basis for his flattery and at first denying that she merited it. But then she began to weaken. "Capitulation -- that was the purport of simple reply, guarded as it was -- capitulation, unknown to herself. Never did a fragile tailless sentence convey a more perfect meaning. The careless sergeant smiled within himself, and probably too the devil smiled from a loop-hole in Tophet, for the moment was the turning-point of a career. Her tone and mien signified beyond mistake that the seed which was to lift the foundation had taken root in the chink: the remainder was a mere question of time and natural changes." Sergeant Troy regretted that he could stay only a month, insisting that he had loved Bathsheba the instant he saw her. Disclaiming the possibility of such sudden feeling, she asked the time. Since she had no watch, Troy impulsively sought to bestow his own upon her. It bore the crest and motto of the earls of Severn and had been left to Troy by his natural father. Bewilderment and agitation lent Bathsheba's features an animation and beauty, which moved Troy to see the truth in phrases he had used in jest. Suddenly he blurted out: "I did not mean you to accept it at first, for it was my one poor patent of nobility . . . but . . . I wish you would now." Bathsheba again refused the watch, but Troy did exact her promise that he might continue to work in her fields. In complete consternation, "she retreated homeward, murmuring, 'O, what have I done! What does it mean! I wish I knew how much of it was true!'"

This is an excellent study of the glib and suave soldier, proud of his presence, his uniform, and the adventurous elements in his background. Though Troy begins his pursuit of Bathsheba lightheartedly, she is completely taken in by him, revealing herself to be rather gullible and guileless in her confused responses. No doubt her own vanity helps to convince her that he is sincere. Troy, however, seems to have fallen into his own trap, now meaning in earnest what he had said in jest.

shmoop

all_chapterized_books/161-chapters/38.txt

finished_summaries/shmoop/Sense and Sensibility/section_37_part_0.txt

Sense and Sensibility.chapter 38

chapter 38

{"name": "Chapter 38", "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20210421140324/https://www.shmoop.com/study-guides/literature/sense-and-sensibility/summary/chapter-38", "summary": "As we just mentioned, Mrs. Jennings, Elinor, and Marianne all think that Edward did the right thing in sticking by his fiancee, Lucy Steele. The two girls are both proud of his integrity, despite their own sadness. It's Elinor's turn for heartache, and Marianne's turn to be the strong sister. She tries her best to exert her power of will in helping out her sister. No word arrives from Lucy or Edward - what's going on? A beautiful day arrives, and Elinor and Mrs. Jennings go to enjoy the weather in Kensington Gardens . Elinor, left on her own after Mrs. Jennings finds a friend of hers, doesn't see anyone - not Edward, not the Willoughbys. She does, however, run into Miss Steele, and is encouraged by Mrs. Jennings to \"get it all out of her.\" Miss Steele wants to know first and foremost if anyone is angry at her. Apparently, Lucy pitched a fit when Miss Steele broke the news to Fanny. Now, though, she's gotten over it. Apparently, many people have been shocked, as John was, by the fact that Edward chose Lucy over Miss Morton and her thirty thousand pounds; however, after a few days, he came to visit them to clear up matters - everything seems like it's fine between the lovers, and they plan to be married. Miss Steele admits that she learned all of this by eavesdropping, and Elinor is embarrassed for her sake. Right now, Edward is in London for the time being, but plans to go to Oxford to do some business soon. The Richardsons, with whom the Steeles are staying now, come by, and Miss Steele rushes off to join them, after sending her regards to Marianne along with Elinor. Elinor tries to figure out what she should think: the facts is, Edward is definitely going to marry Lucy, whenever he gets a job as a curate somewhere. Mrs. Jennings tries to pry as much information as possible out of Elinor on their way back home, but she doesn't get much for her efforts. Mrs. Jennings has a rather pessimistic view of how poor Edward and Lucy will be, and wonders if she might be able to help them out. The next morning, Elinor receives a letter from Lucy, basically thanking her for her discretion and for all of her guidance. It's a gloat-ful letter, assuring Elinor of how happy she and Edward are, despite their troubles. She also wants Elinor to pass her regards on to everyone else. Elinor passes the letter on to Mrs. Jennings, as Lucy apparently intended her to. Mrs. Jennings reads it happily, praising Lucy left and right.", "analysis": ""}

Mrs. Jennings was very warm in her praise of Edward's conduct, but only Elinor and Marianne understood its true merit. THEY only knew how little he had had to tempt him to be disobedient, and how small was the consolation, beyond the consciousness of doing right, that could remain to him in the loss of friends and fortune. Elinor gloried in his integrity; and Marianne forgave all his offences in compassion for his punishment. But though confidence between them was, by this public discovery, restored to its proper state, it was not a subject on which either of them were fond of dwelling when alone. Elinor avoided it upon principle, as tending to fix still more upon her thoughts, by the too warm, too positive assurances of Marianne, that belief of Edward's continued affection for herself which she rather wished to do away; and Marianne's courage soon failed her, in trying to converse upon a topic which always left her more dissatisfied with herself than ever, by the comparison it necessarily produced between Elinor's conduct and her own. She felt all the force of that comparison; but not as her sister had hoped, to urge her to exertion now; she felt it with all the pain of continual self-reproach, regretted most bitterly that she had never exerted herself before; but it brought only the torture of penitence, without the hope of amendment. Her mind was so much weakened that she still fancied present exertion impossible, and therefore it only dispirited her more. Nothing new was heard by them, for a day or two afterwards, of affairs in Harley Street, or Bartlett's Buildings. But though so much of the matter was known to them already, that Mrs. Jennings might have had enough to do in spreading that knowledge farther, without seeking after more, she had resolved from the first to pay a visit of comfort and inquiry to her cousins as soon as she could; and nothing but the hindrance of more visitors than usual, had prevented her going to them within that time. The third day succeeding their knowledge of the particulars, was so fine, so beautiful a Sunday as to draw many to Kensington Gardens, though it was only the second week in March. Mrs. Jennings and Elinor were of the number; but Marianne, who knew that the Willoughbys were again in town, and had a constant dread of meeting them, chose rather to stay at home, than venture into so public a place. An intimate acquaintance of Mrs. Jennings joined them soon after they entered the Gardens, and Elinor was not sorry that by her continuing with them, and engaging all Mrs. Jennings's conversation, she was herself left to quiet reflection. She saw nothing of the Willoughbys, nothing of Edward, and for some time nothing of anybody who could by any chance whether grave or gay, be interesting to her. But at last she found herself with some surprise, accosted by Miss Steele, who, though looking rather shy, expressed great satisfaction in meeting them, and on receiving encouragement from the particular kindness of Mrs. Jennings, left her own party for a short time, to join their's. Mrs. Jennings immediately whispered to Elinor, "Get it all out of her, my dear. She will tell you any thing if you ask. You see I cannot leave Mrs. Clarke." It was lucky, however, for Mrs. Jennings's curiosity and Elinor's too, that she would tell any thing WITHOUT being asked; for nothing would otherwise have been learnt. "I am so glad to meet you;" said Miss Steele, taking her familiarly by the arm--"for I wanted to see you of all things in the world." And then lowering her voice, "I suppose Mrs. Jennings has heard all about it. Is she angry?" "Not at all, I believe, with you." "That is a good thing. And Lady Middleton, is SHE angry?" "I cannot suppose it possible that she should be." "I am monstrous glad of it. Good gracious! I have had such a time of it! I never saw Lucy in such a rage in my life. She vowed at first she would never trim me up a new bonnet, nor do any thing else for me again, so long as she lived; but now she is quite come to, and we are as good friends as ever. Look, she made me this bow to my hat, and put in the feather last night. There now, YOU are going to laugh at me too. But why should not I wear pink ribbons? I do not care if it IS the Doctor's favourite colour. I am sure, for my part, I should never have known he DID like it better than any other colour, if he had not happened to say so. My cousins have been so plaguing me! I declare sometimes I do not know which way to look before them." She had wandered away to a subject on which Elinor had nothing to say, and therefore soon judged it expedient to find her way back again to the first. "Well, but Miss Dashwood," speaking triumphantly, "people may say what they chuse about Mr. Ferrars's declaring he would not have Lucy, for it is no such thing I can tell you; and it is quite a shame for such ill-natured reports to be spread abroad. Whatever Lucy might think about it herself, you know, it was no business of other people to set it down for certain." "I never heard any thing of the kind hinted at before, I assure you," said Elinor. "Oh, did not you? But it WAS said, I know, very well, and by more than one; for Miss Godby told Miss Sparks, that nobody in their senses could expect Mr. Ferrars to give up a woman like Miss Morton, with thirty thousand pounds to her fortune, for Lucy Steele that had nothing at all; and I had it from Miss Sparks myself. And besides that, my cousin Richard said himself, that when it came to the point he was afraid Mr. Ferrars would be off; and when Edward did not come near us for three days, I could not tell what to think myself; and I believe in my heart Lucy gave it up all for lost; for we came away from your brother's Wednesday, and we saw nothing of him not all Thursday, Friday, and Saturday, and did not know what was become of him. Once Lucy thought to write to him, but then her spirits rose against that. However this morning he came just as we came home from church; and then it all came out, how he had been sent for Wednesday to Harley Street, and been talked to by his mother and all of them, and how he had declared before them all that he loved nobody but Lucy, and nobody but Lucy would he have. And how he had been so worried by what passed, that as soon as he had went away from his mother's house, he had got upon his horse, and rid into the country, some where or other; and how he had stayed about at an inn all Thursday and Friday, on purpose to get the better of it. And after thinking it all over and over again, he said, it seemed to him as if, now he had no fortune, and no nothing at all, it would be quite unkind to keep her on to the engagement, because it must be for her loss, for he had nothing but two thousand pounds, and no hope of any thing else; and if he was to go into orders, as he had some thoughts, he could get nothing but a curacy, and how was they to live upon that?--He could not bear to think of her doing no better, and so he begged, if she had the least mind for it, to put an end to the matter directly, and leave him shift for himself. I heard him say all this as plain as could possibly be. And it was entirely for HER sake, and upon HER account, that he said a word about being off, and not upon his own. I will take my oath he never dropt a syllable of being tired of her, or of wishing to marry Miss Morton, or any thing like it. But, to be sure, Lucy would not give ear to such kind of talking; so she told him directly (with a great deal about sweet and love, you know, and all that--Oh, la! one can't repeat such kind of things you know)--she told him directly, she had not the least mind in the world to be off, for she could live with him upon a trifle, and how little so ever he might have, she should be very glad to have it all, you know, or something of the kind. So then he was monstrous happy, and talked on some time about what they should do, and they agreed he should take orders directly, and they must wait to be married till he got a living. And just then I could not hear any more, for my cousin called from below to tell me Mrs. Richardson was come in her coach, and would take one of us to Kensington Gardens; so I was forced to go into the room and interrupt them, to ask Lucy if she would like to go, but she did not care to leave Edward; so I just run up stairs and put on a pair of silk stockings and came off with the Richardsons." "I do not understand what you mean by interrupting them," said Elinor; "you were all in the same room together, were not you?" "No, indeed, not us. La! Miss Dashwood, do you think people make love when any body else is by? Oh, for shame!--To be sure you must know better than that. (Laughing affectedly.)--No, no; they were shut up in the drawing-room together, and all I heard was only by listening at the door." "How!" cried Elinor; "have you been repeating to me what you only learnt yourself by listening at the door? I am sorry I did not know it before; for I certainly would not have suffered you to give me particulars of a conversation which you ought not to have known yourself. How could you behave so unfairly by your sister?" "Oh, la! there is nothing in THAT. I only stood at the door, and heard what I could. And I am sure Lucy would have done just the same by me; for a year or two back, when Martha Sharpe and I had so many secrets together, she never made any bones of hiding in a closet, or behind a chimney-board, on purpose to hear what we said." Elinor tried to talk of something else; but Miss Steele could not be kept beyond a couple of minutes, from what was uppermost in her mind. "Edward talks of going to Oxford soon," said she; "but now he is lodging at No. --, Pall Mall. What an ill-natured woman his mother is, an't she? And your brother and sister were not very kind! However, I shan't say anything against them to YOU; and to be sure they did send us home in their own chariot, which was more than I looked for. And for my part, I was all in a fright for fear your sister should ask us for the huswifes she had gave us a day or two before; but, however, nothing was said about them, and I took care to keep mine out of sight. Edward have got some business at Oxford, he says; so he must go there for a time; and after THAT, as soon as he can light upon a Bishop, he will be ordained. I wonder what curacy he will get!--Good gracious! (giggling as she spoke) I'd lay my life I know what my cousins will say, when they hear of it. They will tell me I should write to the Doctor, to get Edward the curacy of his new living. I know they will; but I am sure I would not do such a thing for all the world.-- 'La!' I shall say directly, 'I wonder how you could think of such a thing? I write to the Doctor, indeed!'" "Well," said Elinor, "it is a comfort to be prepared against the worst. You have got your answer ready." Miss Steele was going to reply on the same subject, but the approach of her own party made another more necessary. "Oh, la! here come the Richardsons. I had a vast deal more to say to you, but I must not stay away from them not any longer. I assure you they are very genteel people. He makes a monstrous deal of money, and they keep their own coach. I have not time to speak to Mrs. Jennings about it myself, but pray tell her I am quite happy to hear she is not in anger against us, and Lady Middleton the same; and if anything should happen to take you and your sister away, and Mrs. Jennings should want company, I am sure we should be very glad to come and stay with her for as long a time as she likes. I suppose Lady Middleton won't ask us any more this bout. Good-by; I am sorry Miss Marianne was not here. Remember me kindly to her. La! if you have not got your spotted muslin on!--I wonder you was not afraid of its being torn." Such was her parting concern; for after this, she had time only to pay her farewell compliments to Mrs. Jennings, before her company was claimed by Mrs. Richardson; and Elinor was left in possession of knowledge which might feed her powers of reflection some time, though she had learnt very little more than what had been already foreseen and foreplanned in her own mind. Edward's marriage with Lucy was as firmly determined on, and the time of its taking place remained as absolutely uncertain, as she had concluded it would be;--every thing depended, exactly after her expectation, on his getting that preferment, of which, at present, there seemed not the smallest chance. As soon as they returned to the carriage, Mrs. Jennings was eager for information; but as Elinor wished to spread as little as possible intelligence that had in the first place been so unfairly obtained, she confined herself to the brief repetition of such simple particulars, as she felt assured that Lucy, for the sake of her own consequence, would choose to have known. The continuance of their engagement, and the means that were able to be taken for promoting its end, was all her communication; and this produced from Mrs. Jennings the following natural remark. "Wait for his having a living!--ay, we all know how THAT will end:--they will wait a twelvemonth, and finding no good comes of it, will set down upon a curacy of fifty pounds a-year, with the interest of his two thousand pounds, and what little matter Mr. Steele and Mr. Pratt can give her.--Then they will have a child every year! and Lord help 'em! how poor they will be!--I must see what I can give them towards furnishing their house. Two maids and two men, indeed!--as I talked of t'other day.--No, no, they must get a stout girl of all works.-- Betty's sister would never do for them NOW." The next morning brought Elinor a letter by the two-penny post from Lucy herself. It was as follows: "Bartlett's Building, March. "I hope my dear Miss Dashwood will excuse the liberty I take of writing to her; but I know your friendship for me will make you pleased to hear such a good account of myself and my dear Edward, after all the troubles we have went through lately, therefore will make no more apologies, but proceed to say that, thank God! though we have suffered dreadfully, we are both quite well now, and as happy as we must always be in one another's love. We have had great trials, and great persecutions, but however, at the same time, gratefully acknowledge many friends, yourself not the least among them, whose great kindness I shall always thankfully remember, as will Edward too, who I have told of it. I am sure you will be glad to hear, as likewise dear Mrs. Jennings, I spent two happy hours with him yesterday afternoon, he would not hear of our parting, though earnestly did I, as I thought my duty required, urge him to it for prudence sake, and would have parted for ever on the spot, would he consent to it; but he said it should never be, he did not regard his mother's anger, while he could have my affections; our prospects are not very bright, to be sure, but we must wait, and hope for the best; he will be ordained shortly; and should it ever be in your power to recommend him to any body that has a living to bestow, am very sure you will not forget us, and dear Mrs. Jennings too, trust she will speak a good word for us to Sir John, or Mr. Palmer, or any friend that may be able to assist us.--Poor Anne was much to blame for what she did, but she did it for the best, so I say nothing; hope Mrs. Jennings won't think it too much trouble to give us a call, should she come this way any morning, 'twould be a great kindness, and my cousins would be proud to know her.--My paper reminds me to conclude; and begging to be most gratefully and respectfully remembered to her, and to Sir John, and Lady Middleton, and the dear children, when you chance to see them, and love to Miss Marianne, "I am, &c." As soon as Elinor had finished it, she performed what she concluded to be its writer's real design, by placing it in the hands of Mrs. Jennings, who read it aloud with many comments of satisfaction and praise. "Very well indeed!--how prettily she writes!--aye, that was quite proper to let him be off if he would. That was just like Lucy.--Poor soul! I wish I COULD get him a living, with all my heart.--She calls me dear Mrs. Jennings, you see. She is a good-hearted girl as ever lived.--Very well upon my word. That sentence is very prettily turned. Yes, yes, I will go and see her, sure enough. How attentive she is, to think of every body!--Thank you, my dear, for shewing it me. It is as pretty a letter as ever I saw, and does Lucy's head and heart great credit."

Chapter 38

https://web.archive.org/web/20210421140324/https://www.shmoop.com/study-guides/literature/sense-and-sensibility/summary/chapter-38

As we just mentioned, Mrs. Jennings, Elinor, and Marianne all think that Edward did the right thing in sticking by his fiancee, Lucy Steele. The two girls are both proud of his integrity, despite their own sadness. It's Elinor's turn for heartache, and Marianne's turn to be the strong sister. She tries her best to exert her power of will in helping out her sister. No word arrives from Lucy or Edward - what's going on? A beautiful day arrives, and Elinor and Mrs. Jennings go to enjoy the weather in Kensington Gardens . Elinor, left on her own after Mrs. Jennings finds a friend of hers, doesn't see anyone - not Edward, not the Willoughbys. She does, however, run into Miss Steele, and is encouraged by Mrs. Jennings to "get it all out of her." Miss Steele wants to know first and foremost if anyone is angry at her. Apparently, Lucy pitched a fit when Miss Steele broke the news to Fanny. Now, though, she's gotten over it. Apparently, many people have been shocked, as John was, by the fact that Edward chose Lucy over Miss Morton and her thirty thousand pounds; however, after a few days, he came to visit them to clear up matters - everything seems like it's fine between the lovers, and they plan to be married. Miss Steele admits that she learned all of this by eavesdropping, and Elinor is embarrassed for her sake. Right now, Edward is in London for the time being, but plans to go to Oxford to do some business soon. The Richardsons, with whom the Steeles are staying now, come by, and Miss Steele rushes off to join them, after sending her regards to Marianne along with Elinor. Elinor tries to figure out what she should think: the facts is, Edward is definitely going to marry Lucy, whenever he gets a job as a curate somewhere. Mrs. Jennings tries to pry as much information as possible out of Elinor on their way back home, but she doesn't get much for her efforts. Mrs. Jennings has a rather pessimistic view of how poor Edward and Lucy will be, and wonders if she might be able to help them out. The next morning, Elinor receives a letter from Lucy, basically thanking her for her discretion and for all of her guidance. It's a gloat-ful letter, assuring Elinor of how happy she and Edward are, despite their troubles. She also wants Elinor to pass her regards on to everyone else. Elinor passes the letter on to Mrs. Jennings, as Lucy apparently intended her to. Mrs. Jennings reads it happily, praising Lucy left and right.

gradesaver

all_chapterized_books/161-chapters/20.txt

finished_summaries/gradesaver/Sense and Sensibility/section_1_part_10.txt

Sense and Sensibility.chapter 20

chapter 20

{"name": "Chapter 20", "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20210419170735/https://www.gradesaver.com/sense-and-sensibility/study-guide/summary-chapters-11-20", "summary": "Mrs. Palmer and Mrs. Jennings begin to encourage Marianne and Elinor to go to town for the winter, and the Dashwood girls politely decline the invitation; and it turns out that the Palmers live near Willoughby's estate at Combe Magna. Mr. Palmer shows his talent at making droll comments at the expense of his wife, Sir John, and Mrs. Jennings; Elinor is taken aback, but sees it as a misguided attempt to gain superiority in situations through ill-bred behavior. She inquires about Willoughby, and Mrs. Palmer says she is glad to hear that Marianne and Willoughby will be married. Mrs. Palmer says that people in town are talking about the match and that even Colonel Brandon thinks them engaged, which baffles Elinor since she does not know as much. But, Elinor is glad that Mrs. Palmer has a good opinion of Mr. Willoughby, which eases her mind on the subject of his character.", "analysis": "It is ironic that Elinor confessed to often being misled by people's opinions and statements about other people, and here puts some faith in Mrs. Palmer's vague but good opinion of Willoughby. It is in Elinor's best interests to think the best of him, but for all her caution, she is certainly not a perfect judge of character. Mr. and Mrs. Palmer are almost so ridiculous as characters as to have been designed as comic relief; there is much humor in Mrs. Palmer pretending that her husband is good-natured, when all he does is make rude comments to her and others. But, this behavior is also sad and cruel; it shows that Mrs. Palmer is too silly to admit her husband's disdain, and Mr. Palmer abuses her good nature and drives others away in the process"}

As the Miss Dashwoods entered the drawing-room of the park the next day, at one door, Mrs. Palmer came running in at the other, looking as good humoured and merry as before. She took them all most affectionately by the hand, and expressed great delight in seeing them again. "I am so glad to see you!" said she, seating herself between Elinor and Marianne, "for it is so bad a day I was afraid you might not come, which would be a shocking thing, as we go away again tomorrow. We must go, for the Westons come to us next week you know. It was quite a sudden thing our coming at all, and I knew nothing of it till the carriage was coming to the door, and then Mr. Palmer asked me if I would go with him to Barton. He is so droll! He never tells me any thing! I am so sorry we cannot stay longer; however we shall meet again in town very soon, I hope." They were obliged to put an end to such an expectation. "Not go to town!" cried Mrs. Palmer, with a laugh, "I shall be quite disappointed if you do not. I could get the nicest house in the world for you, next door to ours, in Hanover-square. You must come, indeed. I am sure I shall be very happy to chaperon you at any time till I am confined, if Mrs. Dashwood should not like to go into public." They thanked her; but were obliged to resist all her entreaties. "Oh, my love," cried Mrs. Palmer to her husband, who just then entered the room--"you must help me to persuade the Miss Dashwoods to go to town this winter." Her love made no answer; and after slightly bowing to the ladies, began complaining of the weather. "How horrid all this is!" said he. "Such weather makes every thing and every body disgusting. Dullness is as much produced within doors as without, by rain. It makes one detest all one's acquaintance. What the devil does Sir John mean by not having a billiard room in his house? How few people know what comfort is! Sir John is as stupid as the weather." The rest of the company soon dropt in. "I am afraid, Miss Marianne," said Sir John, "you have not been able to take your usual walk to Allenham today." Marianne looked very grave and said nothing. "Oh, don't be so sly before us," said Mrs. Palmer; "for we know all about it, I assure you; and I admire your taste very much, for I think he is extremely handsome. We do not live a great way from him in the country, you know. Not above ten miles, I dare say." "Much nearer thirty," said her husband. "Ah, well! there is not much difference. I never was at his house; but they say it is a sweet pretty place." "As vile a spot as I ever saw in my life," said Mr. Palmer. Marianne remained perfectly silent, though her countenance betrayed her interest in what was said. "Is it very ugly?" continued Mrs. Palmer--"then it must be some other place that is so pretty I suppose." When they were seated in the dining room, Sir John observed with regret that they were only eight all together. "My dear," said he to his lady, "it is very provoking that we should be so few. Why did not you ask the Gilberts to come to us today?" "Did not I tell you, Sir John, when you spoke to me about it before, that it could not be done? They dined with us last." "You and I, Sir John," said Mrs. Jennings, "should not stand upon such ceremony." "Then you would be very ill-bred," cried Mr. Palmer. "My love you contradict every body," said his wife with her usual laugh. "Do you know that you are quite rude?" "I did not know I contradicted any body in calling your mother ill-bred." "Ay, you may abuse me as you please," said the good-natured old lady, "you have taken Charlotte off my hands, and cannot give her back again. So there I have the whip hand of you." Charlotte laughed heartily to think that her husband could not get rid of her; and exultingly said, she did not care how cross he was to her, as they must live together. It was impossible for any one to be more thoroughly good-natured, or more determined to be happy than Mrs. Palmer. The studied indifference, insolence, and discontent of her husband gave her no pain; and when he scolded or abused her, she was highly diverted. "Mr. Palmer is so droll!" said she, in a whisper, to Elinor. "He is always out of humour." Elinor was not inclined, after a little observation, to give him credit for being so genuinely and unaffectedly ill-natured or ill-bred as he wished to appear. His temper might perhaps be a little soured by finding, like many others of his sex, that through some unaccountable bias in favour of beauty, he was the husband of a very silly woman,--but she knew that this kind of blunder was too common for any sensible man to be lastingly hurt by it.-- It was rather a wish of distinction, she believed, which produced his contemptuous treatment of every body, and his general abuse of every thing before him. It was the desire of appearing superior to other people. The motive was too common to be wondered at; but the means, however they might succeed by establishing his superiority in ill-breeding, were not likely to attach any one to him except his wife. "Oh, my dear Miss Dashwood," said Mrs. Palmer soon afterwards, "I have got such a favour to ask of you and your sister. Will you come and spend some time at Cleveland this Christmas? Now, pray do,--and come while the Westons are with us. You cannot think how happy I shall be! It will be quite delightful!--My love," applying to her husband, "don't you long to have the Miss Dashwoods come to Cleveland?" "Certainly," he replied, with a sneer--"I came into Devonshire with no other view." "There now,"--said his lady, "you see Mr. Palmer expects you; so you cannot refuse to come." They both eagerly and resolutely declined her invitation. "But indeed you must and shall come. I am sure you will like it of all things. The Westons will be with us, and it will be quite delightful. You cannot think what a sweet place Cleveland is; and we are so gay now, for Mr. Palmer is always going about the country canvassing against the election; and so many people came to dine with us that I never saw before, it is quite charming! But, poor fellow! it is very fatiguing to him! for he is forced to make every body like him." Elinor could hardly keep her countenance as she assented to the hardship of such an obligation. "How charming it will be," said Charlotte, "when he is in Parliament!--won't it? How I shall laugh! It will be so ridiculous to see all his letters directed to him with an M.P.--But do you know, he says, he will never frank for me? He declares he won't. Don't you, Mr. Palmer?" Mr. Palmer took no notice of her. "He cannot bear writing, you know," she continued--"he says it is quite shocking." "No," said he, "I never said any thing so irrational. Don't palm all your abuses of languages upon me." "There now; you see how droll he is. This is always the way with him! Sometimes he won't speak to me for half a day together, and then he comes out with something so droll--all about any thing in the world." She surprised Elinor very much as they returned into the drawing-room, by asking her whether she did not like Mr. Palmer excessively. "Certainly," said Elinor; "he seems very agreeable." "Well--I am so glad you do. I thought you would, he is so pleasant; and Mr. Palmer is excessively pleased with you and your sisters I can tell you, and you can't think how disappointed he will be if you don't come to Cleveland.--I can't imagine why you should object to it." Elinor was again obliged to decline her invitation; and by changing the subject, put a stop to her entreaties. She thought it probable that as they lived in the same county, Mrs. Palmer might be able to give some more particular account of Willoughby's general character, than could be gathered from the Middletons' partial acquaintance with him; and she was eager to gain from any one, such a confirmation of his merits as might remove the possibility of fear from Marianne. She began by inquiring if they saw much of Mr. Willoughby at Cleveland, and whether they were intimately acquainted with him. "Oh dear, yes; I know him extremely well," replied Mrs. Palmer;--"Not that I ever spoke to him, indeed; but I have seen him for ever in town. Somehow or other I never happened to be staying at Barton while he was at Allenham. Mama saw him here once before;--but I was with my uncle at Weymouth. However, I dare say we should have seen a great deal of him in Somersetshire, if it had not happened very unluckily that we should never have been in the country together. He is very little at Combe, I believe; but if he were ever so much there, I do not think Mr. Palmer would visit him, for he is in the opposition, you know, and besides it is such a way off. I know why you inquire about him, very well; your sister is to marry him. I am monstrous glad of it, for then I shall have her for a neighbour you know." "Upon my word," replied Elinor, "you know much more of the matter than I do, if you have any reason to expect such a match." "Don't pretend to deny it, because you know it is what every body talks of. I assure you I heard of it in my way through town." "My dear Mrs. Palmer!" "Upon my honour I did.--I met Colonel Brandon Monday morning in Bond-street, just before we left town, and he told me of it directly." "You surprise me very much. Colonel Brandon tell you of it! Surely you must be mistaken. To give such intelligence to a person who could not be interested in it, even if it were true, is not what I should expect Colonel Brandon to do." "But I do assure you it was so, for all that, and I will tell you how it happened. When we met him, he turned back and walked with us; and so we began talking of my brother and sister, and one thing and another, and I said to him, 'So, Colonel, there is a new family come to Barton cottage, I hear, and mama sends me word they are very pretty, and that one of them is going to be married to Mr. Willoughby of Combe Magna. Is it true, pray? for of course you must know, as you have been in Devonshire so lately.'" "And what did the Colonel say?" "Oh--he did not say much; but he looked as if he knew it to be true, so from that moment I set it down as certain. It will be quite delightful, I declare! When is it to take place?" "Mr. Brandon was very well I hope?" "Oh! yes, quite well; and so full of your praises, he did nothing but say fine things of you." "I am flattered by his commendation. He seems an excellent man; and I think him uncommonly pleasing." "So do I.--He is such a charming man, that it is quite a pity he should be so grave and so dull. Mama says HE was in love with your sister too.-- I assure you it was a great compliment if he was, for he hardly ever falls in love with any body." "Is Mr. Willoughby much known in your part of Somersetshire?" said Elinor. "Oh! yes, extremely well; that is, I do not believe many people are acquainted with him, because Combe Magna is so far off; but they all think him extremely agreeable I assure you. Nobody is more liked than Mr. Willoughby wherever he goes, and so you may tell your sister. She is a monstrous lucky girl to get him, upon my honour; not but that he is much more lucky in getting her, because she is so very handsome and agreeable, that nothing can be good enough for her. However, I don't think her hardly at all handsomer than you, I assure you; for I think you both excessively pretty, and so does Mr. Palmer too I am sure, though we could not get him to own it last night." Mrs. Palmer's information respecting Willoughby was not very material; but any testimony in his favour, however small, was pleasing to her. "I am so glad we are got acquainted at last," continued Charlotte.--"And now I hope we shall always be great friends. You can't think how much I longed to see you! It is so delightful that you should live at the cottage! Nothing can be like it, to be sure! And I am so glad your sister is going to be well married! I hope you will be a great deal at Combe Magna. It is a sweet place, by all accounts." "You have been long acquainted with Colonel Brandon, have not you?" "Yes, a great while; ever since my sister married.-- He was a particular friend of Sir John's. I believe," she added in a low voice, "he would have been very glad to have had me, if he could. Sir John and Lady Middleton wished it very much. But mama did not think the match good enough for me, otherwise Sir John would have mentioned it to the Colonel, and we should have been married immediately." "Did not Colonel Brandon know of Sir John's proposal to your mother before it was made? Had he never owned his affection to yourself?" "Oh, no; but if mama had not objected to it, I dare say he would have liked it of all things. He had not seen me then above twice, for it was before I left school. However, I am much happier as I am. Mr. Palmer is the kind of man I like."

Chapter 20

https://web.archive.org/web/20210419170735/https://www.gradesaver.com/sense-and-sensibility/study-guide/summary-chapters-11-20

Mrs. Palmer and Mrs. Jennings begin to encourage Marianne and Elinor to go to town for the winter, and the Dashwood girls politely decline the invitation; and it turns out that the Palmers live near Willoughby's estate at Combe Magna. Mr. Palmer shows his talent at making droll comments at the expense of his wife, Sir John, and Mrs. Jennings; Elinor is taken aback, but sees it as a misguided attempt to gain superiority in situations through ill-bred behavior. She inquires about Willoughby, and Mrs. Palmer says she is glad to hear that Marianne and Willoughby will be married. Mrs. Palmer says that people in town are talking about the match and that even Colonel Brandon thinks them engaged, which baffles Elinor since she does not know as much. But, Elinor is glad that Mrs. Palmer has a good opinion of Mr. Willoughby, which eases her mind on the subject of his character.

It is ironic that Elinor confessed to often being misled by people's opinions and statements about other people, and here puts some faith in Mrs. Palmer's vague but good opinion of Willoughby. It is in Elinor's best interests to think the best of him, but for all her caution, she is certainly not a perfect judge of character. Mr. and Mrs. Palmer are almost so ridiculous as characters as to have been designed as comic relief; there is much humor in Mrs. Palmer pretending that her husband is good-natured, when all he does is make rude comments to her and others. But, this behavior is also sad and cruel; it shows that Mrs. Palmer is too silly to admit her husband's disdain, and Mr. Palmer abuses her good nature and drives others away in the process

sparknotes

all_chapterized_books/28054-chapters/52.txt

finished_summaries/sparknotes/The Brothers Karamazov/section_10_part_7.txt

The Brothers Karamazov.book 8.chapter 7

book 8, chapter 7

{"name": "book 8, Chapter 7", "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20210305110438/https://www.sparknotes.com/lit/brothersk/section11/", "summary": "The Former and Indisputable One Dmitri's arrival is awkward and his presence is unwanted by the lovers. But the scene has evidently been somewhat awkward between the lovers before his arrival, and the wine and food he brings help to lift everyone's spirits. The young people play cards", "analysis": ""}

Chapter VII. The First And Rightful Lover With his long, rapid strides, Mitya walked straight up to the table. "Gentlemen," he said in a loud voice, almost shouting, yet stammering at every word, "I ... I'm all right! Don't be afraid!" he exclaimed, "I--there's nothing the matter," he turned suddenly to Grushenka, who had shrunk back in her chair towards Kalganov, and clasped his hand tightly. "I ... I'm coming, too. I'm here till morning. Gentlemen, may I stay with you till morning? Only till morning, for the last time, in this same room?" So he finished, turning to the fat little man, with the pipe, sitting on the sofa. The latter removed his pipe from his lips with dignity and observed severely: "_Panie_, we're here in private. There are other rooms." "Why, it's you, Dmitri Fyodorovitch! What do you mean?" answered Kalganov suddenly. "Sit down with us. How are you?" "Delighted to see you, dear ... and precious fellow, I always thought a lot of you." Mitya responded, joyfully and eagerly, at once holding out his hand across the table. "Aie! How tight you squeeze! You've quite broken my fingers," laughed Kalganov. "He always squeezes like that, always," Grushenka put in gayly, with a timid smile, seeming suddenly convinced from Mitya's face that he was not going to make a scene. She was watching him with intense curiosity and still some uneasiness. She was impressed by something about him, and indeed the last thing she expected of him was that he would come in and speak like this at such a moment. "Good evening," Maximov ventured blandly on the left. Mitya rushed up to him, too. "Good evening. You're here, too! How glad I am to find you here, too! Gentlemen, gentlemen, I--" (He addressed the Polish gentleman with the pipe again, evidently taking him for the most important person present.) "I flew here.... I wanted to spend my last day, my last hour in this room, in this very room ... where I, too, adored ... my queen.... Forgive me, _panie_," he cried wildly, "I flew here and vowed-- Oh, don't be afraid, it's my last night! Let's drink to our good understanding. They'll bring the wine at once.... I brought this with me." (Something made him pull out his bundle of notes.) "Allow me, _panie_! I want to have music, singing, a revel, as we had before. But the worm, the unnecessary worm, will crawl away, and there'll be no more of him. I will commemorate my day of joy on my last night." He was almost choking. There was so much, so much he wanted to say, but strange exclamations were all that came from his lips. The Pole gazed fixedly at him, at the bundle of notes in his hand; looked at Grushenka, and was in evident perplexity. "If my suverin lady is permitting--" he was beginning. "What does 'suverin' mean? 'Sovereign,' I suppose?" interrupted Grushenka. "I can't help laughing at you, the way you talk. Sit down, Mitya, what are you talking about? Don't frighten us, please. You won't frighten us, will you? If you won't, I am glad to see you ..." "Me, me frighten you?" cried Mitya, flinging up his hands. "Oh, pass me by, go your way, I won't hinder you!..." And suddenly he surprised them all, and no doubt himself as well, by flinging himself on a chair, and bursting into tears, turning his head away to the opposite wall, while his arms clasped the back of the chair tight, as though embracing it. "Come, come, what a fellow you are!" cried Grushenka reproachfully. "That's just how he comes to see me--he begins talking, and I can't make out what he means. He cried like that once before, and now he's crying again! It's shameful! Why are you crying? _As though you had anything to cry for!_" she added enigmatically, emphasizing each word with some irritability. "I ... I'm not crying.... Well, good evening!" He instantly turned round in his chair, and suddenly laughed, not his abrupt wooden laugh, but a long, quivering, inaudible nervous laugh. "Well, there you are again.... Come, cheer up, cheer up!" Grushenka said to him persuasively. "I'm very glad you've come, very glad, Mitya, do you hear, I'm very glad! I want him to stay here with us," she said peremptorily, addressing the whole company, though her words were obviously meant for the man sitting on the sofa. "I wish it, I wish it! And if he goes away I shall go, too!" she added with flashing eyes. "What my queen commands is law!" pronounced the Pole, gallantly kissing Grushenka's hand. "I beg you, _panie_, to join our company," he added politely, addressing Mitya. Mitya was jumping up with the obvious intention of delivering another tirade, but the words did not come. "Let's drink, _panie_," he blurted out instead of making a speech. Every one laughed. "Good heavens! I thought he was going to begin again!" Grushenka exclaimed nervously. "Do you hear, Mitya," she went on insistently, "don't prance about, but it's nice you've brought the champagne. I want some myself, and I can't bear liqueurs. And best of all, you've come yourself. We were fearfully dull here.... You've come for a spree again, I suppose? But put your money in your pocket. Where did you get such a lot?" Mitya had been, all this time, holding in his hand the crumpled bundle of notes on which the eyes of all, especially of the Poles, were fixed. In confusion he thrust them hurriedly into his pocket. He flushed. At that moment the innkeeper brought in an uncorked bottle of champagne, and glasses on a tray. Mitya snatched up the bottle, but he was so bewildered that he did not know what to do with it. Kalganov took it from him and poured out the champagne. "Another! Another bottle!" Mitya cried to the innkeeper, and, forgetting to clink glasses with the Pole whom he had so solemnly invited to drink to their good understanding, he drank off his glass without waiting for any one else. His whole countenance suddenly changed. The solemn and tragic expression with which he had entered vanished completely, and a look of something childlike came into his face. He seemed to have become suddenly gentle and subdued. He looked shyly and happily at every one, with a continual nervous little laugh, and the blissful expression of a dog who has done wrong, been punished, and forgiven. He seemed to have forgotten everything, and was looking round at every one with a childlike smile of delight. He looked at Grushenka, laughing continually, and bringing his chair close up to her. By degrees he had gained some idea of the two Poles, though he had formed no definite conception of them yet. The Pole on the sofa struck him by his dignified demeanor and his Polish accent; and, above all, by his pipe. "Well, what of it? It's a good thing he's smoking a pipe," he reflected. The Pole's puffy, middle-aged face, with its tiny nose and two very thin, pointed, dyed and impudent-looking mustaches, had not so far roused the faintest doubts in Mitya. He was not even particularly struck by the Pole's absurd wig made in Siberia, with love-locks foolishly combed forward over the temples. "I suppose it's all right since he wears a wig," he went on, musing blissfully. The other, younger Pole, who was staring insolently and defiantly at the company and listening to the conversation with silent contempt, still only impressed Mitya by his great height, which was in striking contrast to the Pole on the sofa. "If he stood up he'd be six foot three." The thought flitted through Mitya's mind. It occurred to him, too, that this Pole must be the friend of the other, as it were, a "bodyguard," and no doubt the big Pole was at the disposal of the little Pole with the pipe. But this all seemed to Mitya perfectly right and not to be questioned. In his mood of doglike submissiveness all feeling of rivalry had died away. Grushenka's mood and the enigmatic tone of some of her words he completely failed to grasp. All he understood, with thrilling heart, was that she was kind to him, that she had forgiven him, and made him sit by her. He was beside himself with delight, watching her sip her glass of champagne. The silence of the company seemed somehow to strike him, however, and he looked round at every one with expectant eyes. "Why are we sitting here though, gentlemen? Why don't you begin doing something?" his smiling eyes seemed to ask. "He keeps talking nonsense, and we were all laughing," Kalganov began suddenly, as though divining his thought, and pointing to Maximov. Mitya immediately stared at Kalganov and then at Maximov. "He's talking nonsense?" he laughed, his short, wooden laugh, seeming suddenly delighted at something--"ha ha!" "Yes. Would you believe it, he will have it that all our cavalry officers in the twenties married Polish women. That's awful rot, isn't it?" "Polish women?" repeated Mitya, perfectly ecstatic. Kalganov was well aware of Mitya's attitude to Grushenka, and he guessed about the Pole, too, but that did not so much interest him, perhaps did not interest him at all; what he was interested in was Maximov. He had come here with Maximov by chance, and he met the Poles here at the inn for the first time in his life. Grushenka he knew before, and had once been with some one to see her; but she had not taken to him. But here she looked at him very affectionately: before Mitya's arrival, she had been making much of him, but he seemed somehow to be unmoved by it. He was a boy, not over twenty, dressed like a dandy, with a very charming fair- skinned face, and splendid thick, fair hair. From his fair face looked out beautiful pale blue eyes, with an intelligent and sometimes even deep expression, beyond his age indeed, although the young man sometimes looked and talked quite like a child, and was not at all ashamed of it, even when he was aware of it himself. As a rule he was very willful, even capricious, though always friendly. Sometimes there was something fixed and obstinate in his expression. He would look at you and listen, seeming all the while to be persistently dreaming over something else. Often he was listless and lazy, at other times he would grow excited, sometimes, apparently, over the most trivial matters. "Only imagine, I've been taking him about with me for the last four days," he went on, indolently drawling his words, quite naturally though, without the slightest affectation. "Ever since your brother, do you remember, shoved him off the carriage and sent him flying. That made me take an interest in him at the time, and I took him into the country, but he keeps talking such rot I'm ashamed to be with him. I'm taking him back." "The gentleman has not seen Polish ladies, and says what is impossible," the Pole with the pipe observed to Maximov. He spoke Russian fairly well, much better, anyway, than he pretended. If he used Russian words, he always distorted them into a Polish form. "But I was married to a Polish lady myself," tittered Maximov. "But did you serve in the cavalry? You were talking about the cavalry. Were you a cavalry officer?" put in Kalganov at once. "Was he a cavalry officer indeed? Ha ha!" cried Mitya, listening eagerly, and turning his inquiring eyes to each as he spoke, as though there were no knowing what he might hear from each. "No, you see," Maximov turned to him. "What I mean is that those pretty Polish ladies ... when they danced the mazurka with our Uhlans ... when one of them dances a mazurka with a Uhlan she jumps on his knee like a kitten ... a little white one ... and the _pan_-father and _pan_-mother look on and allow it.... They allow it ... and next day the Uhlan comes and offers her his hand.... That's how it is ... offers her his hand, he he!" Maximov ended, tittering. "The _pan_ is a _lajdak_!" the tall Pole on the chair growled suddenly and crossed one leg over the other. Mitya's eye was caught by his huge greased boot, with its thick, dirty sole. The dress of both the Poles looked rather greasy. "Well, now it's _lajdak_! What's he scolding about?" said Grushenka, suddenly vexed. "_Pani_ Agrippina, what the gentleman saw in Poland were servant girls, and not ladies of good birth," the Pole with the pipe observed to Grushenka. "You can reckon on that," the tall Pole snapped contemptuously. "What next! Let him talk! People talk, why hinder them? It makes it cheerful," Grushenka said crossly. "I'm not hindering them, _pani_," said the Pole in the wig, with a long look at Grushenka, and relapsing into dignified silence he sucked his pipe again. "No, no. The Polish gentleman spoke the truth." Kalganov got excited again, as though it were a question of vast import. "He's never been in Poland, so how can he talk about it? I suppose you weren't married in Poland, were you?" "No, in the Province of Smolensk. Only, a Uhlan had brought her to Russia before that, my future wife, with her mamma and her aunt, and another female relation with a grown-up son. He brought her straight from Poland and gave her up to me. He was a lieutenant in our regiment, a very nice young man. At first he meant to marry her himself. But he didn't marry her, because she turned out to be lame." "So you married a lame woman?" cried Kalganov. "Yes. They both deceived me a little bit at the time, and concealed it. I thought she was hopping; she kept hopping.... I thought it was for fun." "So pleased she was going to marry you!" yelled Kalganov, in a ringing, childish voice. "Yes, so pleased. But it turned out to be quite a different cause. Afterwards, when we were married, after the wedding, that very evening, she confessed, and very touchingly asked forgiveness. 'I once jumped over a puddle when I was a child,' she said, 'and injured my leg.' He he!" Kalganov went off into the most childish laughter, almost falling on the sofa. Grushenka, too, laughed. Mitya was at the pinnacle of happiness. "Do you know, that's the truth, he's not lying now," exclaimed Kalganov, turning to Mitya; "and do you know, he's been married twice; it's his first wife he's talking about. But his second wife, do you know, ran away, and is alive now." "Is it possible?" said Mitya, turning quickly to Maximov with an expression of the utmost astonishment. "Yes. She did run away. I've had that unpleasant experience," Maximov modestly assented, "with a _monsieur_. And what was worse, she'd had all my little property transferred to her beforehand. 'You're an educated man,' she said to me. 'You can always get your living.' She settled my business with that. A venerable bishop once said to me: 'One of your wives was lame, but the other was too light-footed.' He he!" "Listen, listen!" cried Kalganov, bubbling over, "if he's telling lies--and he often is--he's only doing it to amuse us all. There's no harm in that, is there? You know, I sometimes like him. He's awfully low, but it's natural to him, eh? Don't you think so? Some people are low from self- interest, but he's simply so, from nature. Only fancy, he claims (he was arguing about it all the way yesterday) that Gogol wrote _Dead Souls_ about him. Do you remember, there's a landowner called Maximov in it, whom Nozdryov thrashed. He was charged, do you remember, 'for inflicting bodily injury with rods on the landowner Maximov in a drunken condition.' Would you believe it, he claims that he was that Maximov and that he was beaten! Now can it be so? Tchitchikov made his journey, at the very latest, at the beginning of the twenties, so that the dates don't fit. He couldn't have been thrashed then, he couldn't, could he?" It was difficult to imagine what Kalganov was excited about, but his excitement was genuine. Mitya followed his lead without protest. "Well, but if they did thrash him!" he cried, laughing. "It's not that they thrashed me exactly, but what I mean is--" put in Maximov. "What do you mean? Either they thrashed you or they didn't." "What o'clock is it, _panie_?" the Pole, with the pipe, asked his tall friend, with a bored expression. The other shrugged his shoulders in reply. Neither of them had a watch. "Why not talk? Let other people talk. Mustn't other people talk because you're bored?" Grushenka flew at him with evident intention of finding fault. Something seemed for the first time to flash upon Mitya's mind. This time the Pole answered with unmistakable irritability. "_Pani_, I didn't oppose it. I didn't say anything." "All right then. Come, tell us your story," Grushenka cried to Maximov. "Why are you all silent?" "There's nothing to tell, it's all so foolish," answered Maximov at once, with evident satisfaction, mincing a little. "Besides, all that's by way of allegory in Gogol, for he's made all the names have a meaning. Nozdryov was really called Nosov, and Kuvshinikov had quite a different name, he was called Shkvornev. Fenardi really was called Fenardi, only he wasn't an Italian but a Russian, and Mamsel Fenardi was a pretty girl with her pretty little legs in tights, and she had a little short skirt with spangles, and she kept turning round and round, only not for four hours but for four minutes only, and she bewitched every one..." "But what were you beaten for?" cried Kalganov. "For Piron!" answered Maximov. "What Piron?" cried Mitya. "The famous French writer, Piron. We were all drinking then, a big party of us, in a tavern at that very fair. They'd invited me, and first of all I began quoting epigrams. 'Is that you, Boileau? What a funny get-up!' and Boileau answers that he's going to a masquerade, that is to the baths, he he! And they took it to themselves, so I made haste to repeat another, very sarcastic, well known to all educated people: Yes, Sappho and Phaon are we! But one grief is weighing on me. You don't know your way to the sea! They were still more offended and began abusing me in the most unseemly way for it. And as ill-luck would have it, to set things right, I began telling a very cultivated anecdote about Piron, how he was not accepted into the French Academy, and to revenge himself wrote his own epitaph: Ci-git Piron qui ne fut rien, Pas meme academicien. They seized me and thrashed me." "But what for? What for?" "For my education. People can thrash a man for anything," Maximov concluded, briefly and sententiously. "Eh, that's enough! That's all stupid, I don't want to listen. I thought it would be amusing," Grushenka cut them short, suddenly. Mitya started, and at once left off laughing. The tall Pole rose upon his feet, and with the haughty air of a man, bored and out of his element, began pacing from corner to corner of the room, his hands behind his back. "Ah, he can't sit still," said Grushenka, looking at him contemptuously. Mitya began to feel anxious. He noticed besides, that the Pole on the sofa was looking at him with an irritable expression. "_Panie!_" cried Mitya, "let's drink! and the other _pan_, too! Let us drink." In a flash he had pulled three glasses towards him, and filled them with champagne. "To Poland, _panovie_, I drink to your Poland!" cried Mitya. "I shall be delighted, _panie_," said the Pole on the sofa, with dignity and affable condescension, and he took his glass. "And the other _pan_, what's his name? Drink, most illustrious, take your glass!" Mitya urged. "Pan Vrublevsky," put in the Pole on the sofa. Pan Vrublevsky came up to the table, swaying as he walked. "To Poland, _panovie!_" cried Mitya, raising his glass. "Hurrah!" All three drank. Mitya seized the bottle and again poured out three glasses. "Now to Russia, _panovie_, and let us be brothers!" "Pour out some for us," said Grushenka; "I'll drink to Russia, too!" "So will I," said Kalganov. "And I would, too ... to Russia, the old grandmother!" tittered Maximov. "All! All!" cried Mitya. "Trifon Borissovitch, some more bottles!" The other three bottles Mitya had brought with him were put on the table. Mitya filled the glasses. "To Russia! Hurrah!" he shouted again. All drank the toast except the Poles, and Grushenka tossed off her whole glass at once. The Poles did not touch theirs. "How's this, _panovie_?" cried Mitya, "won't you drink it?" Pan Vrublevsky took the glass, raised it and said with a resonant voice: "To Russia as she was before 1772." "Come, that's better!" cried the other Pole, and they both emptied their glasses at once. "You're fools, you _panovie_," broke suddenly from Mitya. "_Panie!_" shouted both the Poles, menacingly, setting on Mitya like a couple of cocks. Pan Vrublevsky was specially furious. "Can one help loving one's own country?" he shouted. "Be silent! Don't quarrel! I won't have any quarreling!" cried Grushenka imperiously, and she stamped her foot on the floor. Her face glowed, her eyes were shining. The effects of the glass she had just drunk were apparent. Mitya was terribly alarmed. "_Panovie_, forgive me! It was my fault, I'm sorry. Vrublevsky, _panie_ Vrublevsky, I'm sorry." "Hold your tongue, you, anyway! Sit down, you stupid!" Grushenka scolded with angry annoyance. Every one sat down, all were silent, looking at one another. "Gentlemen, I was the cause of it all," Mitya began again, unable to make anything of Grushenka's words. "Come, why are we sitting here? What shall we do ... to amuse ourselves again?" "Ach, it's certainly anything but amusing!" Kalganov mumbled lazily. "Let's play faro again, as we did just now," Maximov tittered suddenly. "Faro? Splendid!" cried Mitya. "If only the _panovie_--" "It's lite, _panovie_," the Pole on the sofa responded, as it were unwillingly. "That's true," assented Pan Vrublevsky. "Lite? What do you mean by 'lite'?" asked Grushenka. "Late, _pani_! 'a late hour' I mean," the Pole on the sofa explained. "It's always late with them. They can never do anything!" Grushenka almost shrieked in her anger. "They're dull themselves, so they want others to be dull. Before you came, Mitya, they were just as silent and kept turning up their noses at me." "My goddess!" cried the Pole on the sofa, "I see you're not well-disposed to me, that's why I'm gloomy. I'm ready, _panie_," added he, addressing Mitya. "Begin, _panie_," Mitya assented, pulling his notes out of his pocket, and laying two hundred-rouble notes on the table. "I want to lose a lot to you. Take your cards. Make the bank." "We'll have cards from the landlord, _panie_," said the little Pole, gravely and emphatically. "That's much the best way," chimed in Pan Vrublevsky. "From the landlord? Very good, I understand, let's get them from him. Cards!" Mitya shouted to the landlord. The landlord brought in a new, unopened pack, and informed Mitya that the girls were getting ready, and that the Jews with the cymbals would most likely be here soon; but the cart with the provisions had not yet arrived. Mitya jumped up from the table and ran into the next room to give orders, but only three girls had arrived, and Marya was not there yet. And he did not know himself what orders to give and why he had run out. He only told them to take out of the box the presents for the girls, the sweets, the toffee and the fondants. "And vodka for Andrey, vodka for Andrey!" he cried in haste. "I was rude to Andrey!" Suddenly Maximov, who had followed him out, touched him on the shoulder. "Give me five roubles," he whispered to Mitya. "I'll stake something at faro, too, he he!" "Capital! Splendid! Take ten, here!" Again he took all the notes out of his pocket and picked out one for ten roubles. "And if you lose that, come again, come again." "Very good," Maximov whispered joyfully, and he ran back again. Mitya, too, returned, apologizing for having kept them waiting. The Poles had already sat down, and opened the pack. They looked much more amiable, almost cordial. The Pole on the sofa had lighted another pipe and was preparing to throw. He wore an air of solemnity. "To your places, gentlemen," cried Pan Vrublevsky. "No, I'm not going to play any more," observed Kalganov, "I've lost fifty roubles to them just now." "The _pan_ had no luck, perhaps he'll be lucky this time," the Pole on the sofa observed in his direction. "How much in the bank? To correspond?" asked Mitya. "That's according, _panie_, maybe a hundred, maybe two hundred, as much as you will stake." "A million!" laughed Mitya. "The Pan Captain has heard of Pan Podvysotsky, perhaps?" "What Podvysotsky?" "In Warsaw there was a bank and any one comes and stakes against it. Podvysotsky comes, sees a thousand gold pieces, stakes against the bank. The banker says, '_Panie_ Podvysotsky, are you laying down the gold, or must we trust to your honor?' 'To my honor, _panie_,' says Podvysotsky. 'So much the better.' The banker throws the dice. Podvysotsky wins. 'Take it, _panie_,' says the banker, and pulling out the drawer he gives him a million. 'Take it, _panie_, this is your gain.' There was a million in the bank. 'I didn't know that,' says Podvysotsky. '_Panie_ Podvysotsky,' said the banker, 'you pledged your honor and we pledged ours.' Podvysotsky took the million." "That's not true," said Kalganov. "_Panie_ Kalganov, in gentlemanly society one doesn't say such things." "As if a Polish gambler would give away a million!" cried Mitya, but checked himself at once. "Forgive me, _panie_, it's my fault again, he would, he would give away a million, for honor, for Polish honor. You see how I talk Polish, ha ha! Here, I stake ten roubles, the knave leads." "And I put a rouble on the queen, the queen of hearts, the pretty little _panienotchka_, he he!" laughed Maximov, pulling out his queen, and, as though trying to conceal it from every one, he moved right up and crossed himself hurriedly under the table. Mitya won. The rouble won, too. "A corner!" cried Mitya. "I'll bet another rouble, a 'single' stake," Maximov muttered gleefully, hugely delighted at having won a rouble. "Lost!" shouted Mitya. "A 'double' on the seven!" The seven too was trumped. "Stop!" cried Kalganov suddenly. "Double! Double!" Mitya doubled his stakes, and each time he doubled the stake, the card he doubled was trumped by the Poles. The rouble stakes kept winning. "On the double!" shouted Mitya furiously. "You've lost two hundred, _panie_. Will you stake another hundred?" the Pole on the sofa inquired. "What? Lost two hundred already? Then another two hundred! All doubles!" And pulling his money out of his pocket, Mitya was about to fling two hundred roubles on the queen, but Kalganov covered it with his hand. "That's enough!" he shouted in his ringing voice. "What's the matter?" Mitya stared at him. "That's enough! I don't want you to play any more. Don't!" "Why?" "Because I don't. Hang it, come away. That's why. I won't let you go on playing." Mitya gazed at him in astonishment. "Give it up, Mitya. He may be right. You've lost a lot as it is," said Grushenka, with a curious note in her voice. Both the Poles rose from their seats with a deeply offended air. "Are you joking, _panie_?" said the short man, looking severely at Kalganov. "How dare you!" Pan Vrublevsky, too, growled at Kalganov. "Don't dare to shout like that," cried Grushenka. "Ah, you turkey-cocks!" Mitya looked at each of them in turn. But something in Grushenka's face suddenly struck him, and at the same instant something new flashed into his mind--a strange new thought! "_Pani_ Agrippina," the little Pole was beginning, crimson with anger, when Mitya suddenly went up to him and slapped him on the shoulder. "Most illustrious, two words with you." "What do you want?" "In the next room, I've two words to say to you, something pleasant, very pleasant. You'll be glad to hear it." The little _pan_ was taken aback and looked apprehensively at Mitya. He agreed at once, however, on condition that Pan Vrublevsky went with them. "The bodyguard? Let him come, and I want him, too. I must have him!" cried Mitya. "March, _panovie_!" "Where are you going?" asked Grushenka, anxiously. "We'll be back in one moment," answered Mitya. There was a sort of boldness, a sudden confidence shining in his eyes. His face had looked very different when he entered the room an hour before. He led the Poles, not into the large room where the chorus of girls was assembling and the table was being laid, but into the bedroom on the right, where the trunks and packages were kept, and there were two large beds, with pyramids of cotton pillows on each. There was a lighted candle on a small deal table in the corner. The small man and Mitya sat down to this table, facing each other, while the huge Vrublevsky stood beside them, his hands behind his back. The Poles looked severe but were evidently inquisitive. "What can I do for you, _panie_?" lisped the little Pole. "Well, look here, _panie_, I won't keep you long. There's money for you," he pulled out his notes. "Would you like three thousand? Take it and go your way." The Pole gazed open-eyed at Mitya, with a searching look. "Three thousand, _panie_?" He exchanged glances with Vrublevsky. "Three, _panovie_, three! Listen, _panie_, I see you're a sensible man. Take three thousand and go to the devil, and Vrublevsky with you--d'you hear? But, at once, this very minute, and for ever. You understand that, _panie_, for ever. Here's the door, you go out of it. What have you got there, a great-coat, a fur coat? I'll bring it out to you. They'll get the horses out directly, and then--good-by, _panie_!" Mitya awaited an answer with assurance. He had no doubts. An expression of extraordinary resolution passed over the Pole's face. "And the money, _panie_?" "The money, _panie_? Five hundred roubles I'll give you this moment for the journey, and as a first installment, and two thousand five hundred to- morrow, in the town--I swear on my honor, I'll get it, I'll get it at any cost!" cried Mitya. The Poles exchanged glances again. The short man's face looked more forbidding. "Seven hundred, seven hundred, not five hundred, at once, this minute, cash down!" Mitya added, feeling something wrong. "What's the matter, _panie_? Don't you trust me? I can't give you the whole three thousand straight off. If I give it, you may come back to her to-morrow.... Besides, I haven't the three thousand with me. I've got it at home in the town," faltered Mitya, his spirit sinking at every word he uttered. "Upon my word, the money's there, hidden." In an instant an extraordinary sense of personal dignity showed itself in the little man's face. "What next?" he asked ironically. "For shame!" and he spat on the floor. Pan Vrublevsky spat too. "You do that, _panie_," said Mitya, recognizing with despair that all was over, "because you hope to make more out of Grushenka? You're a couple of capons, that's what you are!" "This is a mortal insult!" The little Pole turned as red as a crab, and he went out of the room, briskly, as though unwilling to hear another word. Vrublevsky swung out after him, and Mitya followed, confused and crestfallen. He was afraid of Grushenka, afraid that the _pan_ would at once raise an outcry. And so indeed he did. The Pole walked into the room and threw himself in a theatrical attitude before Grushenka. "_Pani_ Agrippina, I have received a mortal insult!" he exclaimed. But Grushenka suddenly lost all patience, as though they had wounded her in the tenderest spot. "Speak Russian! Speak Russian!" she cried, "not another word of Polish! You used to talk Russian. You can't have forgotten it in five years." She was red with passion. "_Pani_ Agrippina--" "My name's Agrafena, Grushenka, speak Russian or I won't listen!" The Pole gasped with offended dignity, and quickly and pompously delivered himself in broken Russian: "_Pani_ Agrafena, I came here to forget the past and forgive it, to forget all that has happened till to-day--" "Forgive? Came here to forgive me?" Grushenka cut him short, jumping up from her seat. "Just so, _pani_, I'm not pusillanimous, I'm magnanimous. But I was astounded when I saw your lovers. Pan Mitya offered me three thousand, in the other room to depart. I spat in the _pan's_ face." "What? He offered you money for me?" cried Grushenka, hysterically. "Is it true, Mitya? How dare you? Am I for sale?" "_Panie, panie!_" yelled Mitya, "she's pure and shining, and I have never been her lover! That's a lie...." "How dare you defend me to him?" shrieked Grushenka. "It wasn't virtue kept me pure, and it wasn't that I was afraid of Kuzma, but that I might hold up my head when I met him, and tell him he's a scoundrel. And he did actually refuse the money?" "He took it! He took it!" cried Mitya; "only he wanted to get the whole three thousand at once, and I could only give him seven hundred straight off." "I see: he heard I had money, and came here to marry me!" "_Pani_ Agrippina!" cried the little Pole. "I'm--a knight, I'm--a nobleman, and not a _lajdak_. I came here to make you my wife and I find you a different woman, perverse and shameless." "Oh, go back where you came from! I'll tell them to turn you out and you'll be turned out," cried Grushenka, furious. "I've been a fool, a fool, to have been miserable these five years! And it wasn't for his sake, it was my anger made me miserable. And this isn't he at all! Was he like this? It might be his father! Where did you get your wig from? He was a falcon, but this is a gander. He used to laugh and sing to me.... And I've been crying for five years, damned fool, abject, shameless I was!" She sank back in her low chair and hid her face in her hands. At that instant the chorus of Mokroe began singing in the room on the left--a rollicking dance song. "A regular Sodom!" Vrublevsky roared suddenly. "Landlord, send the shameless hussies away!" The landlord, who had been for some time past inquisitively peeping in at the door, hearing shouts and guessing that his guests were quarreling, at once entered the room. "What are you shouting for? D'you want to split your throat?" he said, addressing Vrublevsky, with surprising rudeness. "Animal!" bellowed Pan Vrublevsky. "Animal? And what sort of cards were you playing with just now? I gave you a pack and you hid it. You played with marked cards! I could send you to Siberia for playing with false cards, d'you know that, for it's just the same as false banknotes...." And going up to the sofa he thrust his fingers between the sofa back and the cushion, and pulled out an unopened pack of cards. "Here's my pack unopened!" He held it up and showed it to all in the room. "From where I stood I saw him slip my pack away, and put his in place of it--you're a cheat and not a gentleman!" "And I twice saw the _pan_ change a card!" cried Kalganov. "How shameful! How shameful!" exclaimed Grushenka, clasping her hands, and blushing for genuine shame. "Good Lord, he's come to that!" "I thought so, too!" said Mitya. But before he had uttered the words, Vrublevsky, with a confused and infuriated face, shook his fist at Grushenka, shouting: "You low harlot!" Mitya flew at him at once, clutched him in both hands, lifted him in the air, and in one instant had carried him into the room on the right, from which they had just come. "I've laid him on the floor, there," he announced, returning at once, gasping with excitement. "He's struggling, the scoundrel! But he won't come back, no fear of that!..." He closed one half of the folding doors, and holding the other ajar called out to the little Pole: "Most illustrious, will you be pleased to retire as well?" "My dear Dmitri Fyodorovitch," said Trifon Borissovitch, "make them give you back the money you lost. It's as good as stolen from you." "I don't want my fifty roubles back," Kalganov declared suddenly. "I don't want my two hundred, either," cried Mitya, "I wouldn't take it for anything! Let him keep it as a consolation." "Bravo, Mitya! You're a trump, Mitya!" cried Grushenka, and there was a note of fierce anger in the exclamation. The little _pan_, crimson with fury but still mindful of his dignity, was making for the door, but he stopped short and said suddenly, addressing Grushenka: "_Pani_, if you want to come with me, come. If not, good-by." And swelling with indignation and importance he went to the door. This was a man of character: he had so good an opinion of himself that after all that had passed, he still expected that she would marry him. Mitya slammed the door after him. "Lock it," said Kalganov. But the key clicked on the other side, they had locked it from within. "That's capital!" exclaimed Grushenka relentlessly. "Serve them right!"

book 8, Chapter 7

https://web.archive.org/web/20210305110438/https://www.sparknotes.com/lit/brothersk/section11/

The Former and Indisputable One Dmitri's arrival is awkward and his presence is unwanted by the lovers. But the scene has evidently been somewhat awkward between the lovers before his arrival, and the wine and food he brings help to lift everyone's spirits. The young people play cards

pinkmonkey

all_chapterized_books/5658-chapters/15.txt

finished_summaries/pinkmonkey/Lord Jim/section_14_part_0.txt

Lord Jim.chapter 15

chapter 15

{"name": "Chapter 15", "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20180820051943/http://www.pinkmonkey.com/booknotes/monkeynotes/pmLordJim23.asp", "summary": "Marlow finds Jim and tells him to come to his room. The dazed young sailor follows his friend. Marlow does not try and make Jim talk; instead, he lights a candle and starts writing, allowing Jim to have time to sort out his misery. During the afternoon and evening, Marlow writes and Jim stands staring out the glass door. Marlow can tell the young man is fighting with himself and at the point of tears, for his shoulders shake and he struggles to breathe. As Marlow watches him, he suffers with Jim. Suddenly Jim pushes the glass-door so hard that it shakes. He bolts upstairs to the verandah. Marlow looks at the young man's dark outline and returns to his writing. Marlow takes a fresh sheet of paper and begins to write once more, letting Jim be. Soon the faces of Chester and Robinson appear before Marlow. He is glad that he has saved Jim from their clutches and the ignominy of being an overseer for manure digging. But Marlow now feels responsible for Jim and is worried about his future.", "analysis": "Notes The storm outside is symbolic of the storm that rages within Jim, who has become a totally tragic figure. The reader identifies with his tormented state, his sense of total distress and anguish. With the cancellation of his certificate, Jim's identify has been destroyed. His life, as he has perceived it, no longer exists; his dream is no longer a possibility. As a result, he cannot even speak and remains distant and aloof from Marlow, who kindly gives the young sailor his needed space."}

'I did not start in search of Jim at once, only because I had really an appointment which I could not neglect. Then, as ill-luck would have it, in my agent's office I was fastened upon by a fellow fresh from Madagascar with a little scheme for a wonderful piece of business. It had something to do with cattle and cartridges and a Prince Ravonalo something; but the pivot of the whole affair was the stupidity of some admiral--Admiral Pierre, I think. Everything turned on that, and the chap couldn't find words strong enough to express his confidence. He had globular eyes starting out of his head with a fishy glitter, bumps on his forehead, and wore his long hair brushed back without a parting. He had a favourite phrase which he kept on repeating triumphantly, "The minimum of risk with the maximum of profit is my motto. What?" He made my head ache, spoiled my tiffin, but got his own out of me all right; and as soon as I had shaken him off, I made straight for the water-side. I caught sight of Jim leaning over the parapet of the quay. Three native boatmen quarrelling over five annas were making an awful row at his elbow. He didn't hear me come up, but spun round as if the slight contact of my finger had released a catch. "I was looking," he stammered. I don't remember what I said, not much anyhow, but he made no difficulty in following me to the hotel. 'He followed me as manageable as a little child, with an obedient air, with no sort of manifestation, rather as though he had been waiting for me there to come along and carry him off. I need not have been so surprised as I was at his tractability. On all the round earth, which to some seems so big and that others affect to consider as rather smaller than a mustard-seed, he had no place where he could--what shall I say?--where he could withdraw. That's it! Withdraw--be alone with his loneliness. He walked by my side very calm, glancing here and there, and once turned his head to look after a Sidiboy fireman in a cutaway coat and yellowish trousers, whose black face had silky gleams like a lump of anthracite coal. I doubt, however, whether he saw anything, or even remained all the time aware of my companionship, because if I had not edged him to the left here, or pulled him to the right there, I believe he would have gone straight before him in any direction till stopped by a wall or some other obstacle. I steered him into my bedroom, and sat down at once to write letters. This was the only place in the world (unless, perhaps, the Walpole Reef--but that was not so handy) where he could have it out with himself without being bothered by the rest of the universe. The damned thing--as he had expressed it--had not made him invisible, but I behaved exactly as though he were. No sooner in my chair I bent over my writing-desk like a medieval scribe, and, but for the movement of the hand holding the pen, remained anxiously quiet. I can't say I was frightened; but I certainly kept as still as if there had been something dangerous in the room, that at the first hint of a movement on my part would be provoked to pounce upon me. There was not much in the room--you know how these bedrooms are--a sort of four-poster bedstead under a mosquito-net, two or three chairs, the table I was writing at, a bare floor. A glass door opened on an upstairs verandah, and he stood with his face to it, having a hard time with all possible privacy. Dusk fell; I lit a candle with the greatest economy of movement and as much prudence as though it were an illegal proceeding. There is no doubt that he had a very hard time of it, and so had I, even to the point, I must own, of wishing him to the devil, or on Walpole Reef at least. It occurred to me once or twice that, after all, Chester was, perhaps, the man to deal effectively with such a disaster. That strange idealist had found a practical use for it at once--unerringly, as it were. It was enough to make one suspect that, maybe, he really could see the true aspect of things that appeared mysterious or utterly hopeless to less imaginative persons. I wrote and wrote; I liquidated all the arrears of my correspondence, and then went on writing to people who had no reason whatever to expect from me a gossipy letter about nothing at all. At times I stole a sidelong glance. He was rooted to the spot, but convulsive shudders ran down his back; his shoulders would heave suddenly. He was fighting, he was fighting--mostly for his breath, as it seemed. The massive shadows, cast all one way from the straight flame of the candle, seemed possessed of gloomy consciousness; the immobility of the furniture had to my furtive eye an air of attention. I was becoming fanciful in the midst of my industrious scribbling; and though, when the scratching of my pen stopped for a moment, there was complete silence and stillness in the room, I suffered from that profound disturbance and confusion of thought which is caused by a violent and menacing uproar--of a heavy gale at sea, for instance. Some of you may know what I mean: that mingled anxiety, distress, and irritation with a sort of craven feeling creeping in--not pleasant to acknowledge, but which gives a quite special merit to one's endurance. I don't claim any merit for standing the stress of Jim's emotions; I could take refuge in the letters; I could have written to strangers if necessary. Suddenly, as I was taking up a fresh sheet of notepaper, I heard a low sound, the first sound that, since we had been shut up together, had come to my ears in the dim stillness of the room. I remained with my head down, with my hand arrested. Those who have kept vigil by a sick-bed have heard such faint sounds in the stillness of the night watches, sounds wrung from a racked body, from a weary soul. He pushed the glass door with such force that all the panes rang: he stepped out, and I held my breath, straining my ears without knowing what else I expected to hear. He was really taking too much to heart an empty formality which to Chester's rigorous criticism seemed unworthy the notice of a man who could see things as they were. An empty formality; a piece of parchment. Well, well. As to an inaccessible guano deposit, that was another story altogether. One could intelligibly break one's heart over that. A feeble burst of many voices mingled with the tinkle of silver and glass floated up from the dining-room below; through the open door the outer edge of the light from my candle fell on his back faintly; beyond all was black; he stood on the brink of a vast obscurity, like a lonely figure by the shore of a sombre and hopeless ocean. There was the Walpole Reef in it--to be sure--a speck in the dark void, a straw for the drowning man. My compassion for him took the shape of the thought that I wouldn't have liked his people to see him at that moment. I found it trying myself. His back was no longer shaken by his gasps; he stood straight as an arrow, faintly visible and still; and the meaning of this stillness sank to the bottom of my soul like lead into the water, and made it so heavy that for a second I wished heartily that the only course left open for me was to pay for his funeral. Even the law had done with him. To bury him would have been such an easy kindness! It would have been so much in accordance with the wisdom of life, which consists in putting out of sight all the reminders of our folly, of our weakness, of our mortality; all that makes against our efficiency--the memory of our failures, the hints of our undying fears, the bodies of our dead friends. Perhaps he did take it too much to heart. And if so then--Chester's offer. . . . At this point I took up a fresh sheet and began to write resolutely. There was nothing but myself between him and the dark ocean. I had a sense of responsibility. If I spoke, would that motionless and suffering youth leap into the obscurity--clutch at the straw? I found out how difficult it may be sometimes to make a sound. There is a weird power in a spoken word. And why the devil not? I was asking myself persistently while I drove on with my writing. All at once, on the blank page, under the very point of the pen, the two figures of Chester and his antique partner, very distinct and complete, would dodge into view with stride and gestures, as if reproduced in the field of some optical toy. I would watch them for a while. No! They were too phantasmal and extravagant to enter into any one's fate. And a word carries far--very far--deals destruction through time as the bullets go flying through space. I said nothing; and he, out there with his back to the light, as if bound and gagged by all the invisible foes of man, made no stir and made no sound.'

Chapter 15

https://web.archive.org/web/20180820051943/http://www.pinkmonkey.com/booknotes/monkeynotes/pmLordJim23.asp

Marlow finds Jim and tells him to come to his room. The dazed young sailor follows his friend. Marlow does not try and make Jim talk; instead, he lights a candle and starts writing, allowing Jim to have time to sort out his misery. During the afternoon and evening, Marlow writes and Jim stands staring out the glass door. Marlow can tell the young man is fighting with himself and at the point of tears, for his shoulders shake and he struggles to breathe. As Marlow watches him, he suffers with Jim. Suddenly Jim pushes the glass-door so hard that it shakes. He bolts upstairs to the verandah. Marlow looks at the young man's dark outline and returns to his writing. Marlow takes a fresh sheet of paper and begins to write once more, letting Jim be. Soon the faces of Chester and Robinson appear before Marlow. He is glad that he has saved Jim from their clutches and the ignominy of being an overseer for manure digging. But Marlow now feels responsible for Jim and is worried about his future.

Notes The storm outside is symbolic of the storm that rages within Jim, who has become a totally tragic figure. The reader identifies with his tormented state, his sense of total distress and anguish. With the cancellation of his certificate, Jim's identify has been destroyed. His life, as he has perceived it, no longer exists; his dream is no longer a possibility. As a result, he cannot even speak and remains distant and aloof from Marlow, who kindly gives the young sailor his needed space.

shmoop

all_chapterized_books/44747-chapters/48.txt

finished_summaries/shmoop/The Red and the Black/section_47_part_0.txt

The Red and the Black.part 2.chapter 18

part 2, chapter 18

{"name": "Part 2, Chapter 18", "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20200920104425/https://www.shmoop.com/study-guides/literature/red-and-the-black/summary/part-2-chapter-18", "summary": "Mathilde thinks back on how Julien almost murdered her in the library and figures that for some reason, this gesture makes him truly worthy of her. She walks up to Julien the next day and asks him to accompany her into the garden. Once they're alone, she starts talking to him about the state of her heart. She makes sure to talk as much as possible about all the other young men in her life. This tortures Julien. Finally, Julien tells her that he loves her and that he'll do anything for her. This destroys Mathilde's interest in him, since she only wanted him in the first place because he paid no attention to her. Now that he's groveling at her feet, she finds him repulsive.", "analysis": ""}

CHAPTER XLVIII CRUEL MOMENTS And she confesses it to me! She goes into even the smallest details! Her beautiful eyes fixed on mine, and describes the love which she felt for another.--_Schiller_. The delighted mademoiselle de la Mole thought of nothing but the happiness of having been nearly killed. She went so far as to say to herself, "he is worthy of being my master since he was on the point of killing me. How many handsome young society men would have to be melted together before they were capable of so passionate a transport." "I must admit that he was very handsome at the time when he climbed up on the chair to replace the sword in the same picturesque position in which the decorator hung it! After all it was not so foolish of me to love him." If at that moment some honourable means of reconciliation had presented itself, she would have embraced it with pleasure. Julien locked in his room was a prey to the most violent despair. He thought in his madness of throwing himself at her feet. If instead of hiding himself in an out of the way place, he had wandered about the garden of the hotel so as to keep within reach of any opportunity, he would perhaps have changed in a single moment his awful unhappiness into the keenest happiness. But the tact for whose lack we are now reproaching him would have been incompatible with that sublime seizure of the sword, which at the present time rendered him so handsome in the eyes of mademoiselle de la Mole. This whim in Julien's favour lasted the whole day; Mathilde conjured up a charming image of the short moments during which she had loved him: she regretted them. "As a matter of fact," she said to herself, "my passion for this poor boy can from his point of view only have lasted from one hour after midnight when I saw him arrive by his ladder with all his pistols in his coat pocket, till eight o'clock in the morning. It was a quarter of an hour after that as I listened to mass at Sainte-Valere that I began to think that he might very well try to terrify me into obedience." After dinner mademoiselle de la Mole, so far from avoiding Julien, spoke to him and made him promise to follow her into the garden. He obeyed. It was a new experience. Without suspecting it Mathilde was yielding to the love which she was now feeling for him again. She found an extreme pleasure in walking by his side, and she looked curiously at those hands which had seized the sword to kill her that very morning. After such an action, after all that had taken place, some of the former conversation was out of the question. Mathilde gradually began to talk confidentially to him about the state of her heart. She found a singular pleasure in this kind of conversation, she even went so far as to describe to him the fleeting moments of enthusiasm which she had experienced for M. de Croisenois, for M. de Caylus---- "What! M. de Caylus as well!" exclaimed Julien, and all the jealousy of a discarded lover burst out in those words, Mathilde thought as much, but did not feel at all insulted. She continued torturing Julien by describing her former sentiments with the most picturesque detail and the accent of the most intimate truth. He saw that she was portraying what she had in her mind's eye. He had the pain of noticing that as she spoke she made new discoveries in her own heart. The unhappiness of jealousy could not be carried further. It is cruel enough to suspect that a rival is loved, but there is no doubt that to hear the woman one adores confess in detail the love which rivals inspires, is the utmost limit of anguish. Oh, how great a punishment was there now for those impulses of pride which had induced Julien to place himself as superior to the Caylus and the Croisenois! How deeply did he feel his own unhappiness as he exaggerated to himself their most petty advantages. With what hearty good faith he despised himself. Mathilde struck him as adorable. All words are weak to express his excessive admiration. As he walked beside her he looked surreptitiously at her hands, her arms, her queenly bearing. He was so completely overcome by love and unhappiness as to be on the point of falling at her feet and crying "pity." "Yes, and that person who is so beautiful, who is so superior to everything and who loved me once, will doubtless soon love M. de Caylus." Julien could have no doubts of mademoiselle de la Mole's sincerity, the accent of truth was only too palpable in everything she said. In order that nothing might be wanting to complete his unhappiness there were moments when, as a result of thinking about the sentiments which she had once experienced for M. de Caylus, Mathilde came to talk of him, as though she loved him at the present time. She certainly put an inflection of love into her voice. Julien distinguished it clearly. He would have suffered less if his bosom had been filled inside with molten lead. Plunged as he was in this abyss of unhappiness how could the poor boy have guessed that it was simply because she was talking to him, that mademoiselle de la Mole found so much pleasure in recalling those weaknesses of love which she had formerly experienced for M. de Caylus or M. de Luz. Words fail to express Julien's anguish. He listened to these detailed confidences of the love she had experienced for others in that very avenue of pines where he had waited so few days ago for one o'clock to strike that he might invade her room. No human being can undergo a greater degree of unhappiness. This kind of familiar cruelty lasted for eight long days. Mathilde sometimes seemed to seek opportunities of speaking to him and sometimes not to avoid them; and the one topic of conversation to which they both seemed to revert with a kind of cruel pleasure, was the description of the sentiments she had felt for others. She told him about the letters which she had written, she remembered their very words, she recited whole sentences by heart. She seemed during these last days to be envisaging Julien with a kind of malicious joy. She found a keen enjoyment in his pangs. One sees that Julien had no experience of life; he had not even read any novels. If he had been a little less awkward and he had coolly said to the young girl, whom he adored so much and who had been giving him such strange confidences: "admit that though I am not worth as much as all these gentlemen, I am none the less the man whom you loved," she would perhaps have been happy at being at thus guessed; at any rate success would have entirely depended on the grace with which Julien had expressed the idea, and on the moment which he had chosen to do so. In any case he would have extricated himself well and advantageously from a situation which Mathilde was beginning to find monotonous. "And you love me no longer, me, who adores you!" said Julien to her one day, overcome by love and unhappiness. This piece of folly was perhaps the greatest which he could have committed. These words immediately destroyed all the pleasure which mademoiselle de la Mole found in talking to him about the state of her heart. She was beginning to be surprised that he did not, after what had happened, take offence at what she told him. She had even gone so far as to imagine at the very moment when he made that foolish remark that perhaps he did not love her any more. "His pride has doubtless extinguished his love," she was saying to herself. "He is not the man to sit still and see people like Caylus, de Luz, Croisenois whom he admits are so superior, preferred to him. No, I shall never see him at my feet again." Julien had often in the naivety of his unhappiness, during the previous days praised sincerely the brilliant qualities of these gentlemen; he would even go so far as to exaggerate them. This nuance had not escaped mademoiselle de la Mole, she was astonished by it, but did not guess its reason. Julien's frenzied soul, in praising a rival whom he thought was loved, was sympathising with his happiness. These frank but stupid words changed everything in a single moment; confident that she was loved, Mathilde despised him utterly. She was walking with him when he made his ill-timed remark; she left him, and her parting look expressed the most awful contempt. She returned to the salon and did not look at him again during the whole evening. This contempt monopolised her mind the following day. The impulse which during the last week had made her find so much pleasure in treating Julien as her most intimate friend was out of the question; the very sight of him was disagreeable. The sensation Mathilde felt reached the point of disgust; nothing can express the extreme contempt which she experienced when her eyes fell upon him. Julien had understood nothing of the history of Mathilde's heart during the last week, but he distinguished the contempt. He had the good sense only to appear before her on the rarest possible occasions, and never looked at her. But it was not without a mortal anguish that he, as it were, deprived himself of her presence. He thought he felt his unhappiness increasing still further. "The courage of a man's heart cannot be carried further," he said to himself. He passed his life seated at a little window at the top of the hotel; the blind was carefully closed, and from here at any rate he could see mademoiselle de la Mole when she appeared in the garden. What were his emotions when he saw her walking after dinner with M. de Caylus, M. de Luz, or some other for whom she had confessed to him some former amorous weakness! Julien had no idea that unhappiness could be so intense; he was on the point of shouting out. This firm soul was at last completely overwhelmed. Thinking about anything else except mademoiselle de la Mole had become odious to him; he became incapable of writing the simplest letters. "You are mad," the marquis said to him. Julien was frightened that his secret might be guessed, talked about illness and succeeded in being believed. Fortunately for him the marquis rallied him at dinner about his next journey; Mathilde understood that it might be a very long one. It was now several days that Julien had avoided her, and the brilliant young men who had all that this pale sombre being she had once loved was lacking, had no longer the power of drawing her out of her reverie. "An ordinary girl," she said to herself, "would have sought out the man she preferred among those young people who are the cynosure of a salon; but one of the characteristics of genius is not to drive its thoughts over the rut traced by the vulgar. "Why, if I were the companion of a man like Julien, who only lacks the fortune that I possess, I should be continually exciting attention, I should not pass through life unnoticed. Far from incessantly fearing a revolution like my cousins who are so frightened of the people that they have not the pluck to scold a postillion who drives them badly, I should be certain of playing a role and a great role, for the man whom I have chosen has a character and a boundless ambition. What does he lack? Friends, money? I will give them him." But she treated Julien in her thought as an inferior being whose love one could win whenever one wanted.

Part 2, Chapter 18

https://web.archive.org/web/20200920104425/https://www.shmoop.com/study-guides/literature/red-and-the-black/summary/part-2-chapter-18

Mathilde thinks back on how Julien almost murdered her in the library and figures that for some reason, this gesture makes him truly worthy of her. She walks up to Julien the next day and asks him to accompany her into the garden. Once they're alone, she starts talking to him about the state of her heart. She makes sure to talk as much as possible about all the other young men in her life. This tortures Julien. Finally, Julien tells her that he loves her and that he'll do anything for her. This destroys Mathilde's interest in him, since she only wanted him in the first place because he paid no attention to her. Now that he's groveling at her feet, she finds him repulsive.

sparknotes

all_chapterized_books/1232-chapters/26.txt

finished_summaries/sparknotes/The Prince/section_9_part_3.txt

The Prince.chapter xxvi

chapter xxvi

{"name": "Chapter XXVI", "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20210303115306/https://www.sparknotes.com/philosophy/prince/section10/", "summary": "An Exhortation to Free Italy from the Hands of the Barbarians Italy's current disarray favors the emergence of a new prince who will bring happiness to the Italian people. Until recently, there had been a prince who seemed ordained by heaven to redeem Italy. But a string of bad luck has prevented such an outcome. Lorenzo de' Medici is Italy's best hope. If he has learned from the great men named in The Prince, the salvation of Italy will not be difficult. For though those men were great, they were still only men, with no greater opportunities or grace than Lorenzo's own. Past wars and princes have failed to strengthen Italy because its military system was old and defective. To succeed, Lorenzo must create a national army. The Italian people are good fighters; only their leaders have failed. Lorenzo's army needs both good cavalry and infantry to defeat the Spaniards and the Swiss. Should a prince ever succeed in redeeming Italy, he would receive unending glory and be embraced in all the provinces with love.", "analysis": "Chapter XXV discusses the role of fortune in the determination of human affairs. Many thinkers have considered the question of whether a man's actions are a manifestation of his own free will, or if they are simply determined by fate or his environment. Machiavelli attempts to compromise between free will and determinism by arguing that fortune controls half of human actions and leaves the other half to free will. But Machiavelli also argues that, through foresight--a quality whose importance Machiavelli stresses throughout The Prince--people can shield themselves against fortune's slings and arrows. Thus, Machiavelli can be described as confident in the capabilities of human beings to shape their destinies, but skeptical that such control is absolute. Machiavelli ends The Prince with an impassioned plea to redeem Italy. Stylistically, he abandons his detached tone and utilizes exhortation and poetry to communicate nationalistic fervor. He implores Lorenzo, to whom the book is dedicated, to deliver Italy. Despite Machiavelli's efforts, the country would not be truly unified for another three and a half centuries. Some have argued that The Prince is really the manifestation of Machievelli's desire to see a strengthened Italy, not a detached work of political science. Historical references to Italy dominate the book, and Machiavelli clearly conceives the book as a means to expedite the successful unification of Italy. But The Prince's clear application to Machiavelli's home country does not distract from the book's relevance to philosophical questions. At the very least, it must be said that the book's influence spread further than the specific audience to which it was addressed. A desire to strengthen Italy might also serve as Machiavelli's ethical justification for the advice he has given. Machiavelli has previously argued that a prince cannot achieve success without sometimes resorting to ruthlessness. But Machiavelli never justifies the obtainment of political success as a worthwhile goal in itself. His concern with Italy would justify his logic: if the ultimate end is the glory of Italy, the end would justify the means. The Prince is full of historical references, but the final chapters place the book in a historical context. Moreover, these chapters give us some insight into the mind of the author and his motives for writing the book. They suggest that Machiavelli is not as diabolical as he is often portrayed"}

Having carefully considered the subject of the above discourses, and wondering within myself whether the present times were propitious to a new prince, and whether there were elements that would give an opportunity to a wise and virtuous one to introduce a new order of things which would do honour to him and good to the people of this country, it appears to me that so many things concur to favour a new prince that I never knew a time more fit than the present. And if, as I said, it was necessary that the people of Israel should be captive so as to make manifest the ability of Moses; that the Persians should be oppressed by the Medes so as to discover the greatness of the soul of Cyrus; and that the Athenians should be dispersed to illustrate the capabilities of Theseus: then at the present time, in order to discover the virtue of an Italian spirit, it was necessary that Italy should be reduced to the extremity that she is now in, that she should be more enslaved than the Hebrews, more oppressed than the Persians, more scattered than the Athenians; without head, without order, beaten, despoiled, torn, overrun; and to have endured every kind of desolation. Although lately some spark may have been shown by one, which made us think he was ordained by God for our redemption, nevertheless it was afterwards seen, in the height of his career, that fortune rejected him; so that Italy, left as without life, waits for him who shall yet heal her wounds and put an end to the ravaging and plundering of Lombardy, to the swindling and taxing of the kingdom and of Tuscany, and cleanse those sores that for long have festered. It is seen how she entreats God to send someone who shall deliver her from these wrongs and barbarous insolencies. It is seen also that she is ready and willing to follow a banner if only someone will raise it. Nor is there to be seen at present one in whom she can place more hope than in your illustrious house,(*) with its valour and fortune, favoured by God and by the Church of which it is now the chief, and which could be made the head of this redemption. This will not be difficult if you will recall to yourself the actions and lives of the men I have named. And although they were great and wonderful men, yet they were men, and each one of them had no more opportunity than the present offers, for their enterprises were neither more just nor easier than this, nor was God more their friend than He is yours. (*) Giuliano de Medici. He had just been created a cardinal by Leo X. In 1523 Giuliano was elected Pope, and took the title of Clement VII. With us there is great justice, because that war is just which is necessary, and arms are hallowed when there is no other hope but in them. Here there is the greatest willingness, and where the willingness is great the difficulties cannot be great if you will only follow those men to whom I have directed your attention. Further than this, how extraordinarily the ways of God have been manifested beyond example: the sea is divided, a cloud has led the way, the rock has poured forth water, it has rained manna, everything has contributed to your greatness; you ought to do the rest. God is not willing to do everything, and thus take away our free will and that share of glory which belongs to us. And it is not to be wondered at if none of the above-named Italians have been able to accomplish all that is expected from your illustrious house; and if in so many revolutions in Italy, and in so many campaigns, it has always appeared as if military virtue were exhausted, this has happened because the old order of things was not good, and none of us have known how to find a new one. And nothing honours a man more than to establish new laws and new ordinances when he himself was newly risen. Such things when they are well founded and dignified will make him revered and admired, and in Italy there are not wanting opportunities to bring such into use in every form. Here there is great valour in the limbs whilst it fails in the head. Look attentively at the duels and the hand-to-hand combats, how superior the Italians are in strength, dexterity, and subtlety. But when it comes to armies they do not bear comparison, and this springs entirely from the insufficiency of the leaders, since those who are capable are not obedient, and each one seems to himself to know, there having never been any one so distinguished above the rest, either by valour or fortune, that others would yield to him. Hence it is that for so long a time, and during so much fighting in the past twenty years, whenever there has been an army wholly Italian, it has always given a poor account of itself; the first witness to this is Il Taro, afterwards Allesandria, Capua, Genoa, Vaila, Bologna, Mestri.(*) (*) The battles of Il Taro, 1495; Alessandria, 1499; Capua, 1501; Genoa, 1507; Vaila, 1509; Bologna, 1511; Mestri, 1513. If, therefore, your illustrious house wishes to follow these remarkable men who have redeemed their country, it is necessary before all things, as a true foundation for every enterprise, to be provided with your own forces, because there can be no more faithful, truer, or better soldiers. And although singly they are good, altogether they will be much better when they find themselves commanded by their prince, honoured by him, and maintained at his expense. Therefore it is necessary to be prepared with such arms, so that you can be defended against foreigners by Italian valour. And although Swiss and Spanish infantry may be considered very formidable, nevertheless there is a defect in both, by reason of which a third order would not only be able to oppose them, but might be relied upon to overthrow them. For the Spaniards cannot resist cavalry, and the Switzers are afraid of infantry whenever they encounter them in close combat. Owing to this, as has been and may again be seen, the Spaniards are unable to resist French cavalry, and the Switzers are overthrown by Spanish infantry. And although a complete proof of this latter cannot be shown, nevertheless there was some evidence of it at the battle of Ravenna, when the Spanish infantry were confronted by German battalions, who follow the same tactics as the Swiss; when the Spaniards, by agility of body and with the aid of their shields, got in under the pikes of the Germans and stood out of danger, able to attack, while the Germans stood helpless, and, if the cavalry had not dashed up, all would have been over with them. It is possible, therefore, knowing the defects of both these infantries, to invent a new one, which will resist cavalry and not be afraid of infantry; this need not create a new order of arms, but a variation upon the old. And these are the kind of improvements which confer reputation and power upon a new prince. This opportunity, therefore, ought not to be allowed to pass for letting Italy at last see her liberator appear. Nor can one express the love with which he would be received in all those provinces which have suffered so much from these foreign scourings, with what thirst for revenge, with what stubborn faith, with what devotion, with what tears. What door would be closed to him? Who would refuse obedience to him? What envy would hinder him? What Italian would refuse him homage? To all of us this barbarous dominion stinks. Let, therefore, your illustrious house take up this charge with that courage and hope with which all just enterprises are undertaken, so that under its standard our native country may be ennobled, and under its auspices may be verified that saying of Petrarch: Virtu contro al Furore Prendera l'arme, e fia il combatter corto: Che l'antico valore Negli italici cuor non e ancor morto. Virtue against fury shall advance the fight, And it i' th' combat soon shall put to flight: For the old Roman valour is not dead, Nor in th' Italians' brests extinguished. Edward Dacre, 1640.

Chapter XXVI

https://web.archive.org/web/20210303115306/https://www.sparknotes.com/philosophy/prince/section10/

An Exhortation to Free Italy from the Hands of the Barbarians Italy's current disarray favors the emergence of a new prince who will bring happiness to the Italian people. Until recently, there had been a prince who seemed ordained by heaven to redeem Italy. But a string of bad luck has prevented such an outcome. Lorenzo de' Medici is Italy's best hope. If he has learned from the great men named in The Prince, the salvation of Italy will not be difficult. For though those men were great, they were still only men, with no greater opportunities or grace than Lorenzo's own. Past wars and princes have failed to strengthen Italy because its military system was old and defective. To succeed, Lorenzo must create a national army. The Italian people are good fighters; only their leaders have failed. Lorenzo's army needs both good cavalry and infantry to defeat the Spaniards and the Swiss. Should a prince ever succeed in redeeming Italy, he would receive unending glory and be embraced in all the provinces with love.

Chapter XXV discusses the role of fortune in the determination of human affairs. Many thinkers have considered the question of whether a man's actions are a manifestation of his own free will, or if they are simply determined by fate or his environment. Machiavelli attempts to compromise between free will and determinism by arguing that fortune controls half of human actions and leaves the other half to free will. But Machiavelli also argues that, through foresight--a quality whose importance Machiavelli stresses throughout The Prince--people can shield themselves against fortune's slings and arrows. Thus, Machiavelli can be described as confident in the capabilities of human beings to shape their destinies, but skeptical that such control is absolute. Machiavelli ends The Prince with an impassioned plea to redeem Italy. Stylistically, he abandons his detached tone and utilizes exhortation and poetry to communicate nationalistic fervor. He implores Lorenzo, to whom the book is dedicated, to deliver Italy. Despite Machiavelli's efforts, the country would not be truly unified for another three and a half centuries. Some have argued that The Prince is really the manifestation of Machievelli's desire to see a strengthened Italy, not a detached work of political science. Historical references to Italy dominate the book, and Machiavelli clearly conceives the book as a means to expedite the successful unification of Italy. But The Prince's clear application to Machiavelli's home country does not distract from the book's relevance to philosophical questions. At the very least, it must be said that the book's influence spread further than the specific audience to which it was addressed. A desire to strengthen Italy might also serve as Machiavelli's ethical justification for the advice he has given. Machiavelli has previously argued that a prince cannot achieve success without sometimes resorting to ruthlessness. But Machiavelli never justifies the obtainment of political success as a worthwhile goal in itself. His concern with Italy would justify his logic: if the ultimate end is the glory of Italy, the end would justify the means. The Prince is full of historical references, but the final chapters place the book in a historical context. Moreover, these chapters give us some insight into the mind of the author and his motives for writing the book. They suggest that Machiavelli is not as diabolical as he is often portrayed

shmoop

all_chapterized_books/1130-chapters/16.txt

finished_summaries/shmoop/The Tragedy of Antony and Cleopatra/section_15_part_0.txt

The Tragedy of Antony and Cleopatra.act iii.scene iv

act iii, scene iv

{"name": "Act III, Scene iv", "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20210116191009/https://www.shmoop.com/study-guides/literature/antony-cleopatra/summary/act-iii-scene-iv", "summary": "Back in Athens at Antony's house, Antony complains to Octavia of Caesar's behavior since their departure. Caesar has broken their pact and waged war against Pompey, not to mention he has railed against Antony in public. Octavia laments that she's monkey in the middle of this mess, and she pleads with him not to believe the reports against her brother. She wouldn't know whom to support in a quarrel between her brother and her husband. Antony tells her not to fear; he'll win back his honor by raising a war against Caesar. He sends his wife back to Rome to be with her brother while he prepares for war with Caesar.", "analysis": ""}

SCENE IV. Athens. ANTONY'S house Enter ANTONY and OCTAVIA ANTONY. Nay, nay, Octavia, not only that- That were excusable, that and thousands more Of semblable import- but he hath wag'd New wars 'gainst Pompey; made his will, and read it To public ear; Spoke scandy of me; when perforce he could not But pay me terms of honour, cold and sickly He vented them, most narrow measure lent me; When the best hint was given him, he not took't, Or did it from his teeth. OCTAVIA. O my good lord, Believe not all; or if you must believe, Stomach not all. A more unhappy lady, If this division chance, ne'er stood between, Praying for both parts. The good gods will mock me presently When I shall pray 'O, bless my lord and husband!' Undo that prayer by crying out as loud 'O, bless my brother!' Husband win, win brother, Prays, and destroys the prayer; no mid-way 'Twixt these extremes at all. ANTONY. Gentle Octavia, Let your best love draw to that point which seeks Best to preserve it. If I lose mine honour, I lose myself; better I were not yours Than yours so branchless. But, as you requested, Yourself shall go between's. The meantime, lady, I'll raise the preparation of a war Shall stain your brother. Make your soonest haste; So your desires are yours. OCTAVIA. Thanks to my lord. The Jove of power make me, most weak, most weak, Your reconciler! Wars 'twixt you twain would be As if the world should cleave, and that slain men Should solder up the rift. ANTONY. When it appears to you where this begins, Turn your displeasure that way, for our faults Can never be so equal that your love Can equally move with them. Provide your going; Choose your own company, and command what cost Your heart has mind to. Exeunt ACT_3|SC_5

Act III, Scene iv

https://web.archive.org/web/20210116191009/https://www.shmoop.com/study-guides/literature/antony-cleopatra/summary/act-iii-scene-iv

Back in Athens at Antony's house, Antony complains to Octavia of Caesar's behavior since their departure. Caesar has broken their pact and waged war against Pompey, not to mention he has railed against Antony in public. Octavia laments that she's monkey in the middle of this mess, and she pleads with him not to believe the reports against her brother. She wouldn't know whom to support in a quarrel between her brother and her husband. Antony tells her not to fear; he'll win back his honor by raising a war against Caesar. He sends his wife back to Rome to be with her brother while he prepares for war with Caesar.

shmoop

all_chapterized_books/44747-chapters/70.txt

finished_summaries/shmoop/The Red and the Black/section_69_part_0.txt

The Red and the Black.part 2.chapter 40

part 2, chapter 40

{"name": "Part 2, Chapter 40", "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20200920104425/https://www.shmoop.com/study-guides/literature/red-and-the-black/summary/part-2-chapter-40", "summary": "Julien's defense lawyer finally shows up, but Julien just tells him what he's been telling everyone else: he shot Madame de Renal with the intent to kill. The lawyer thinks Julien is crazy. Things are looking good for Julien nonetheless. More than half of the jurors selected for his trial are people that the vicar-general has some influence over. Meanwhile, Madame de Renal has realized that she still loves Julien. She writes a letter to the judge saying that she forgives Julien and doesn't want him killed for his actions.", "analysis": ""}

CHAPTER LXX TRANQUILITY It is because I was foolish then that I am wise to-day. Oh thou philosopher who seest nothing except the actual instant. How short-sighted are thy views! Thine eye is not adapted to follow the subterranean work of the passions.--_M. Goethe_. This conversation was interrupted by an interrogation followed by a conference with the advocate entrusted with the defence. These moments were the only absolutely unpleasant ones in a life made up of nonchalance and tender reveries. "There is murder, and murder with premeditation," said Julien to the judge as he had done to the advocate, "I am sorry, gentlemen, he added with a smile, that this reduces your functions to a very small compass." "After all," said Julien to himself, when he had managed to rid himself of those two persons, "I must really be brave, and apparently braver than those two men. They regard that duel with an unfortunate termination, which I can only seriously bother myself about on the actual day, as the greatest of evils and the arch-terror." "The fact is that I have known a much greater unhappiness," continued Julien, as he went on philosophising with himself. "I suffered far more acutely during my first journey to Strasbourg, when I thought I was abandoned by Mathilde--and to think that I desired so passionately that same perfect intimacy which to-day leaves me so cold--as a matter of fact I am more happy alone than when that handsome girl shares my solitude." The advocate, who was a red-tape pedant, thought him mad, and believed, with the public, that it was jealousy which had lead him to take up the pistol. He ventured one day to give Julien to understand that this contention, whether true or false, would be an excellent way of pleading. But the accused man became in a single minute a passionate and drastic individual. "As you value your life, monsieur," exclaimed Julien, quite beside himself, "mind you never put forward such an abominable lie." The cautious advocate was for a moment afraid of being assassinated. He was preparing his case because the decisive moment was drawing near. The only topic of conversation in Besancon, and all the department, was the _cause celebre_. Julien did not know of this circumstance. He had requested his friends never to talk to him about that kind of thing. On this particular day, Fouque and Mathilde had tried to inform him of certain rumours which in their view were calculated to give hope. Julien had stopped them at the very first word. "Leave me my ideal life. Your pettifogging troubles and details of practical life all more or less jar on me and bring me down from my heaven. One dies as best one can: but I wish to chose my own way of thinking about death. What do I care for other people? My relations with other people will be sharply cut short. Be kind enough not to talk to me any more about those people. Seeing the judge and the advocate is more than enough." "As a matter of fact," he said to himself, "it seems that I am fated to die dreaming. An obscure creature like myself, who is certain to be forgotten within a fortnight, would be very silly, one must admit, to go and play a part. It is nevertheless singular that I never knew so much about the art of enjoying life, as since I have seen its end so near me." He passed his last day in promenading upon the narrow terrace at the top of the turret, smoking some excellent cigars which Mathilde had had fetched from Holland by a courier. He had no suspicion that his appearance was waited for each day by all the telescopes in the town. His thoughts were at Vergy. He never spoke to Fouque about madame de Renal, but his friend told him two or three times that she was rapidly recovering, and these words reverberated in his heart. While Julien's soul was nearly all the time wholly in the realm of ideas, Mathilde, who, as befits an aristocratic spirit, had occupied herself with concrete things, had managed to make the direct and intimate correspondence between madame de Fervaques and M. de Frilair progress so far that the great word bishopric had been already pronounced. The venerable prelate, who was entrusted with the distribution of the benefices, added in a postscript to one of his niece's letters, "This poor Sorel is only a lunatic. I hope he will be restored to us." At the sight of these lines, M. de Frilair felt transported. He had no doubts about saving Julien. "But for this Jacobin law which has ordered the formation of an unending panel of jurymen, and which has no other real object, except to deprive well-born people of all their influence," he said to Mathilde on the eve of the balloting for the thirty-six jurymen of the session, "I would have answered for the verdict. I certainly managed to get the cure N---- acquitted." When the names were selected by ballot on the following day, M. de Frilair experienced a genuine pleasure in finding that they contained five members of the Besancon congregation and that amongst those who were strangers to the town were the names of MM. Valenod, de Moirod, de Cholin. I can answer for these eight jurymen he said to Mathilde. The first five are mere machines, Valenod is my agent: Moirod owes me everything: de Cholin is an imbecile who is frightened of everything. The journal published the names of the jurymen throughout the department, and to her husband's unspeakable terror, madame de Renal wished to go to Besancon. All that M. de Renal could prevail on her to promise was that she would not leave her bed so as to avoid the unpleasantness of being called to give evidence. "You do not understand my position," said the former mayor of Verrieres. "I am now said to be disloyal and a Liberal. No doubt that scoundrel Valenod and M. de Frilair will get the procureur-general and the judges to do all they can to cause me unpleasantness." Madame de Renal found no difficulty in yielding to her husband's orders. "If I appear at the assize court," she said to herself, "I should seem as if I were asking for vengeance." In spite of all the promises she had made to the director of her conscience and to her husband that she would be discreet, she had scarcely arrived at Besancon before she wrote with her own hand to each of the thirty-six jurymen:-- "I shall not appear on the day of the trial, monsieur, because my presence might be prejudicial to M. Sorel's case. I only desire one thing in the world, and that I desire passionately--for him to be saved. Have no doubt about it, the awful idea that I am the cause of an innocent man being led to his death would poison the rest of my life and would no doubt curtail it. How can you condemn him to death while I continue to live? No, there is no doubt about it, society has no right to take away a man's life, and above all, the life of a being like Julien Sorel. Everyone at Verrieres knew that there were moments when he was quite distracted. This poor young man has some powerful enemies, but even among his enemies, (and how many has he not got?) who is there who casts any doubt on his admirable talents and his deep knowledge? The man whom you are going to try, monsieur, is not an ordinary person. For a period of nearly eighteen months we all knew him as a devout and well behaved student. Two or three times in the year he was seized by fits of melancholy that went to the point of distraction. The whole town of Verrieres, all our neighbours at Vergy, where we live in the fine weather, my whole family, and monsieur the sub-prefect himself will render justice to his exemplary piety. He knows all the Holy Bible by heart. Would a blasphemer have spent years of study in learning the Sacred Book. My sons will have the honour of presenting you with this letter, they are children. Be good enough to question them, monsieur, they will give you all the details concerning this poor young man which are necessary to convince you of how barbarous it would be to condemn him. Far from revenging me, you would be putting me to death. "What can his enemies argue against this? The wound, which was the result of one of those moments of madness, which my children themselves used to remark in their tutor, is so little dangerous than in less than two months it has allowed me to take the post from Verrieres to Besancon. If I learn, monsieur, that you show the slightest hesitation in releasing so innocent a person from the barbarity of the law, I will leave my bed, where I am only kept by my husband's express orders, and I will go and throw myself at your feet. Bring in a verdict, monsieur, that the premeditation has not been made out, and you will not have an innocent man's blood on your head, etc."

Part 2, Chapter 40

https://web.archive.org/web/20200920104425/https://www.shmoop.com/study-guides/literature/red-and-the-black/summary/part-2-chapter-40

Julien's defense lawyer finally shows up, but Julien just tells him what he's been telling everyone else: he shot Madame de Renal with the intent to kill. The lawyer thinks Julien is crazy. Things are looking good for Julien nonetheless. More than half of the jurors selected for his trial are people that the vicar-general has some influence over. Meanwhile, Madame de Renal has realized that she still loves Julien. She writes a letter to the judge saying that she forgives Julien and doesn't want him killed for his actions.

cliffnotes

all_chapterized_books/107-chapters/06.txt

finished_summaries/cliffnotes/Far from the Madding Crowd/section_5_part_0.txt

Far from the Madding Crowd.chapter 6

chapter 6

{"name": "Chapter 6", "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20201101052914/https://www.cliffsnotes.com/literature/f/far-from-the-madding-crowd/summary-and-analysis/chapter-6", "summary": "Casterbridge was holding its February hiring fair. A few hundred hearty workers stood about, each showing the symbol of his trade: carters, a bit of whipcord on their hats; thatchers, straw; shepherds, their crooks. One young fellow's \"superiority was marked enough to lead several ruddy peasants standing by to speak to him inquiringly, as to a farmer, and to use 'Sir' as a finishing word. His answer always was, -- 'I am looking for a place myself -- a bailiff's.'\" No one seemed to need bailiffs. Toward the end of the day, Gabriel went to have a shepherd's crook fashioned, and he also exchanged his overcoat for a regulation smock. Now, ironically, bailiffs were in demand; yet prospective employers seemed to edge away when Gabriel said he'd lost his farm. Watching the evening's merriment, Gabriel felt his flute in his pocket. \"Here was an opportunity for putting his dearly bought wisdom into practice.\" His tunes were so well received that soon he had earned enough pence to feel more secure. There was another fair in Shottsford the next day. Hearing that this town lay beyond Weatherbury, Gabriel thought of Bathsheba and resolved to go to the fair via Weatherbury. After going about four miles in that direction, he saw a haywagon without horses beside the road and lay down in it for a rest. After dark he wakened to find the wagon in motion. He eavesdropped on the conversation of the two men in front and conjectured that the vain woman whom they were discussing was Bathsheba. Dismissing the thought, since the woman under discussion seemed to be the owner of a large farm, he slipped out of the wagon unseen. Suddenly Gabriel saw a fire in the distance. As he ran toward it, he realized that the fire was in a rickyard. His familiarity with the nature of burning hay drove him to hurry to save it before it enveloped the piled-up corn. Others were converging on the fire, too. In the general confusion, Gabriel stood out as one who naturally takes command. To one side stood two veiled women. They identified Gabriel as a shepherd, for he was wielding a crook, but no one seemed to know him. Finally the fire was extinguished. One of the women sent the other, her maid, to thank Gabriel. The maid told Gabriel that the other woman owned the farm. Gabriel approached her, saying, \"Do you happen to want a shepherd, ma'am?\" Silently, the astonished Bathsheba lifted her veil. Gabriel mechanically repeated his question.", "analysis": "This long chapter abounds with architectural terminology and with evidence of Hardy's skills as an artist and a writer. We view masses of people in motion, but from the immense canvas detailed individual figures emerge as well. Hardy portrays many facets of the fair -- speech, customs, costumes, indigenous trades, a sergeant, and a recruiter. Gabriel continues his service as an on-the-spot observer for Hardy. The farmer has been matured by the reverses he has experienced and is learning to compromise. Even as the workers are \"waiting on Chance,\" so is Gabriel. In Hardy's works, many such evidences of belief in fate and fortune exist. Oak's effort to \"help\" the fates by changing his costume is unavailing. When he decides to continue to Shottsford in his search for employment, the motivation is not too farfetched, for there are not many roads to choose; he is poor and cannot afford an inn. His rest in the wagon and the overheard conversation give Hardy an opportunity to introduce more dialect and to further characterize the Wessex folk. The animation of the fire scene is a dramatization of country life and of some of the hazards encountered in the seemingly serene landscape."}

THE FAIR--THE JOURNEY--THE FIRE Two months passed away. We are brought on to a day in February, on which was held the yearly statute or hiring fair in the county-town of Casterbridge. At one end of the street stood from two to three hundred blithe and hearty labourers waiting upon Chance--all men of the stamp to whom labour suggests nothing worse than a wrestle with gravitation, and pleasure nothing better than a renunciation of the same. Among these, carters and waggoners were distinguished by having a piece of whip-cord twisted round their hats; thatchers wore a fragment of woven straw; shepherds held their sheep-crooks in their hands; and thus the situation required was known to the hirers at a glance. In the crowd was an athletic young fellow of somewhat superior appearance to the rest--in fact, his superiority was marked enough to lead several ruddy peasants standing by to speak to him inquiringly, as to a farmer, and to use "Sir" as a finishing word. His answer always was,-- "I am looking for a place myself--a bailiff's. Do ye know of anybody who wants one?" Gabriel was paler now. His eyes were more meditative, and his expression was more sad. He had passed through an ordeal of wretchedness which had given him more than it had taken away. He had sunk from his modest elevation as pastoral king into the very slime-pits of Siddim; but there was left to him a dignified calm he had never before known, and that indifference to fate which, though it often makes a villain of a man, is the basis of his sublimity when it does not. And thus the abasement had been exaltation, and the loss gain. In the morning a regiment of cavalry had left the town, and a sergeant and his party had been beating up for recruits through the four streets. As the end of the day drew on, and he found himself not hired, Gabriel almost wished that he had joined them, and gone off to serve his country. Weary of standing in the market-place, and not much minding the kind of work he turned his hand to, he decided to offer himself in some other capacity than that of bailiff. All the farmers seemed to be wanting shepherds. Sheep-tending was Gabriel's speciality. Turning down an obscure street and entering an obscurer lane, he went up to a smith's shop. "How long would it take you to make a shepherd's crook?" "Twenty minutes." "How much?" "Two shillings." He sat on a bench and the crook was made, a stem being given him into the bargain. He then went to a ready-made clothes' shop, the owner of which had a large rural connection. As the crook had absorbed most of Gabriel's money, he attempted, and carried out, an exchange of his overcoat for a shepherd's regulation smock-frock. This transaction having been completed, he again hurried off to the centre of the town, and stood on the kerb of the pavement, as a shepherd, crook in hand. Now that Oak had turned himself into a shepherd, it seemed that bailiffs were most in demand. However, two or three farmers noticed him and drew near. Dialogues followed, more or less in the subjoined form:-- "Where do you come from?" "Norcombe." "That's a long way. "Fifteen miles." "Who's farm were you upon last?" "My own." This reply invariably operated like a rumour of cholera. The inquiring farmer would edge away and shake his head dubiously. Gabriel, like his dog, was too good to be trustworthy, and he never made advance beyond this point. It is safer to accept any chance that offers itself, and extemporize a procedure to fit it, than to get a good plan matured, and wait for a chance of using it. Gabriel wished he had not nailed up his colours as a shepherd, but had laid himself out for anything in the whole cycle of labour that was required in the fair. It grew dusk. Some merry men were whistling and singing by the corn-exchange. Gabriel's hand, which had lain for some time idle in his smock-frock pocket, touched his flute which he carried there. Here was an opportunity for putting his dearly bought wisdom into practice. He drew out his flute and began to play "Jockey to the Fair" in the style of a man who had never known moment's sorrow. Oak could pipe with Arcadian sweetness, and the sound of the well-known notes cheered his own heart as well as those of the loungers. He played on with spirit, and in half an hour had earned in pence what was a small fortune to a destitute man. By making inquiries he learnt that there was another fair at Shottsford the next day. "How far is Shottsford?" "Ten miles t'other side of Weatherbury." Weatherbury! It was where Bathsheba had gone two months before. This information was like coming from night into noon. "How far is it to Weatherbury?" "Five or six miles." Bathsheba had probably left Weatherbury long before this time, but the place had enough interest attaching to it to lead Oak to choose Shottsford fair as his next field of inquiry, because it lay in the Weatherbury quarter. Moreover, the Weatherbury folk were by no means uninteresting intrinsically. If report spoke truly they were as hardy, merry, thriving, wicked a set as any in the whole county. Oak resolved to sleep at Weatherbury that night on his way to Shottsford, and struck out at once into the high road which had been recommended as the direct route to the village in question. The road stretched through water-meadows traversed by little brooks, whose quivering surfaces were braided along their centres, and folded into creases at the sides; or, where the flow was more rapid, the stream was pied with spots of white froth, which rode on in undisturbed serenity. On the higher levels the dead and dry carcasses of leaves tapped the ground as they bowled along helter-skelter upon the shoulders of the wind, and little birds in the hedges were rustling their feathers and tucking themselves in comfortably for the night, retaining their places if Oak kept moving, but flying away if he stopped to look at them. He passed by Yalbury Wood where the game-birds were rising to their roosts, and heard the crack-voiced cock-pheasants "cu-uck, cuck," and the wheezy whistle of the hens. By the time he had walked three or four miles every shape in the landscape had assumed a uniform hue of blackness. He descended Yalbury Hill and could just discern ahead of him a waggon, drawn up under a great over-hanging tree by the roadside. On coming close, he found there were no horses attached to it, the spot being apparently quite deserted. The waggon, from its position, seemed to have been left there for the night, for beyond about half a truss of hay which was heaped in the bottom, it was quite empty. Gabriel sat down on the shafts of the vehicle and considered his position. He calculated that he had walked a very fair proportion of the journey; and having been on foot since daybreak, he felt tempted to lie down upon the hay in the waggon instead of pushing on to the village of Weatherbury, and having to pay for a lodging. Eating his last slices of bread and ham, and drinking from the bottle of cider he had taken the precaution to bring with him, he got into the lonely waggon. Here he spread half of the hay as a bed, and, as well as he could in the darkness, pulled the other half over him by way of bed-clothes, covering himself entirely, and feeling, physically, as comfortable as ever he had been in his life. Inward melancholy it was impossible for a man like Oak, introspective far beyond his neighbours, to banish quite, whilst conning the present untoward page of his history. So, thinking of his misfortunes, amorous and pastoral, he fell asleep, shepherds enjoying, in common with sailors, the privilege of being able to summon the god instead of having to wait for him. On somewhat suddenly awaking, after a sleep of whose length he had no idea, Oak found that the waggon was in motion. He was being carried along the road at a rate rather considerable for a vehicle without springs, and under circumstances of physical uneasiness, his head being dandled up and down on the bed of the waggon like a kettledrum-stick. He then distinguished voices in conversation, coming from the forpart of the waggon. His concern at this dilemma (which would have been alarm, had he been a thriving man; but misfortune is a fine opiate to personal terror) led him to peer cautiously from the hay, and the first sight he beheld was the stars above him. Charles's Wain was getting towards a right angle with the Pole star, and Gabriel concluded that it must be about nine o'clock--in other words, that he had slept two hours. This small astronomical calculation was made without any positive effort, and whilst he was stealthily turning to discover, if possible, into whose hands he had fallen. Two figures were dimly visible in front, sitting with their legs outside the waggon, one of whom was driving. Gabriel soon found that this was the waggoner, and it appeared they had come from Casterbridge fair, like himself. A conversation was in progress, which continued thus:-- "Be as 'twill, she's a fine handsome body as far's looks be concerned. But that's only the skin of the woman, and these dandy cattle be as proud as a lucifer in their insides." "Ay--so 'a do seem, Billy Smallbury--so 'a do seem." This utterance was very shaky by nature, and more so by circumstance, the jolting of the waggon not being without its effect upon the speaker's larynx. It came from the man who held the reins. "She's a very vain feymell--so 'tis said here and there." "Ah, now. If so be 'tis like that, I can't look her in the face. Lord, no: not I--heh-heh-heh! Such a shy man as I be!" "Yes--she's very vain. 'Tis said that every night at going to bed she looks in the glass to put on her night-cap properly." "And not a married woman. Oh, the world!" "And 'a can play the peanner, so 'tis said. Can play so clever that 'a can make a psalm tune sound as well as the merriest loose song a man can wish for." "D'ye tell o't! A happy time for us, and I feel quite a new man! And how do she pay?" "That I don't know, Master Poorgrass." On hearing these and other similar remarks, a wild thought flashed into Gabriel's mind that they might be speaking of Bathsheba. There were, however, no grounds for retaining such a supposition, for the waggon, though going in the direction of Weatherbury, might be going beyond it, and the woman alluded to seemed to be the mistress of some estate. They were now apparently close upon Weatherbury and not to alarm the speakers unnecessarily, Gabriel slipped out of the waggon unseen. He turned to an opening in the hedge, which he found to be a gate, and mounting thereon, he sat meditating whether to seek a cheap lodging in the village, or to ensure a cheaper one by lying under some hay or corn-stack. The crunching jangle of the waggon died upon his ear. He was about to walk on, when he noticed on his left hand an unusual light--appearing about half a mile distant. Oak watched it, and the glow increased. Something was on fire. Gabriel again mounted the gate, and, leaping down on the other side upon what he found to be ploughed soil, made across the field in the exact direction of the fire. The blaze, enlarging in a double ratio by his approach and its own increase, showed him as he drew nearer the outlines of ricks beside it, lighted up to great distinctness. A rick-yard was the source of the fire. His weary face now began to be painted over with a rich orange glow, and the whole front of his smock-frock and gaiters was covered with a dancing shadow pattern of thorn-twigs--the light reaching him through a leafless intervening hedge--and the metallic curve of his sheep-crook shone silver-bright in the same abounding rays. He came up to the boundary fence, and stood to regain breath. It seemed as if the spot was unoccupied by a living soul. The fire was issuing from a long straw-stack, which was so far gone as to preclude a possibility of saving it. A rick burns differently from a house. As the wind blows the fire inwards, the portion in flames completely disappears like melting sugar, and the outline is lost to the eye. However, a hay or a wheat-rick, well put together, will resist combustion for a length of time, if it begins on the outside. This before Gabriel's eyes was a rick of straw, loosely put together, and the flames darted into it with lightning swiftness. It glowed on the windward side, rising and falling in intensity, like the coal of a cigar. Then a superincumbent bundle rolled down, with a whisking noise; flames elongated, and bent themselves about with a quiet roar, but no crackle. Banks of smoke went off horizontally at the back like passing clouds, and behind these burned hidden pyres, illuminating the semi-transparent sheet of smoke to a lustrous yellow uniformity. Individual straws in the foreground were consumed in a creeping movement of ruddy heat, as if they were knots of red worms, and above shone imaginary fiery faces, tongues hanging from lips, glaring eyes, and other impish forms, from which at intervals sparks flew in clusters like birds from a nest. Oak suddenly ceased from being a mere spectator by discovering the case to be more serious than he had at first imagined. A scroll of smoke blew aside and revealed to him a wheat-rick in startling juxtaposition with the decaying one, and behind this a series of others, composing the main corn produce of the farm; so that instead of the straw-stack standing, as he had imagined comparatively isolated, there was a regular connection between it and the remaining stacks of the group. Gabriel leapt over the hedge, and saw that he was not alone. The first man he came to was running about in a great hurry, as if his thoughts were several yards in advance of his body, which they could never drag on fast enough. "O, man--fire, fire! A good master and a bad servant is fire, fire!--I mane a bad servant and a good master. Oh, Mark Clark--come! And you, Billy Smallbury--and you, Maryann Money--and you, Jan Coggan, and Matthew there!" Other figures now appeared behind this shouting man and among the smoke, and Gabriel found that, far from being alone he was in a great company--whose shadows danced merrily up and down, timed by the jigging of the flames, and not at all by their owners' movements. The assemblage--belonging to that class of society which casts its thoughts into the form of feeling, and its feelings into the form of commotion--set to work with a remarkable confusion of purpose. "Stop the draught under the wheat-rick!" cried Gabriel to those nearest to him. The corn stood on stone staddles, and between these, tongues of yellow hue from the burning straw licked and darted playfully. If the fire once got UNDER this stack, all would be lost. "Get a tarpaulin--quick!" said Gabriel. A rick-cloth was brought, and they hung it like a curtain across the channel. The flames immediately ceased to go under the bottom of the corn-stack, and stood up vertical. "Stand here with a bucket of water and keep the cloth wet." said Gabriel again. The flames, now driven upwards, began to attack the angles of the huge roof covering the wheat-stack. "A ladder," cried Gabriel. "The ladder was against the straw-rick and is burnt to a cinder," said a spectre-like form in the smoke. Oak seized the cut ends of the sheaves, as if he were going to engage in the operation of "reed-drawing," and digging in his feet, and occasionally sticking in the stem of his sheep-crook, he clambered up the beetling face. He at once sat astride the very apex, and began with his crook to beat off the fiery fragments which had lodged thereon, shouting to the others to get him a bough and a ladder, and some water. Billy Smallbury--one of the men who had been on the waggon--by this time had found a ladder, which Mark Clark ascended, holding on beside Oak upon the thatch. The smoke at this corner was stifling, and Clark, a nimble fellow, having been handed a bucket of water, bathed Oak's face and sprinkled him generally, whilst Gabriel, now with a long beech-bough in one hand, in addition to his crook in the other, kept sweeping the stack and dislodging all fiery particles. On the ground the groups of villagers were still occupied in doing all they could to keep down the conflagration, which was not much. They were all tinged orange, and backed up by shadows of varying pattern. Round the corner of the largest stack, out of the direct rays of the fire, stood a pony, bearing a young woman on its back. By her side was another woman, on foot. These two seemed to keep at a distance from the fire, that the horse might not become restive. "He's a shepherd," said the woman on foot. "Yes--he is. See how his crook shines as he beats the rick with it. And his smock-frock is burnt in two holes, I declare! A fine young shepherd he is too, ma'am." "Whose shepherd is he?" said the equestrian in a clear voice. "Don't know, ma'am." "Don't any of the others know?" "Nobody at all--I've asked 'em. Quite a stranger, they say." The young woman on the pony rode out from the shade and looked anxiously around. "Do you think the barn is safe?" she said. "D'ye think the barn is safe, Jan Coggan?" said the second woman, passing on the question to the nearest man in that direction. "Safe-now--leastwise I think so. If this rick had gone the barn would have followed. 'Tis that bold shepherd up there that have done the most good--he sitting on the top o' rick, whizzing his great long-arms about like a windmill." "He does work hard," said the young woman on horseback, looking up at Gabriel through her thick woollen veil. "I wish he was shepherd here. Don't any of you know his name." "Never heard the man's name in my life, or seed his form afore." The fire began to get worsted, and Gabriel's elevated position being no longer required of him, he made as if to descend. "Maryann," said the girl on horseback, "go to him as he comes down, and say that the farmer wishes to thank him for the great service he has done." Maryann stalked off towards the rick and met Oak at the foot of the ladder. She delivered her message. "Where is your master the farmer?" asked Gabriel, kindling with the idea of getting employment that seemed to strike him now. "'Tisn't a master; 'tis a mistress, shepherd." "A woman farmer?" "Ay, 'a b'lieve, and a rich one too!" said a bystander. "Lately 'a came here from a distance. Took on her uncle's farm, who died suddenly. Used to measure his money in half-pint cups. They say now that she've business in every bank in Casterbridge, and thinks no more of playing pitch-and-toss sovereign than you and I, do pitch-halfpenny--not a bit in the world, shepherd." "That's she, back there upon the pony," said Maryann; "wi' her face a-covered up in that black cloth with holes in it." Oak, his features smudged, grimy, and undiscoverable from the smoke and heat, his smock-frock burnt into holes and dripping with water, the ash stem of his sheep-crook charred six inches shorter, advanced with the humility stern adversity had thrust upon him up to the slight female form in the saddle. He lifted his hat with respect, and not without gallantry: stepping close to her hanging feet he said in a hesitating voice,-- "Do you happen to want a shepherd, ma'am?" She lifted the wool veil tied round her face, and looked all astonishment. Gabriel and his cold-hearted darling, Bathsheba Everdene, were face to face. Bathsheba did not speak, and he mechanically repeated in an abashed and sad voice,-- "Do you want a shepherd, ma'am?"

Chapter 6

https://web.archive.org/web/20201101052914/https://www.cliffsnotes.com/literature/f/far-from-the-madding-crowd/summary-and-analysis/chapter-6

Casterbridge was holding its February hiring fair. A few hundred hearty workers stood about, each showing the symbol of his trade: carters, a bit of whipcord on their hats; thatchers, straw; shepherds, their crooks. One young fellow's "superiority was marked enough to lead several ruddy peasants standing by to speak to him inquiringly, as to a farmer, and to use 'Sir' as a finishing word. His answer always was, -- 'I am looking for a place myself -- a bailiff's.'" No one seemed to need bailiffs. Toward the end of the day, Gabriel went to have a shepherd's crook fashioned, and he also exchanged his overcoat for a regulation smock. Now, ironically, bailiffs were in demand; yet prospective employers seemed to edge away when Gabriel said he'd lost his farm. Watching the evening's merriment, Gabriel felt his flute in his pocket. "Here was an opportunity for putting his dearly bought wisdom into practice." His tunes were so well received that soon he had earned enough pence to feel more secure. There was another fair in Shottsford the next day. Hearing that this town lay beyond Weatherbury, Gabriel thought of Bathsheba and resolved to go to the fair via Weatherbury. After going about four miles in that direction, he saw a haywagon without horses beside the road and lay down in it for a rest. After dark he wakened to find the wagon in motion. He eavesdropped on the conversation of the two men in front and conjectured that the vain woman whom they were discussing was Bathsheba. Dismissing the thought, since the woman under discussion seemed to be the owner of a large farm, he slipped out of the wagon unseen. Suddenly Gabriel saw a fire in the distance. As he ran toward it, he realized that the fire was in a rickyard. His familiarity with the nature of burning hay drove him to hurry to save it before it enveloped the piled-up corn. Others were converging on the fire, too. In the general confusion, Gabriel stood out as one who naturally takes command. To one side stood two veiled women. They identified Gabriel as a shepherd, for he was wielding a crook, but no one seemed to know him. Finally the fire was extinguished. One of the women sent the other, her maid, to thank Gabriel. The maid told Gabriel that the other woman owned the farm. Gabriel approached her, saying, "Do you happen to want a shepherd, ma'am?" Silently, the astonished Bathsheba lifted her veil. Gabriel mechanically repeated his question.

This long chapter abounds with architectural terminology and with evidence of Hardy's skills as an artist and a writer. We view masses of people in motion, but from the immense canvas detailed individual figures emerge as well. Hardy portrays many facets of the fair -- speech, customs, costumes, indigenous trades, a sergeant, and a recruiter. Gabriel continues his service as an on-the-spot observer for Hardy. The farmer has been matured by the reverses he has experienced and is learning to compromise. Even as the workers are "waiting on Chance," so is Gabriel. In Hardy's works, many such evidences of belief in fate and fortune exist. Oak's effort to "help" the fates by changing his costume is unavailing. When he decides to continue to Shottsford in his search for employment, the motivation is not too farfetched, for there are not many roads to choose; he is poor and cannot afford an inn. His rest in the wagon and the overheard conversation give Hardy an opportunity to introduce more dialect and to further characterize the Wessex folk. The animation of the fire scene is a dramatization of country life and of some of the hazards encountered in the seemingly serene landscape.

pinkmonkey

all_chapterized_books/110-chapters/43.txt

finished_summaries/pinkmonkey/Tess of the D'Urbervilles/section_16_part_1.txt

Tess of the D'Urbervilles.chapter 42

chapter 42

{"name": "CHAPTER 42", "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20180820050202/http://www.pinkmonkey.com/booknotes/monkeynotes/pmTessD52.asp", "summary": "After the encounter with the Trantridge man, Tess decides that she must make herself unattractive to prevent further incidents. She puts on her ugliest clothes and ties her hair up in a handkerchief. When she arrives at her destination, Marian is astonished at her appearance and questions her about Angel. Tess finds temporary work at the farm. She writes to her parents, giving them her new address; but she does not tell them of her situation.", "analysis": "Notes Tess continues to be very hard on herself. She never feels that Angel did anything wrong to her, but readily accepts that she is being punished for her own wrongdoings. She refuses to say anything bad about her husband at all. She also blames herself for the affair with Alec and the pursuit by the Trantridge man. To add to her misery, Tess also finds Flintcomb-Ash to be hard. The setting is dreary, especially in comparison to the lush fields around the dairy farms; the soil is not fertile and is very hard to work and the camaraderie found at Talbothay's is missing from this farm. Fortunately, there is one bright spot for Tess. Marian becomes her loyal friend, who is willing to help in all sorts of ways"}

It was now broad day, and she started again, emerging cautiously upon the highway. But there was no need for caution; not a soul was at hand, and Tess went onward with fortitude, her recollection of the birds' silent endurance of their night of agony impressing upon her the relativity of sorrows and the tolerable nature of her own, if she could once rise high enough to despise opinion. But that she could not do so long as it was held by Clare. She reached Chalk-Newton, and breakfasted at an inn, where several young men were troublesomely complimentary to her good looks. Somehow she felt hopeful, for was it not possible that her husband also might say these same things to her even yet? She was bound to take care of herself on the chance of it, and keep off these casual lovers. To this end Tess resolved to run no further risks from her appearance. As soon as she got out of the village she entered a thicket and took from her basket one of the oldest field-gowns, which she had never put on even at the dairy--never since she had worked among the stubble at Marlott. She also, by a felicitous thought, took a handkerchief from her bundle and tied it round her face under her bonnet, covering her chin and half her cheeks and temples, as if she were suffering from toothache. Then with her little scissors, by the aid of a pocket looking-glass, she mercilessly nipped her eyebrows off, and thus insured against aggressive admiration, she went on her uneven way. "What a mommet of a maid!" said the next man who met her to a companion. Tears came into her eyes for very pity of herself as she heard him. "But I don't care!" she said. "O no--I don't care! I'll always be ugly now, because Angel is not here, and I have nobody to take care of me. My husband that was is gone away, and never will love me any more; but I love him just the same, and hate all other men, and like to make 'em think scornfully of me!" Thus Tess walks on; a figure which is part of the landscape; a fieldwoman pure and simple, in winter guise; a gray serge cape, a red woollen cravat, a stuff skirt covered by a whitey-brown rough wrapper, and buff-leather gloves. Every thread of that old attire has become faded and thin under the stroke of raindrops, the burn of sunbeams, and the stress of winds. There is no sign of young passion in her now-- The maiden's mouth is cold . . . Fold over simple fold Binding her head. Inside this exterior, over which the eye might have roved as over a thing scarcely percipient, almost inorganic, there was the record of a pulsing life which had learnt too well, for its years, of the dust and ashes of things, of the cruelty of lust and the fragility of love. Next day the weather was bad, but she trudged on, the honesty, directness, and impartiality of elemental enmity disconcerting her but little. Her object being a winter's occupation and a winter's home, there was no time to lose. Her experience of short hirings had been such that she was determined to accept no more. Thus she went forward from farm to farm in the direction of the place whence Marian had written to her, which she determined to make use of as a last shift only, its rumoured stringencies being the reverse of tempting. First she inquired for the lighter kinds of employment, and, as acceptance in any variety of these grew hopeless, applied next for the less light, till, beginning with the dairy and poultry tendance that she liked best, she ended with the heavy and course pursuits which she liked least--work on arable land: work of such roughness, indeed, as she would never have deliberately voluteered for. Towards the second evening she reached the irregular chalk table-land or plateau, bosomed with semi-globular tumuli--as if Cybele the Many-breasted were supinely extended there--which stretched between the valley of her birth and the valley of her love. Here the air was dry and cold, and the long cart-roads were blown white and dusty within a few hours after rain. There were few trees, or none, those that would have grown in the hedges being mercilessly plashed down with the quickset by the tenant-farmers, the natural enemies of tree, bush, and brake. In the middle distance ahead of her she could see the summits of Bulbarrow and of Nettlecombe Tout, and they seemed friendly. They had a low and unassuming aspect from this upland, though as approached on the other side from Blackmoor in her childhood they were as lofty bastions against the sky. Southerly, at many miles' distance, and over the hills and ridges coastward, she could discern a surface like polished steel: it was the English Channel at a point far out towards France. Before her, in a slight depression, were the remains of a village. She had, in fact, reached Flintcomb-Ash, the place of Marian's sojourn. There seemed to be no help for it; hither she was doomed to come. The stubborn soil around her showed plainly enough that the kind of labour in demand here was of the roughest kind; but it was time to rest from searching, and she resolved to stay, particularly as it began to rain. At the entrance to the village was a cottage whose gable jutted into the road, and before applying for a lodging she stood under its shelter, and watched the evening close in. "Who would think I was Mrs Angel Clare!" she said. The wall felt warm to her back and shoulders, and she found that immediately within the gable was the cottage fireplace, the heat of which came through the bricks. She warmed her hands upon them, and also put her cheek--red and moist with the drizzle--against their comforting surface. The wall seemed to be the only friend she had. She had so little wish to leave it that she could have stayed there all night. Tess could hear the occupants of the cottage--gathered together after their day's labour--talking to each other within, and the rattle of their supper-plates was also audible. But in the village-street she had seen no soul as yet. The solitude was at last broken by the approach of one feminine figure, who, though the evening was cold, wore the print gown and the tilt-bonnet of summer time. Tess instinctively thought it might be Marian, and when she came near enough to be distinguishable in the gloom, surely enough it was she. Marian was even stouter and redder in the face than formerly, and decidedly shabbier in attire. At any previous period of her existence Tess would hardly have cared to renew the acquaintance in such conditions; but her loneliness was excessive, and she responded readily to Marian's greeting. Marian was quite respectful in her inquiries, but seemed much moved by the fact that Tess should still continue in no better condition than at first; though she had dimly heard of the separation. "Tess--Mrs Clare--the dear wife of dear he! And is it really so bad as this, my child? Why is your cwomely face tied up in such a way? Anybody been beating 'ee? Not HE?" "No, no, no! I merely did it not to be clipsed or colled, Marian." She pulled off in disgust a bandage which could suggest such wild thoughts. "And you've got no collar on" (Tess had been accustomed to wear a little white collar at the dairy). "I know it, Marian." "You've lost it travelling." "I've not lost it. The truth is, I don't care anything about my looks; and so I didn't put it on." "And you don't wear your wedding-ring?" "Yes, I do; but not in public. I wear it round my neck on a ribbon. I don't wish people to think who I am by marriage, or that I am married at all; it would be so awkward while I lead my present life." Marian paused. "But you BE a gentleman's wife; and it seems hardly fair that you should live like this!" "O yes it is, quite fair; though I am very unhappy." "Well, well. HE married you--and you can be unhappy!" "Wives are unhappy sometimes; from no fault of their husbands--from their own." "You've no faults, deary; that I'm sure of. And he's none. So it must be something outside ye both." "Marian, dear Marian, will you do me a good turn without asking questions? My husband has gone abroad, and somehow I have overrun my allowance, so that I have to fall back upon my old work for a time. Do not call me Mrs Clare, but Tess, as before. Do they want a hand here?" "O yes; they'll take one always, because few care to come. 'Tis a starve-acre place. Corn and swedes are all they grow. Though I be here myself, I feel 'tis a pity for such as you to come." "But you used to be as good a dairywoman as I." "Yes; but I've got out o' that since I took to drink. Lord, that's the only comfort I've got now! If you engage, you'll be set swede-hacking. That's what I be doing; but you won't like it." "O--anything! Will you speak for me?" "You will do better by speaking for yourself." "Very well. Now, Marian, remember--nothing about HIM if I get the place. I don't wish to bring his name down to the dirt." Marian, who was really a trustworthy girl though of coarser grain than Tess, promised anything she asked. "This is pay-night," she said, "and if you were to come with me you would know at once. I be real sorry that you are not happy; but 'tis because he's away, I know. You couldn't be unhappy if he were here, even if he gie'd ye no money--even if he used you like a drudge." "That's true; I could not!" They walked on together and soon reached the farmhouse, which was almost sublime in its dreariness. There was not a tree within sight; there was not, at this season, a green pasture--nothing but fallow and turnips everywhere, in large fields divided by hedges plashed to unrelieved levels. Tess waited outside the door of the farmhouse till the group of workfolk had received their wages, and then Marian introduced her. The farmer himself, it appeared, was not at home, but his wife, who represented him this evening, made no objection to hiring Tess, on her agreeing to remain till Old Lady-Day. Female field-labour was seldom offered now, and its cheapness made it profitable for tasks which women could perform as readily as men. Having signed the agreement, there was nothing more for Tess to do at present than to get a lodging, and she found one in the house at whose gable-wall she had warmed herself. It was a poor subsistence that she had ensured, but it would afford a shelter for the winter at any rate. That night she wrote to inform her parents of her new address, in case a letter should arrive at Marlott from her husband. But she did not tell them of the sorriness of her situation: it might have brought reproach upon him.

CHAPTER 42

https://web.archive.org/web/20180820050202/http://www.pinkmonkey.com/booknotes/monkeynotes/pmTessD52.asp

After the encounter with the Trantridge man, Tess decides that she must make herself unattractive to prevent further incidents. She puts on her ugliest clothes and ties her hair up in a handkerchief. When she arrives at her destination, Marian is astonished at her appearance and questions her about Angel. Tess finds temporary work at the farm. She writes to her parents, giving them her new address; but she does not tell them of her situation.

Notes Tess continues to be very hard on herself. She never feels that Angel did anything wrong to her, but readily accepts that she is being punished for her own wrongdoings. She refuses to say anything bad about her husband at all. She also blames herself for the affair with Alec and the pursuit by the Trantridge man. To add to her misery, Tess also finds Flintcomb-Ash to be hard. The setting is dreary, especially in comparison to the lush fields around the dairy farms; the soil is not fertile and is very hard to work and the camaraderie found at Talbothay's is missing from this farm. Fortunately, there is one bright spot for Tess. Marian becomes her loyal friend, who is willing to help in all sorts of ways

gradesaver

all_chapterized_books/107-chapters/chapters_21_to_27.txt

finished_summaries/gradesaver/Far from the Madding Crowd/section_3_part_0.txt

Far from the Madding Crowd.chapters 21-27

chapters 21-27

{"name": "Chapters 21-27", "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20210108004047/https://www.gradesaver.com/far-from-the-madding-crowd/study-guide/summary-chapters-21-27", "summary": "In June, it is time for the sheep shearing. While shearing in the barn, Gabriel notices that Boldwood has come to speak with Bathsheba. He is distracted by speculating about the nature of their conversation and wounds one of the sheep, leading Bathsheba to rebuke him. After Boldwood and Bathsheba ride off together, the other farmworkers speculate that the two of them will soon marry. After the shearing is finished, Bathsheba and her workers celebrate with a traditional shearing-supper. At the end of supper, when Boldwood and Bathsheba are alone together, she tells him that she is willing to consider marrying him but wants more time to think about it. She tells him that she expects she will be able to give him a definitive answer by harvest time. That night, Bathsheba follows her nightly routine of walking around the property and inspecting it before going to bed. As she passes through the fir plantation, a man in military dress walks up behind her, and her skirt gets accidentally hooked onto the spur of his boot. He tries to free her and during the time spent untangling the knot, he identifies himself as Sergeant Troy. Troy also compliments Bathsheba's beauty and flirts with her, making her uncomfortable. When she is freed, she hurries home and asks Liddy if she knows anything about this man. Liddy explains that Troy is well-educated and from a good family, and that he also has a reputation as a flirt and a ladies' man. A week after the shearing, Bathsheba goes to supervise her workers as they load hay and finds that Troy has come to help them. He approaches her and the two flirt with each other, although Bathsheba is somewhat guarded and skeptical. She is shocked when Troy impulsively gives her a watch that belonged to his father. The next day, he comes to the farm again and helps her with her beehive. She mentions that she would like to see him perform his sword exercises and they make a plan to meet that evening in secret. When they meet, Troy dazzles her with his skill as a swordsman and his bold charm. He kisses her before he leaves, leaving Bathsheba overwhelmed and confused by her feelings.", "analysis": "Bathsheba's situation was already complicated as she tried to come to a decision about Boldwood's proposal, but the encounter with Troy throws another suitor into the mix. With both Gabriel and Boldwood, Bathsheba could be detached and rational about what was in her best interest. With Troy, it is immediately clear that she is going to be led by her emotions and desires. The scene in which they meet is rich with symbolism: as a woman walking alone at night, Bathsheba is to some extent in a dangerous situation, and the sudden presence of a man walking near her has the initial possibility of being threatening. When her dress catches on his spur, she is symbolically ensnared or captured by him. Paradoxically, Bathsheba seems to find this vulnerable and relatively helpless situation to be exciting and arousing. The scene is one of the rare moments in the novel where she embodies a more traditionally feminine role of being dependent on a man to resolve a situation for her. The idea that this dependency might have destructive consequences becomes clear when she pleads with Troy to rip her dress in order to set her free: this moment foreshadows the future in which she will endure suffering and damage in order to try and escape from her unhappy marriage. In her subsequent interactions with Troy, Bathsheba wavers back and forth between being somewhat conservative and traditional, and quite reckless in her behavior. She is curious about his reputation, which she reveals by seeking information from Liddy. In a world where reputation and an honorable public identity were major parts of what made someone worthy of respect, Bathsheba is anxious to find out how Troy is perceived. She is also conservative enough to be shocked and somewhat distressed by Troy giving away his father's watch. In a more traditional worldview, an expensive item that is also a family heirloom would not be discarded lightly. However, by agreeing to meet Troy alone in the woods at night, Bathsheba takes a significant risk. This action reflects the precarious freedom of her independent and autonomous position; because she is effectively the head of her own household, Bathsheba has no one to supervise or try and control her behavior. This means that she can do things it would be difficult for other young women of her social position to get away with. Not only does she sneak off alone with him, Bathsheba allows Troy relatively intimate access to her body as he practices his sword exercises with her as a target. There is a literal danger in terms of the injury she could sustain if his sword were to slip, but there is also the symbolic danger of what this sexually charged flirtation could lead to. Troy's sword takes on a clear phallic symbolism in this scene; it is a source of danger for Bathsheba, but she is entranced and seduced by it."}

TROUBLES IN THE FOLD--A MESSAGE Gabriel Oak had ceased to feed the Weatherbury flock for about four-and-twenty hours, when on Sunday afternoon the elderly gentlemen Joseph Poorgrass, Matthew Moon, Fray, and half-a-dozen others, came running up to the house of the mistress of the Upper Farm. "Whatever IS the matter, men?" she said, meeting them at the door just as she was coming out on her way to church, and ceasing in a moment from the close compression of her two red lips, with which she had accompanied the exertion of pulling on a tight glove. "Sixty!" said Joseph Poorgrass. "Seventy!" said Moon. "Fifty-nine!" said Susan Tall's husband. "--Sheep have broke fence," said Fray. "--And got into a field of young clover," said Tall. "--Young clover!" said Moon. "--Clover!" said Joseph Poorgrass. "And they be getting blasted," said Henery Fray. "That they be," said Joseph. "And will all die as dead as nits, if they bain't got out and cured!" said Tall. Joseph's countenance was drawn into lines and puckers by his concern. Fray's forehead was wrinkled both perpendicularly and crosswise, after the pattern of a portcullis, expressive of a double despair. Laban Tall's lips were thin, and his face was rigid. Matthew's jaws sank, and his eyes turned whichever way the strongest muscle happened to pull them. "Yes," said Joseph, "and I was sitting at home, looking for Ephesians, and says I to myself, ''Tis nothing but Corinthians and Thessalonians in this danged Testament,' when who should come in but Henery there: 'Joseph,' he said, 'the sheep have blasted theirselves--'" With Bathsheba it was a moment when thought was speech and speech exclamation. Moreover, she had hardly recovered her equanimity since the disturbance which she had suffered from Oak's remarks. "That's enough--that's enough!--oh, you fools!" she cried, throwing the parasol and Prayer-book into the passage, and running out of doors in the direction signified. "To come to me, and not go and get them out directly! Oh, the stupid numskulls!" Her eyes were at their darkest and brightest now. Bathsheba's beauty belonging rather to the demonian than to the angelic school, she never looked so well as when she was angry--and particularly when the effect was heightened by a rather dashing velvet dress, carefully put on before a glass. All the ancient men ran in a jumbled throng after her to the clover-field, Joseph sinking down in the midst when about half-way, like an individual withering in a world which was more and more insupportable. Having once received the stimulus that her presence always gave them they went round among the sheep with a will. The majority of the afflicted animals were lying down, and could not be stirred. These were bodily lifted out, and the others driven into the adjoining field. Here, after the lapse of a few minutes, several more fell down, and lay helpless and livid as the rest. Bathsheba, with a sad, bursting heart, looked at these primest specimens of her prime flock as they rolled there-- Swoln with wind and the rank mist they drew. Many of them foamed at the mouth, their breathing being quick and short, whilst the bodies of all were fearfully distended. "Oh, what can I do, what can I do!" said Bathsheba, helplessly. "Sheep are such unfortunate animals!--there's always something happening to them! I never knew a flock pass a year without getting into some scrape or other." "There's only one way of saving them," said Tall. "What way? Tell me quick!" "They must be pierced in the side with a thing made on purpose." "Can you do it? Can I?" "No, ma'am. We can't, nor you neither. It must be done in a particular spot. If ye go to the right or left but an inch you stab the ewe and kill her. Not even a shepherd can do it, as a rule." "Then they must die," she said, in a resigned tone. "Only one man in the neighbourhood knows the way," said Joseph, now just come up. "He could cure 'em all if he were here." "Who is he? Let's get him!" "Shepherd Oak," said Matthew. "Ah, he's a clever man in talents!" "Ah, that he is so!" said Joseph Poorgrass. "True--he's the man," said Laban Tall. "How dare you name that man in my presence!" she said excitedly. "I told you never to allude to him, nor shall you if you stay with me. Ah!" she added, brightening, "Farmer Boldwood knows!" "O no, ma'am" said Matthew. "Two of his store ewes got into some vetches t'other day, and were just like these. He sent a man on horseback here post-haste for Gable, and Gable went and saved 'em. Farmer Boldwood hev got the thing they do it with. 'Tis a holler pipe, with a sharp pricker inside. Isn't it, Joseph?" "Ay--a holler pipe," echoed Joseph. "That's what 'tis." "Ay, sure--that's the machine," chimed in Henery Fray, reflectively, with an Oriental indifference to the flight of time. "Well," burst out Bathsheba, "don't stand there with your 'ayes' and your 'sures' talking at me! Get somebody to cure the sheep instantly!" All then stalked off in consternation, to get somebody as directed, without any idea of who it was to be. In a minute they had vanished through the gate, and she stood alone with the dying flock. "Never will I send for him--never!" she said firmly. One of the ewes here contracted its muscles horribly, extended itself, and jumped high into the air. The leap was an astonishing one. The ewe fell heavily, and lay still. Bathsheba went up to it. The sheep was dead. "Oh, what shall I do--what shall I do!" she again exclaimed, wringing her hands. "I won't send for him. No, I won't!" The most vigorous expression of a resolution does not always coincide with the greatest vigour of the resolution itself. It is often flung out as a sort of prop to support a decaying conviction which, whilst strong, required no enunciation to prove it so. The "No, I won't" of Bathsheba meant virtually, "I think I must." She followed her assistants through the gate, and lifted her hand to one of them. Laban answered to her signal. "Where is Oak staying?" "Across the valley at Nest Cottage!" "Jump on the bay mare, and ride across, and say he must return instantly--that I say so." Tall scrambled off to the field, and in two minutes was on Poll, the bay, bare-backed, and with only a halter by way of rein. He diminished down the hill. Bathsheba watched. So did all the rest. Tall cantered along the bridle-path through Sixteen Acres, Sheeplands, Middle Field, The Flats, Cappel's Piece, shrank almost to a point, crossed the bridge, and ascended from the valley through Springmead and Whitepits on the other side. The cottage to which Gabriel had retired before taking his final departure from the locality was visible as a white spot on the opposite hill, backed by blue firs. Bathsheba walked up and down. The men entered the field and endeavoured to ease the anguish of the dumb creatures by rubbing them. Nothing availed. Bathsheba continued walking. The horse was seen descending the hill, and the wearisome series had to be repeated in reverse order: Whitepits, Springmead, Cappel's Piece, The Flats, Middle Field, Sheeplands, Sixteen Acres. She hoped Tall had had presence of mind enough to give the mare up to Gabriel, and return himself on foot. The rider neared them. It was Tall. "Oh, what folly!" said Bathsheba. Gabriel was not visible anywhere. "Perhaps he is already gone!" she said. Tall came into the inclosure, and leapt off, his face tragic as Morton's after the battle of Shrewsbury. "Well?" said Bathsheba, unwilling to believe that her verbal _lettre-de-cachet_ could possibly have miscarried. "He says BEGGARS MUSTN'T BE CHOOSERS," replied Laban. "What!" said the young farmer, opening her eyes and drawing in her breath for an outburst. Joseph Poorgrass retired a few steps behind a hurdle. "He says he shall not come onless you request en to come civilly and in a proper manner, as becomes any 'ooman begging a favour." "Oh, oh, that's his answer! Where does he get his airs? Who am I, then, to be treated like that? Shall I beg to a man who has begged to me?" Another of the flock sprang into the air, and fell dead. The men looked grave, as if they suppressed opinion. Bathsheba turned aside, her eyes full of tears. The strait she was in through pride and shrewishness could not be disguised longer: she burst out crying bitterly; they all saw it; and she attempted no further concealment. "I wouldn't cry about it, miss," said William Smallbury, compassionately. "Why not ask him softer like? I'm sure he'd come then. Gable is a true man in that way." Bathsheba checked her grief and wiped her eyes. "Oh, it is a wicked cruelty to me--it is--it is!" she murmured. "And he drives me to do what I wouldn't; yes, he does!--Tall, come indoors." After this collapse, not very dignified for the head of an establishment, she went into the house, Tall at her heels. Here she sat down and hastily scribbled a note between the small convulsive sobs of convalescence which follow a fit of crying as a ground-swell follows a storm. The note was none the less polite for being written in a hurry. She held it at a distance, was about to fold it, then added these words at the bottom:-- "DO NOT DESERT ME, GABRIEL!" She looked a little redder in refolding it, and closed her lips, as if thereby to suspend till too late the action of conscience in examining whether such strategy were justifiable. The note was despatched as the message had been, and Bathsheba waited indoors for the result. It was an anxious quarter of an hour that intervened between the messenger's departure and the sound of the horse's tramp again outside. She could not watch this time, but, leaning over the old bureau at which she had written the letter, closed her eyes, as if to keep out both hope and fear. The case, however, was a promising one. Gabriel was not angry: he was simply neutral, although her first command had been so haughty. Such imperiousness would have damned a little less beauty; and on the other hand, such beauty would have redeemed a little less imperiousness. She went out when the horse was heard, and looked up. A mounted figure passed between her and the sky, and drew on towards the field of sheep, the rider turning his face in receding. Gabriel looked at her. It was a moment when a woman's eyes and tongue tell distinctly opposite tales. Bathsheba looked full of gratitude, and she said:-- "Oh, Gabriel, how could you serve me so unkindly!" Such a tenderly-shaped reproach for his previous delay was the one speech in the language that he could pardon for not being commendation of his readiness now. Gabriel murmured a confused reply, and hastened on. She knew from the look which sentence in her note had brought him. Bathsheba followed to the field. Gabriel was already among the turgid, prostrate forms. He had flung off his coat, rolled up his shirt-sleeves, and taken from his pocket the instrument of salvation. It was a small tube or trochar, with a lance passing down the inside; and Gabriel began to use it with a dexterity that would have graced a hospital surgeon. Passing his hand over the sheep's left flank, and selecting the proper point, he punctured the skin and rumen with the lance as it stood in the tube; then he suddenly withdrew the lance, retaining the tube in its place. A current of air rushed up the tube, forcible enough to have extinguished a candle held at the orifice. It has been said that mere ease after torment is delight for a time; and the countenances of these poor creatures expressed it now. Forty-nine operations were successfully performed. Owing to the great hurry necessitated by the far-gone state of some of the flock, Gabriel missed his aim in one case, and in one only--striking wide of the mark, and inflicting a mortal blow at once upon the suffering ewe. Four had died; three recovered without an operation. The total number of sheep which had thus strayed and injured themselves so dangerously was fifty-seven. When the love-led man had ceased from his labours, Bathsheba came and looked him in the face. "Gabriel, will you stay on with me?" she said, smiling winningly, and not troubling to bring her lips quite together again at the end, because there was going to be another smile soon. "I will," said Gabriel. And she smiled on him again. THE GREAT BARN AND THE SHEEP-SHEARERS Men thin away to insignificance and oblivion quite as often by not making the most of good spirits when they have them as by lacking good spirits when they are indispensable. Gabriel lately, for the first time since his prostration by misfortune, had been independent in thought and vigorous in action to a marked extent--conditions which, powerless without an opportunity as an opportunity without them is barren, would have given him a sure lift upwards when the favourable conjunction should have occurred. But this incurable loitering beside Bathsheba Everdene stole his time ruinously. The spring tides were going by without floating him off, and the neap might soon come which could not. It was the first day of June, and the sheep-shearing season culminated, the landscape, even to the leanest pasture, being all health and colour. Every green was young, every pore was open, and every stalk was swollen with racing currents of juice. God was palpably present in the country, and the devil had gone with the world to town. Flossy catkins of the later kinds, fern-sprouts like bishops' croziers, the square-headed moschatel, the odd cuckoo-pint,--like an apoplectic saint in a niche of malachite,--snow-white ladies'-smocks, the toothwort, approximating to human flesh, the enchanter's night-shade, and the black-petaled doleful-bells, were among the quainter objects of the vegetable world in and about Weatherbury at this teeming time; and of the animal, the metamorphosed figures of Mr. Jan Coggan, the master-shearer; the second and third shearers, who travelled in the exercise of their calling, and do not require definition by name; Henery Fray the fourth shearer, Susan Tall's husband the fifth, Joseph Poorgrass the sixth, young Cain Ball as assistant-shearer, and Gabriel Oak as general supervisor. None of these were clothed to any extent worth mentioning, each appearing to have hit in the matter of raiment the decent mean between a high and low caste Hindoo. An angularity of lineament, and a fixity of facial machinery in general, proclaimed that serious work was the order of the day. They sheared in the great barn, called for the nonce the Shearing-barn, which on ground-plan resembled a church with transepts. It not only emulated the form of the neighbouring church of the parish, but vied with it in antiquity. Whether the barn had ever formed one of a group of conventual buildings nobody seemed to be aware; no trace of such surroundings remained. The vast porches at the sides, lofty enough to admit a waggon laden to its highest with corn in the sheaf, were spanned by heavy-pointed arches of stone, broadly and boldly cut, whose very simplicity was the origin of a grandeur not apparent in erections where more ornament has been attempted. The dusky, filmed, chestnut roof, braced and tied in by huge collars, curves, and diagonals, was far nobler in design, because more wealthy in material, than nine-tenths of those in our modern churches. Along each side wall was a range of striding buttresses, throwing deep shadows on the spaces between them, which were perforated by lancet openings, combining in their proportions the precise requirements both of beauty and ventilation. One could say about this barn, what could hardly be said of either the church or the castle, akin to it in age and style, that the purpose which had dictated its original erection was the same with that to which it was still applied. Unlike and superior to either of those two typical remnants of mediaevalism, the old barn embodied practices which had suffered no mutilation at the hands of time. Here at least the spirit of the ancient builders was at one with the spirit of the modern beholder. Standing before this abraded pile, the eye regarded its present usage, the mind dwelt upon its past history, with a satisfied sense of functional continuity throughout--a feeling almost of gratitude, and quite of pride, at the permanence of the idea which had heaped it up. The fact that four centuries had neither proved it to be founded on a mistake, inspired any hatred of its purpose, nor given rise to any reaction that had battered it down, invested this simple grey effort of old minds with a repose, if not a grandeur, which a too curious reflection was apt to disturb in its ecclesiastical and military compeers. For once mediaevalism and modernism had a common stand-point. The lanceolate windows, the time-eaten archstones and chamfers, the orientation of the axis, the misty chestnut work of the rafters, referred to no exploded fortifying art or worn-out religious creed. The defence and salvation of the body by daily bread is still a study, a religion, and a desire. To-day the large side doors were thrown open towards the sun to admit a bountiful light to the immediate spot of the shearers' operations, which was the wood threshing-floor in the centre, formed of thick oak, black with age and polished by the beating of flails for many generations, till it had grown as slippery and as rich in hue as the state-room floors of an Elizabethan mansion. Here the shearers knelt, the sun slanting in upon their bleached shirts, tanned arms, and the polished shears they flourished, causing these to bristle with a thousand rays strong enough to blind a weak-eyed man. Beneath them a captive sheep lay panting, quickening its pants as misgiving merged in terror, till it quivered like the hot landscape outside. This picture of to-day in its frame of four hundred years ago did not produce that marked contrast between ancient and modern which is implied by the contrast of date. In comparison with cities, Weatherbury was immutable. The citizen's THEN is the rustic's NOW. In London, twenty or thirty-years ago are old times; in Paris ten years, or five; in Weatherbury three or four score years were included in the mere present, and nothing less than a century set a mark on its face or tone. Five decades hardly modified the cut of a gaiter, the embroidery of a smock-frock, by the breadth of a hair. Ten generations failed to alter the turn of a single phrase. In these Wessex nooks the busy outsider's ancient times are only old; his old times are still new; his present is futurity. So the barn was natural to the shearers, and the shearers were in harmony with the barn. The spacious ends of the building, answering ecclesiastically to nave and chancel extremities, were fenced off with hurdles, the sheep being all collected in a crowd within these two enclosures; and in one angle a catching-pen was formed, in which three or four sheep were continuously kept ready for the shearers to seize without loss of time. In the background, mellowed by tawny shade, were the three women, Maryann Money, and Temperance and Soberness Miller, gathering up the fleeces and twisting ropes of wool with a wimble for tying them round. They were indifferently well assisted by the old maltster, who, when the malting season from October to April had passed, made himself useful upon any of the bordering farmsteads. Behind all was Bathsheba, carefully watching the men to see that there was no cutting or wounding through carelessness, and that the animals were shorn close. Gabriel, who flitted and hovered under her bright eyes like a moth, did not shear continuously, half his time being spent in attending to the others and selecting the sheep for them. At the present moment he was engaged in handing round a mug of mild liquor, supplied from a barrel in the corner, and cut pieces of bread and cheese. Bathsheba, after throwing a glance here, a caution there, and lecturing one of the younger operators who had allowed his last finished sheep to go off among the flock without re-stamping it with her initials, came again to Gabriel, as he put down the luncheon to drag a frightened ewe to his shear-station, flinging it over upon its back with a dexterous twist of the arm. He lopped off the tresses about its head, and opened up the neck and collar, his mistress quietly looking on. "She blushes at the insult," murmured Bathsheba, watching the pink flush which arose and overspread the neck and shoulders of the ewe where they were left bare by the clicking shears--a flush which was enviable, for its delicacy, by many queens of coteries, and would have been creditable, for its promptness, to any woman in the world. Poor Gabriel's soul was fed with a luxury of content by having her over him, her eyes critically regarding his skilful shears, which apparently were going to gather up a piece of the flesh at every close, and yet never did so. Like Guildenstern, Oak was happy in that he was not over happy. He had no wish to converse with her: that his bright lady and himself formed one group, exclusively their own, and containing no others in the world, was enough. So the chatter was all on her side. There is a loquacity that tells nothing, which was Bathsheba's; and there is a silence which says much: that was Gabriel's. Full of this dim and temperate bliss, he went on to fling the ewe over upon her other side, covering her head with his knee, gradually running the shears line after line round her dewlap; thence about her flank and back, and finishing over the tail. "Well done, and done quickly!" said Bathsheba, looking at her watch as the last snip resounded. "How long, miss?" said Gabriel, wiping his brow. "Three-and-twenty minutes and a half since you took the first lock from its forehead. It is the first time that I have ever seen one done in less than half an hour." The clean, sleek creature arose from its fleece--how perfectly like Aphrodite rising from the foam should have been seen to be realized--looking startled and shy at the loss of its garment, which lay on the floor in one soft cloud, united throughout, the portion visible being the inner surface only, which, never before exposed, was white as snow, and without flaw or blemish of the minutest kind. "Cain Ball!" "Yes, Mister Oak; here I be!" Cainy now runs forward with the tar-pot. "B. E." is newly stamped upon the shorn skin, and away the simple dam leaps, panting, over the board into the shirtless flock outside. Then up comes Maryann; throws the loose locks into the middle of the fleece, rolls it up, and carries it into the background as three-and-a-half pounds of unadulterated warmth for the winter enjoyment of persons unknown and far away, who will, however, never experience the superlative comfort derivable from the wool as it here exists, new and pure--before the unctuousness of its nature whilst in a living state has dried, stiffened, and been washed out--rendering it just now as superior to anything WOOLLEN as cream is superior to milk-and-water. But heartless circumstance could not leave entire Gabriel's happiness of this morning. The rams, old ewes, and two-shear ewes had duly undergone their stripping, and the men were proceeding with the shear-lings and hogs, when Oak's belief that she was going to stand pleasantly by and time him through another performance was painfully interrupted by Farmer Boldwood's appearance in the extremest corner of the barn. Nobody seemed to have perceived his entry, but there he certainly was. Boldwood always carried with him a social atmosphere of his own, which everybody felt who came near him; and the talk, which Bathsheba's presence had somewhat suppressed, was now totally suspended. He crossed over towards Bathsheba, who turned to greet him with a carriage of perfect ease. He spoke to her in low tones, and she instinctively modulated her own to the same pitch, and her voice ultimately even caught the inflection of his. She was far from having a wish to appear mysteriously connected with him; but woman at the impressionable age gravitates to the larger body not only in her choice of words, which is apparent every day, but even in her shades of tone and humour, when the influence is great. What they conversed about was not audible to Gabriel, who was too independent to get near, though too concerned to disregard. The issue of their dialogue was the taking of her hand by the courteous farmer to help her over the spreading-board into the bright June sunlight outside. Standing beside the sheep already shorn, they went on talking again. Concerning the flock? Apparently not. Gabriel theorized, not without truth, that in quiet discussion of any matter within reach of the speakers' eyes, these are usually fixed upon it. Bathsheba demurely regarded a contemptible straw lying upon the ground, in a way which suggested less ovine criticism than womanly embarrassment. She became more or less red in the cheek, the blood wavering in uncertain flux and reflux over the sensitive space between ebb and flood. Gabriel sheared on, constrained and sad. She left Boldwood's side, and he walked up and down alone for nearly a quarter of an hour. Then she reappeared in her new riding-habit of myrtle green, which fitted her to the waist as a rind fits its fruit; and young Bob Coggan led on her mare, Boldwood fetching his own horse from the tree under which it had been tied. Oak's eyes could not forsake them; and in endeavouring to continue his shearing at the same time that he watched Boldwood's manner, he snipped the sheep in the groin. The animal plunged; Bathsheba instantly gazed towards it, and saw the blood. "Oh, Gabriel!" she exclaimed, with severe remonstrance, "you who are so strict with the other men--see what you are doing yourself!" To an outsider there was not much to complain of in this remark; but to Oak, who knew Bathsheba to be well aware that she herself was the cause of the poor ewe's wound, because she had wounded the ewe's shearer in a still more vital part, it had a sting which the abiding sense of his inferiority to both herself and Boldwood was not calculated to heal. But a manly resolve to recognize boldly that he had no longer a lover's interest in her, helped him occasionally to conceal a feeling. "Bottle!" he shouted, in an unmoved voice of routine. Cainy Ball ran up, the wound was anointed, and the shearing continued. Boldwood gently tossed Bathsheba into the saddle, and before they turned away she again spoke out to Oak with the same dominative and tantalizing graciousness. "I am going now to see Mr. Boldwood's Leicesters. Take my place in the barn, Gabriel, and keep the men carefully to their work." The horses' heads were put about, and they trotted away. Boldwood's deep attachment was a matter of great interest among all around him; but, after having been pointed out for so many years as the perfect exemplar of thriving bachelorship, his lapse was an anticlimax somewhat resembling that of St. John Long's death by consumption in the midst of his proofs that it was not a fatal disease. "That means matrimony," said Temperance Miller, following them out of sight with her eyes. "I reckon that's the size o't," said Coggan, working along without looking up. "Well, better wed over the mixen than over the moor," said Laban Tall, turning his sheep. Henery Fray spoke, exhibiting miserable eyes at the same time: "I don't see why a maid should take a husband when she's bold enough to fight her own battles, and don't want a home; for 'tis keeping another woman out. But let it be, for 'tis a pity he and she should trouble two houses." As usual with decided characters, Bathsheba invariably provoked the criticism of individuals like Henery Fray. Her emblazoned fault was to be too pronounced in her objections, and not sufficiently overt in her likings. We learn that it is not the rays which bodies absorb, but those which they reject, that give them the colours they are known by; and in the same way people are specialized by their dislikes and antagonisms, whilst their goodwill is looked upon as no attribute at all. Henery continued in a more complaisant mood: "I once hinted my mind to her on a few things, as nearly as a battered frame dared to do so to such a froward piece. You all know, neighbours, what a man I be, and how I come down with my powerful words when my pride is boiling wi' scarn?" "We do, we do, Henery." "So I said, 'Mistress Everdene, there's places empty, and there's gifted men willing; but the spite'--no, not the spite--I didn't say spite--'but the villainy of the contrarikind,' I said (meaning womankind), 'keeps 'em out.' That wasn't too strong for her, say?" "Passably well put." "Yes; and I would have said it, had death and salvation overtook me for it. Such is my spirit when I have a mind." "A true man, and proud as a lucifer." "You see the artfulness? Why, 'twas about being baily really; but I didn't put it so plain that she could understand my meaning, so I could lay it on all the stronger. That was my depth! ... However, let her marry an she will. Perhaps 'tis high time. I believe Farmer Boldwood kissed her behind the spear-bed at the sheep-washing t'other day--that I do." "What a lie!" said Gabriel. "Ah, neighbour Oak--how'st know?" said, Henery, mildly. "Because she told me all that passed," said Oak, with a pharisaical sense that he was not as other shearers in this matter. "Ye have a right to believe it," said Henery, with dudgeon; "a very true right. But I mid see a little distance into things! To be long-headed enough for a baily's place is a poor mere trifle--yet a trifle more than nothing. However, I look round upon life quite cool. Do you heed me, neighbours? My words, though made as simple as I can, mid be rather deep for some heads." "O yes, Henery, we quite heed ye." "A strange old piece, goodmen--whirled about from here to yonder, as if I were nothing! A little warped, too. But I have my depths; ha, and even my great depths! I might gird at a certain shepherd, brain to brain. But no--O no!" "A strange old piece, ye say!" interposed the maltster, in a querulous voice. "At the same time ye be no old man worth naming--no old man at all. Yer teeth bain't half gone yet; and what's a old man's standing if so be his teeth bain't gone? Weren't I stale in wedlock afore ye were out of arms? 'Tis a poor thing to be sixty, when there's people far past four-score--a boast weak as water." It was the unvarying custom in Weatherbury to sink minor differences when the maltster had to be pacified. "Weak as water! yes," said Jan Coggan. "Malter, we feel ye to be a wonderful veteran man, and nobody can gainsay it." "Nobody," said Joseph Poorgrass. "Ye be a very rare old spectacle, malter, and we all admire ye for that gift." "Ay, and as a young man, when my senses were in prosperity, I was likewise liked by a good-few who knowed me," said the maltster. "'Ithout doubt you was--'ithout doubt." The bent and hoary man was satisfied, and so apparently was Henery Fray. That matters should continue pleasant Maryann spoke, who, what with her brown complexion, and the working wrapper of rusty linsey, had at present the mellow hue of an old sketch in oils--notably some of Nicholas Poussin's:-- "Do anybody know of a crooked man, or a lame, or any second-hand fellow at all that would do for poor me?" said Maryann. "A perfect one I don't expect to get at my time of life. If I could hear of such a thing twould do me more good than toast and ale." Coggan furnished a suitable reply. Oak went on with his shearing, and said not another word. Pestilent moods had come, and teased away his quiet. Bathsheba had shown indications of anointing him above his fellows by installing him as the bailiff that the farm imperatively required. He did not covet the post relatively to the farm: in relation to herself, as beloved by him and unmarried to another, he had coveted it. His readings of her seemed now to be vapoury and indistinct. His lecture to her was, he thought, one of the absurdest mistakes. Far from coquetting with Boldwood, she had trifled with himself in thus feigning that she had trifled with another. He was inwardly convinced that, in accordance with the anticipations of his easy-going and worse-educated comrades, that day would see Boldwood the accepted husband of Miss Everdene. Gabriel at this time of his life had out-grown the instinctive dislike which every Christian boy has for reading the Bible, perusing it now quite frequently, and he inwardly said, "'I find more bitter than death the woman whose heart is snares and nets!'" This was mere exclamation--the froth of the storm. He adored Bathsheba just the same. "We workfolk shall have some lordly junketing to-night," said Cainy Ball, casting forth his thoughts in a new direction. "This morning I see 'em making the great puddens in the milking-pails--lumps of fat as big as yer thumb, Mister Oak! I've never seed such splendid large knobs of fat before in the days of my life--they never used to be bigger then a horse-bean. And there was a great black crock upon the brandish with his legs a-sticking out, but I don't know what was in within." "And there's two bushels of biffins for apple-pies," said Maryann. "Well, I hope to do my duty by it all," said Joseph Poorgrass, in a pleasant, masticating manner of anticipation. "Yes; victuals and drink is a cheerful thing, and gives nerves to the nerveless, if the form of words may be used. 'Tis the gospel of the body, without which we perish, so to speak it." EVENTIDE--A SECOND DECLARATION For the shearing-supper a long table was placed on the grass-plot beside the house, the end of the table being thrust over the sill of the wide parlour window and a foot or two into the room. Miss Everdene sat inside the window, facing down the table. She was thus at the head without mingling with the men. This evening Bathsheba was unusually excited, her red cheeks and lips contrasting lustrously with the mazy skeins of her shadowy hair. She seemed to expect assistance, and the seat at the bottom of the table was at her request left vacant until after they had begun the meal. She then asked Gabriel to take the place and the duties appertaining to that end, which he did with great readiness. At this moment Mr. Boldwood came in at the gate, and crossed the green to Bathsheba at the window. He apologized for his lateness: his arrival was evidently by arrangement. "Gabriel," said she, "will you move again, please, and let Mr. Boldwood come there?" Oak moved in silence back to his original seat. The gentleman-farmer was dressed in cheerful style, in a new coat and white waistcoat, quite contrasting with his usual sober suits of grey. Inwardy, too, he was blithe, and consequently chatty to an exceptional degree. So also was Bathsheba now that he had come, though the uninvited presence of Pennyways, the bailiff who had been dismissed for theft, disturbed her equanimity for a while. Supper being ended, Coggan began on his own private account, without reference to listeners:-- I've lost my love, and I care not, I've lost my love, and I care not; I shall soon have another That's better than t'other; I've lost my love, and I care not. This lyric, when concluded, was received with a silently appreciative gaze at the table, implying that the performance, like a work by those established authors who are independent of notices in the papers, was a well-known delight which required no applause. "Now, Master Poorgrass, your song!" said Coggan. "I be all but in liquor, and the gift is wanting in me," said Joseph, diminishing himself. "Nonsense; wou'st never be so ungrateful, Joseph--never!" said Coggan, expressing hurt feelings by an inflection of voice. "And mistress is looking hard at ye, as much as to say, 'Sing at once, Joseph Poorgrass.'" "Faith, so she is; well, I must suffer it! ... Just eye my features, and see if the tell-tale blood overheats me much, neighbours?" "No, yer blushes be quite reasonable," said Coggan. "I always tries to keep my colours from rising when a beauty's eyes get fixed on me," said Joseph, differently; "but if so be 'tis willed they do, they must." "Now, Joseph, your song, please," said Bathsheba, from the window. "Well, really, ma'am," he replied, in a yielding tone, "I don't know what to say. It would be a poor plain ballet of my own composure." "Hear, hear!" said the supper-party. Poorgrass, thus assured, trilled forth a flickering yet commendable piece of sentiment, the tune of which consisted of the key-note and another, the latter being the sound chiefly dwelt upon. This was so successful that he rashly plunged into a second in the same breath, after a few false starts:-- I sow'-ed th'-e ..... I sow'-ed ..... I sow'-ed th'-e seeds' of' love', I-it was' all' i'-in the'-e spring', I-in A'-pril', Ma'-ay, a'-nd sun'-ny' June', When sma'-all bi'-irds they' do' sing. "Well put out of hand," said Coggan, at the end of the verse. "'They do sing' was a very taking paragraph." "Ay; and there was a pretty place at 'seeds of love.' and 'twas well heaved out. Though 'love' is a nasty high corner when a man's voice is getting crazed. Next verse, Master Poorgrass." But during this rendering young Bob Coggan exhibited one of those anomalies which will afflict little people when other persons are particularly serious: in trying to check his laughter, he pushed down his throat as much of the tablecloth as he could get hold of, when, after continuing hermetically sealed for a short time, his mirth burst out through his nose. Joseph perceived it, and with hectic cheeks of indignation instantly ceased singing. Coggan boxed Bob's ears immediately. "Go on, Joseph--go on, and never mind the young scamp," said Coggan. "'Tis a very catching ballet. Now then again--the next bar; I'll help ye to flourish up the shrill notes where yer wind is rather wheezy:-- "Oh the wi'-il-lo'-ow tree' will' twist', And the wil'-low' tre'-ee wi'-ill twine'." But the singer could not be set going again. Bob Coggan was sent home for his ill manners, and tranquility was restored by Jacob Smallbury, who volunteered a ballad as inclusive and interminable as that with which the worthy toper old Silenus amused on a similar occasion the swains Chromis and Mnasylus, and other jolly dogs of his day. It was still the beaming time of evening, though night was stealthily making itself visible low down upon the ground, the western lines of light raking the earth without alighting upon it to any extent, or illuminating the dead levels at all. The sun had crept round the tree as a last effort before death, and then began to sink, the shearers' lower parts becoming steeped in embrowning twilight, whilst their heads and shoulders were still enjoying day, touched with a yellow of self-sustained brilliancy that seemed inherent rather than acquired. The sun went down in an ochreous mist; but they sat, and talked on, and grew as merry as the gods in Homer's heaven. Bathsheba still remained enthroned inside the window, and occupied herself in knitting, from which she sometimes looked up to view the fading scene outside. The slow twilight expanded and enveloped them completely before the signs of moving were shown. Gabriel suddenly missed Farmer Boldwood from his place at the bottom of the table. How long he had been gone Oak did not know; but he had apparently withdrawn into the encircling dusk. Whilst he was thinking of this, Liddy brought candles into the back part of the room overlooking the shearers, and their lively new flames shone down the table and over the men, and dispersed among the green shadows behind. Bathsheba's form, still in its original position, was now again distinct between their eyes and the light, which revealed that Boldwood had gone inside the room, and was sitting near her. Next came the question of the evening. Would Miss Everdene sing to them the song she always sang so charmingly--"The Banks of Allan Water"--before they went home? After a moment's consideration Bathsheba assented, beckoning to Gabriel, who hastened up into the coveted atmosphere. "Have you brought your flute?" she whispered. "Yes, miss." "Play to my singing, then." She stood up in the window-opening, facing the men, the candles behind her, Gabriel on her right hand, immediately outside the sash-frame. Boldwood had drawn up on her left, within the room. Her singing was soft and rather tremulous at first, but it soon swelled to a steady clearness. Subsequent events caused one of the verses to be remembered for many months, and even years, by more than one of those who were gathered there:-- For his bride a soldier sought her, And a winning tongue had he: On the banks of Allan Water None was gay as she! In addition to the dulcet piping of Gabriel's flute, Boldwood supplied a bass in his customary profound voice, uttering his notes so softly, however, as to abstain entirely from making anything like an ordinary duet of the song; they rather formed a rich unexplored shadow, which threw her tones into relief. The shearers reclined against each other as at suppers in the early ages of the world, and so silent and absorbed were they that her breathing could almost be heard between the bars; and at the end of the ballad, when the last tone loitered on to an inexpressible close, there arose that buzz of pleasure which is the attar of applause. It is scarcely necessary to state that Gabriel could not avoid noting the farmer's bearing to-night towards their entertainer. Yet there was nothing exceptional in his actions beyond what appertained to his time of performing them. It was when the rest were all looking away that Boldwood observed her; when they regarded her he turned aside; when they thanked or praised he was silent; when they were inattentive he murmured his thanks. The meaning lay in the difference between actions, none of which had any meaning of itself; and the necessity of being jealous, which lovers are troubled with, did not lead Oak to underestimate these signs. Bathsheba then wished them good-night, withdrew from the window, and retired to the back part of the room, Boldwood thereupon closing the sash and the shutters, and remaining inside with her. Oak wandered away under the quiet and scented trees. Recovering from the softer impressions produced by Bathsheba's voice, the shearers rose to leave, Coggan turning to Pennyways as he pushed back the bench to pass out:-- "I like to give praise where praise is due, and the man deserves it--that 'a do so," he remarked, looking at the worthy thief, as if he were the masterpiece of some world-renowned artist. "I'm sure I should never have believed it if we hadn't proved it, so to allude," hiccupped Joseph Poorgrass, "that every cup, every one of the best knives and forks, and every empty bottle be in their place as perfect now as at the beginning, and not one stole at all." "I'm sure I don't deserve half the praise you give me," said the virtuous thief, grimly. "Well, I'll say this for Pennyways," added Coggan, "that whenever he do really make up his mind to do a noble thing in the shape of a good action, as I could see by his face he did to-night afore sitting down, he's generally able to carry it out. Yes, I'm proud to say, neighbours, that he's stole nothing at all." "Well, 'tis an honest deed, and we thank ye for it, Pennyways," said Joseph; to which opinion the remainder of the company subscribed unanimously. At this time of departure, when nothing more was visible of the inside of the parlour than a thin and still chink of light between the shutters, a passionate scene was in course of enactment there. Miss Everdene and Boldwood were alone. Her cheeks had lost a great deal of their healthful fire from the very seriousness of her position; but her eye was bright with the excitement of a triumph--though it was a triumph which had rather been contemplated than desired. She was standing behind a low arm-chair, from which she had just risen, and he was kneeling in it--inclining himself over its back towards her, and holding her hand in both his own. His body moved restlessly, and it was with what Keats daintily calls a too happy happiness. This unwonted abstraction by love of all dignity from a man of whom it had ever seemed the chief component, was, in its distressing incongruity, a pain to her which quenched much of the pleasure she derived from the proof that she was idolized. "I will try to love you," she was saying, in a trembling voice quite unlike her usual self-confidence. "And if I can believe in any way that I shall make you a good wife I shall indeed be willing to marry you. But, Mr. Boldwood, hesitation on so high a matter is honourable in any woman, and I don't want to give a solemn promise to-night. I would rather ask you to wait a few weeks till I can see my situation better. "But you have every reason to believe that THEN--" "I have every reason to hope that at the end of the five or six weeks, between this time and harvest, that you say you are going to be away from home, I shall be able to promise to be your wife," she said, firmly. "But remember this distinctly, I don't promise yet." "It is enough; I don't ask more. I can wait on those dear words. And now, Miss Everdene, good-night!" "Good-night," she said, graciously--almost tenderly; and Boldwood withdrew with a serene smile. Bathsheba knew more of him now; he had entirely bared his heart before her, even until he had almost worn in her eyes the sorry look of a grand bird without the feathers that make it grand. She had been awe-struck at her past temerity, and was struggling to make amends without thinking whether the sin quite deserved the penalty she was schooling herself to pay. To have brought all this about her ears was terrible; but after a while the situation was not without a fearful joy. The facility with which even the most timid women sometimes acquire a relish for the dreadful when that is amalgamated with a little triumph, is marvellous. THE SAME NIGHT--THE FIR PLANTATION Among the multifarious duties which Bathsheba had voluntarily imposed upon herself by dispensing with the services of a bailiff, was the particular one of looking round the homestead before going to bed, to see that all was right and safe for the night. Gabriel had almost constantly preceded her in this tour every evening, watching her affairs as carefully as any specially appointed officer of surveillance could have done; but this tender devotion was to a great extent unknown to his mistress, and as much as was known was somewhat thanklessly received. Women are never tired of bewailing man's fickleness in love, but they only seem to snub his constancy. As watching is best done invisibly, she usually carried a dark lantern in her hand, and every now and then turned on the light to examine nooks and corners with the coolness of a metropolitan policeman. This coolness may have owed its existence not so much to her fearlessness of expected danger as to her freedom from the suspicion of any; her worst anticipated discovery being that a horse might not be well bedded, the fowls not all in, or a door not closed. This night the buildings were inspected as usual, and she went round to the farm paddock. Here the only sounds disturbing the stillness were steady munchings of many mouths, and stentorian breathings from all but invisible noses, ending in snores and puffs like the blowing of bellows slowly. Then the munching would recommence, when the lively imagination might assist the eye to discern a group of pink-white nostrils, shaped as caverns, and very clammy and humid on their surfaces, not exactly pleasant to the touch until one got used to them; the mouths beneath having a great partiality for closing upon any loose end of Bathsheba's apparel which came within reach of their tongues. Above each of these a still keener vision suggested a brown forehead and two staring though not unfriendly eyes, and above all a pair of whitish crescent-shaped horns like two particularly new moons, an occasional stolid "moo!" proclaiming beyond the shade of a doubt that these phenomena were the features and persons of Daisy, Whitefoot, Bonny-lass, Jolly-O, Spot, Twinkle-eye, etc., etc.--the respectable dairy of Devon cows belonging to Bathsheba aforesaid. Her way back to the house was by a path through a young plantation of tapering firs, which had been planted some years earlier to shelter the premises from the north wind. By reason of the density of the interwoven foliage overhead, it was gloomy there at cloudless noontide, twilight in the evening, dark as midnight at dusk, and black as the ninth plague of Egypt at midnight. To describe the spot is to call it a vast, low, naturally formed hall, the plumy ceiling of which was supported by slender pillars of living wood, the floor being covered with a soft dun carpet of dead spikelets and mildewed cones, with a tuft of grass-blades here and there. This bit of the path was always the crux of the night's ramble, though, before starting, her apprehensions of danger were not vivid enough to lead her to take a companion. Slipping along here covertly as Time, Bathsheba fancied she could hear footsteps entering the track at the opposite end. It was certainly a rustle of footsteps. Her own instantly fell as gently as snowflakes. She reassured herself by a remembrance that the path was public, and that the traveller was probably some villager returning home; regretting, at the same time, that the meeting should be about to occur in the darkest point of her route, even though only just outside her own door. The noise approached, came close, and a figure was apparently on the point of gliding past her when something tugged at her skirt and pinned it forcibly to the ground. The instantaneous check nearly threw Bathsheba off her balance. In recovering she struck against warm clothes and buttons. "A rum start, upon my soul!" said a masculine voice, a foot or so above her head. "Have I hurt you, mate?" "No," said Bathsheba, attempting to shrink away. "We have got hitched together somehow, I think." "Yes." "Are you a woman?" "Yes." "A lady, I should have said." "It doesn't matter." "I am a man." "Oh!" Bathsheba softly tugged again, but to no purpose. "Is that a dark lantern you have? I fancy so," said the man. "Yes." "If you'll allow me I'll open it, and set you free." A hand seized the lantern, the door was opened, the rays burst out from their prison, and Bathsheba beheld her position with astonishment. The man to whom she was hooked was brilliant in brass and scarlet. He was a soldier. His sudden appearance was to darkness what the sound of a trumpet is to silence. Gloom, the _genius loci_ at all times hitherto, was now totally overthrown, less by the lantern-light than by what the lantern lighted. The contrast of this revelation with her anticipations of some sinister figure in sombre garb was so great that it had upon her the effect of a fairy transformation. It was immediately apparent that the military man's spur had become entangled in the gimp which decorated the skirt of her dress. He caught a view of her face. "I'll unfasten you in one moment, miss," he said, with new-born gallantry. "Oh no--I can do it, thank you," she hastily replied, and stooped for the performance. The unfastening was not such a trifling affair. The rowel of the spur had so wound itself among the gimp cords in those few moments, that separation was likely to be a matter of time. He too stooped, and the lantern standing on the ground betwixt them threw the gleam from its open side among the fir-tree needles and the blades of long damp grass with the effect of a large glowworm. It radiated upwards into their faces, and sent over half the plantation gigantic shadows of both man and woman, each dusky shape becoming distorted and mangled upon the tree-trunks till it wasted to nothing. He looked hard into her eyes when she raised them for a moment; Bathsheba looked down again, for his gaze was too strong to be received point-blank with her own. But she had obliquely noticed that he was young and slim, and that he wore three chevrons upon his sleeve. Bathsheba pulled again. "You are a prisoner, miss; it is no use blinking the matter," said the soldier, drily. "I must cut your dress if you are in such a hurry." "Yes--please do!" she exclaimed, helplessly. "It wouldn't be necessary if you could wait a moment," and he unwound a cord from the little wheel. She withdrew her own hand, but, whether by accident or design, he touched it. Bathsheba was vexed; she hardly knew why. His unravelling went on, but it nevertheless seemed coming to no end. She looked at him again. "Thank you for the sight of such a beautiful face!" said the young sergeant, without ceremony. She coloured with embarrassment. "'Twas unwillingly shown," she replied, stiffly, and with as much dignity--which was very little--as she could infuse into a position of captivity. "I like you the better for that incivility, miss," he said. "I should have liked--I wish--you had never shown yourself to me by intruding here!" She pulled again, and the gathers of her dress began to give way like liliputian musketry. "I deserve the chastisement your words give me. But why should such a fair and dutiful girl have such an aversion to her father's sex?" "Go on your way, please." "What, Beauty, and drag you after me? Do but look; I never saw such a tangle!" "Oh, 'tis shameful of you; you have been making it worse on purpose to keep me here--you have!" "Indeed, I don't think so," said the sergeant, with a merry twinkle. "I tell you you have!" she exclaimed, in high temper. "I insist upon undoing it. Now, allow me!" "Certainly, miss; I am not of steel." He added a sigh which had as much archness in it as a sigh could possess without losing its nature altogether. "I am thankful for beauty, even when 'tis thrown to me like a bone to a dog. These moments will be over too soon!" She closed her lips in a determined silence. Bathsheba was revolving in her mind whether by a bold and desperate rush she could free herself at the risk of leaving her skirt bodily behind her. The thought was too dreadful. The dress--which she had put on to appear stately at the supper--was the head and front of her wardrobe; not another in her stock became her so well. What woman in Bathsheba's position, not naturally timid, and within call of her retainers, would have bought escape from a dashing soldier at so dear a price? "All in good time; it will soon be done, I perceive," said her cool friend. "This trifling provokes, and--and--" "Not too cruel!" "--Insults me!" "It is done in order that I may have the pleasure of apologizing to so charming a woman, which I straightway do most humbly, madam," he said, bowing low. Bathsheba really knew not what to say. "I've seen a good many women in my time," continued the young man in a murmur, and more thoughtfully than hitherto, critically regarding her bent head at the same time; "but I've never seen a woman so beautiful as you. Take it or leave it--be offended or like it--I don't care." "Who are you, then, who can so well afford to despise opinion?" "No stranger. Sergeant Troy. I am staying in this place.--There! it is undone at last, you see. Your light fingers were more eager than mine. I wish it had been the knot of knots, which there's no untying!" This was worse and worse. She started up, and so did he. How to decently get away from him--that was her difficulty now. She sidled off inch by inch, the lantern in her hand, till she could see the redness of his coat no longer. "Ah, Beauty; good-bye!" he said. She made no reply, and, reaching a distance of twenty or thirty yards, turned about, and ran indoors. Liddy had just retired to rest. In ascending to her own chamber, Bathsheba opened the girl's door an inch or two, and, panting, said-- "Liddy, is any soldier staying in the village--sergeant somebody-- rather gentlemanly for a sergeant, and good looking--a red coat with blue facings?" "No, miss ... No, I say; but really it might be Sergeant Troy home on furlough, though I have not seen him. He was here once in that way when the regiment was at Casterbridge." "Yes; that's the name. Had he a moustache--no whiskers or beard?" "He had." "What kind of a person is he?" "Oh! miss--I blush to name it--a gay man! But I know him to be very quick and trim, who might have made his thousands, like a squire. Such a clever young dandy as he is! He's a doctor's son by name, which is a great deal; and he's an earl's son by nature!" "Which is a great deal more. Fancy! Is it true?" "Yes. And, he was brought up so well, and sent to Casterbridge Grammar School for years and years. Learnt all languages while he was there; and it was said he got on so far that he could take down Chinese in shorthand; but that I don't answer for, as it was only reported. However, he wasted his gifted lot, and listed a soldier; but even then he rose to be a sergeant without trying at all. Ah! such a blessing it is to be high-born; nobility of blood will shine out even in the ranks and files. And is he really come home, miss?" "I believe so. Good-night, Liddy." After all, how could a cheerful wearer of skirts be permanently offended with the man? There are occasions when girls like Bathsheba will put up with a great deal of unconventional behaviour. When they want to be praised, which is often, when they want to be mastered, which is sometimes; and when they want no nonsense, which is seldom. Just now the first feeling was in the ascendant with Bathsheba, with a dash of the second. Moreover, by chance or by devilry, the ministrant was antecedently made interesting by being a handsome stranger who had evidently seen better days. So she could not clearly decide whether it was her opinion that he had insulted her or not. "Was ever anything so odd!" she at last exclaimed to herself, in her own room. "And was ever anything so meanly done as what I did--to skulk away like that from a man who was only civil and kind!" Clearly she did not think his barefaced praise of her person an insult now. It was a fatal omission of Boldwood's that he had never once told her she was beautiful. THE NEW ACQUAINTANCE DESCRIBED Idiosyncrasy and vicissitude had combined to stamp Sergeant Troy as an exceptional being. He was a man to whom memories were an incumbrance, and anticipations a superfluity. Simply feeling, considering, and caring for what was before his eyes, he was vulnerable only in the present. His outlook upon time was as a transient flash of the eye now and then: that projection of consciousness into days gone by and to come, which makes the past a synonym for the pathetic and the future a word for circumspection, was foreign to Troy. With him the past was yesterday; the future, to-morrow; never, the day after. On this account he might, in certain lights, have been regarded as one of the most fortunate of his order. For it may be argued with great plausibility that reminiscence is less an endowment than a disease, and that expectation in its only comfortable form--that of absolute faith--is practically an impossibility; whilst in the form of hope and the secondary compounds, patience, impatience, resolve, curiosity, it is a constant fluctuation between pleasure and pain. Sergeant Troy, being entirely innocent of the practice of expectation, was never disappointed. To set against this negative gain there may have been some positive losses from a certain narrowing of the higher tastes and sensations which it entailed. But limitation of the capacity is never recognized as a loss by the loser therefrom: in this attribute moral or aesthetic poverty contrasts plausibly with material, since those who suffer do not mind it, whilst those who mind it soon cease to suffer. It is not a denial of anything to have been always without it, and what Troy had never enjoyed he did not miss; but, being fully conscious that what sober people missed he enjoyed, his capacity, though really less, seemed greater than theirs. He was moderately truthful towards men, but to women lied like a Cretan--a system of ethics above all others calculated to win popularity at the first flush of admission into lively society; and the possibility of the favour gained being transitory had reference only to the future. He never passed the line which divides the spruce vices from the ugly; and hence, though his morals had hardly been applauded, disapproval of them had frequently been tempered with a smile. This treatment had led to his becoming a sort of regrater of other men's gallantries, to his own aggrandizement as a Corinthian, rather than to the moral profit of his hearers. His reason and his propensities had seldom any reciprocating influence, having separated by mutual consent long ago: thence it sometimes happened that, while his intentions were as honourable as could be wished, any particular deed formed a dark background which threw them into fine relief. The sergeant's vicious phases being the offspring of impulse, and his virtuous phases of cool meditation, the latter had a modest tendency to be oftener heard of than seen. Troy was full of activity, but his activities were less of a locomotive than a vegetative nature; and, never being based upon any original choice of foundation or direction, they were exercised on whatever object chance might place in their way. Hence, whilst he sometimes reached the brilliant in speech because that was spontaneous, he fell below the commonplace in action, from inability to guide incipient effort. He had a quick comprehension and considerable force of character; but, being without the power to combine them, the comprehension became engaged with trivialities whilst waiting for the will to direct it, and the force wasted itself in useless grooves through unheeding the comprehension. He was a fairly well-educated man for one of middle class-- exceptionally well educated for a common soldier. He spoke fluently and unceasingly. He could in this way be one thing and seem another: for instance, he could speak of love and think of dinner; call on the husband to look at the wife; be eager to pay and intend to owe. The wondrous power of flattery in _passados_ at woman is a perception so universal as to be remarked upon by many people almost as automatically as they repeat a proverb, or say that they are Christians and the like, without thinking much of the enormous corollaries which spring from the proposition. Still less is it acted upon for the good of the complemental being alluded to. With the majority such an opinion is shelved with all those trite aphorisms which require some catastrophe to bring their tremendous meanings thoroughly home. When expressed with some amount of reflectiveness it seems co-ordinate with a belief that this flattery must be reasonable to be effective. It is to the credit of men that few attempt to settle the question by experiment, and it is for their happiness, perhaps, that accident has never settled it for them. Nevertheless, that a male dissembler who by deluging her with untenable fictions charms the female wisely, may acquire powers reaching to the extremity of perdition, is a truth taught to many by unsought and wringing occurrences. And some profess to have attained to the same knowledge by experiment as aforesaid, and jauntily continue their indulgence in such experiments with terrible effect. Sergeant Troy was one. He had been known to observe casually that in dealing with womankind the only alternative to flattery was cursing and swearing. There was no third method. "Treat them fairly, and you are a lost man." he would say. This person's public appearance in Weatherbury promptly followed his arrival there. A week or two after the shearing, Bathsheba, feeling a nameless relief of spirits on account of Boldwood's absence, approached her hayfields and looked over the hedge towards the haymakers. They consisted in about equal proportions of gnarled and flexuous forms, the former being the men, the latter the women, who wore tilt bonnets covered with nankeen, which hung in a curtain upon their shoulders. Coggan and Mark Clark were mowing in a less forward meadow, Clark humming a tune to the strokes of his scythe, to which Jan made no attempt to keep time with his. In the first mead they were already loading hay, the women raking it into cocks and windrows, and the men tossing it upon the waggon. From behind the waggon a bright scarlet spot emerged, and went on loading unconcernedly with the rest. It was the gallant sergeant, who had come haymaking for pleasure; and nobody could deny that he was doing the mistress of the farm real knight-service by this voluntary contribution of his labour at a busy time. As soon as she had entered the field Troy saw her, and sticking his pitchfork into the ground and picking up his crop or cane, he came forward. Bathsheba blushed with half-angry embarrassment, and adjusted her eyes as well as her feet to the direct line of her path. SCENE ON THE VERGE OF THE HAY-MEAD "Ah, Miss Everdene!" said the sergeant, touching his diminutive cap. "Little did I think it was you I was speaking to the other night. And yet, if I had reflected, the 'Queen of the Corn-market' (truth is truth at any hour of the day or night, and I heard you so named in Casterbridge yesterday), the 'Queen of the Corn-market.' I say, could be no other woman. I step across now to beg your forgiveness a thousand times for having been led by my feelings to express myself too strongly for a stranger. To be sure I am no stranger to the place--I am Sergeant Troy, as I told you, and I have assisted your uncle in these fields no end of times when I was a lad. I have been doing the same for you to-day." "I suppose I must thank you for that, Sergeant Troy," said the Queen of the Corn-market, in an indifferently grateful tone. The sergeant looked hurt and sad. "Indeed you must not, Miss Everdene," he said. "Why could you think such a thing necessary?" "I am glad it is not." "Why? if I may ask without offence." "Because I don't much want to thank you for anything." "I am afraid I have made a hole with my tongue that my heart will never mend. O these intolerable times: that ill-luck should follow a man for honestly telling a woman she is beautiful! 'Twas the most I said--you must own that; and the least I could say--that I own myself." "There is some talk I could do without more easily than money." "Indeed. That remark is a sort of digression." "No. It means that I would rather have your room than your company." "And I would rather have curses from you than kisses from any other woman; so I'll stay here." Bathsheba was absolutely speechless. And yet she could not help feeling that the assistance he was rendering forbade a harsh repulse. "Well," continued Troy, "I suppose there is a praise which is rudeness, and that may be mine. At the same time there is a treatment which is injustice, and that may be yours. Because a plain blunt man, who has never been taught concealment, speaks out his mind without exactly intending it, he's to be snapped off like the son of a sinner." "Indeed there's no such case between us," she said, turning away. "I don't allow strangers to be bold and impudent--even in praise of me." "Ah--it is not the fact but the method which offends you," he said, carelessly. "But I have the sad satisfaction of knowing that my words, whether pleasing or offensive, are unmistakably true. Would you have had me look at you, and tell my acquaintance that you are quite a common-place woman, to save you the embarrassment of being stared at if they come near you? Not I. I couldn't tell any such ridiculous lie about a beauty to encourage a single woman in England in too excessive a modesty." "It is all pretence--what you are saying!" exclaimed Bathsheba, laughing in spite of herself at the sly method. "You have a rare invention, Sergeant Troy. Why couldn't you have passed by me that night, and said nothing?--that was all I meant to reproach you for." "Because I wasn't going to. Half the pleasure of a feeling lies in being able to express it on the spur of the moment, and I let out mine. It would have been just the same if you had been the reverse person--ugly and old--I should have exclaimed about it in the same way." "How long is it since you have been so afflicted with strong feeling, then?" "Oh, ever since I was big enough to know loveliness from deformity." "'Tis to be hoped your sense of the difference you speak of doesn't stop at faces, but extends to morals as well." "I won't speak of morals or religion--my own or anybody else's. Though perhaps I should have been a very good Christian if you pretty women hadn't made me an idolater." Bathsheba moved on to hide the irrepressible dimplings of merriment. Troy followed, whirling his crop. "But--Miss Everdene--you do forgive me?" "Hardly." "Why?" "You say such things." "I said you were beautiful, and I'll say so still; for, by G---- so you are! The most beautiful ever I saw, or may I fall dead this instant! Why, upon my ----" "Don't--don't! I won't listen to you--you are so profane!" she said, in a restless state between distress at hearing him and a _penchant_ to hear more. "I again say you are a most fascinating woman. There's nothing remarkable in my saying so, is there? I'm sure the fact is evident enough. Miss Everdene, my opinion may be too forcibly let out to please you, and, for the matter of that, too insignificant to convince you, but surely it is honest, and why can't it be excused?" "Because it--it isn't a correct one," she femininely murmured. "Oh, fie--fie! Am I any worse for breaking the third of that Terrible Ten than you for breaking the ninth?" "Well, it doesn't seem QUITE true to me that I am fascinating," she replied evasively. "Not so to you: then I say with all respect that, if so, it is owing to your modesty, Miss Everdene. But surely you must have been told by everybody of what everybody notices? And you should take their words for it." "They don't say so exactly." "Oh yes, they must!" "Well, I mean to my face, as you do," she went on, allowing herself to be further lured into a conversation that intention had rigorously forbidden. "But you know they think so?" "No--that is--I certainly have heard Liddy say they do, but--" She paused. Capitulation--that was the purport of the simple reply, guarded as it was--capitulation, unknown to herself. Never did a fragile tailless sentence convey a more perfect meaning. The careless sergeant smiled within himself, and probably too the devil smiled from a loop-hole in Tophet, for the moment was the turning-point of a career. Her tone and mien signified beyond mistake that the seed which was to lift the foundation had taken root in the chink: the remainder was a mere question of time and natural changes. "There the truth comes out!" said the soldier, in reply. "Never tell me that a young lady can live in a buzz of admiration without knowing something about it. Ah, well, Miss Everdene, you are--pardon my blunt way--you are rather an injury to our race than otherwise." "How--indeed?" she said, opening her eyes. "Oh, it is true enough. I may as well be hung for a sheep as a lamb (an old country saying, not of much account, but it will do for a rough soldier), and so I will speak my mind, regardless of your pleasure, and without hoping or intending to get your pardon. Why, Miss Everdene, it is in this manner that your good looks may do more harm than good in the world." The sergeant looked down the mead in critical abstraction. "Probably some one man on an average falls in love with each ordinary woman. She can marry him: he is content, and leads a useful life. Such women as you a hundred men always covet--your eyes will bewitch scores on scores into an unavailing fancy for you--you can only marry one of that many. Out of these say twenty will endeavour to drown the bitterness of despised love in drink; twenty more will mope away their lives without a wish or attempt to make a mark in he world, because they have no ambition apart from their attachment to you; twenty more--the susceptible person myself possibly among them--will be always draggling after you, getting where they may just see you, doing desperate things. Men are such constant fools! The rest may try to get over their passion with more or less success. But all these men will be saddened. And not only those ninety-nine men, but the ninety-nine women they might have married are saddened with them. There's my tale. That's why I say that a woman so charming as yourself, Miss Everdene, is hardly a blessing to her race." The handsome sergeant's features were during this speech as rigid and stern as John Knox's in addressing his gay young queen. Seeing she made no reply, he said, "Do you read French?" "No; I began, but when I got to the verbs, father died," she said simply. "I do--when I have an opportunity, which latterly has not been often (my mother was a Parisienne)--and there's a proverb they have, _Qui aime bien, chatie bien_--'He chastens who loves well.' Do you understand me?" "Ah!" she replied, and there was even a little tremulousness in the usually cool girl's voice; "if you can only fight half as winningly as you can talk, you are able to make a pleasure of a bayonet wound!" And then poor Bathsheba instantly perceived her slip in making this admission: in hastily trying to retrieve it, she went from bad to worse. "Don't, however, suppose that _I_ derive any pleasure from what you tell me." "I know you do not--I know it perfectly," said Troy, with much hearty conviction on the exterior of his face: and altering the expression to moodiness; "when a dozen men are ready to speak tenderly to you, and give the admiration you deserve without adding the warning you need, it stands to reason that my poor rough-and-ready mixture of praise and blame cannot convey much pleasure. Fool as I may be, I am not so conceited as to suppose that!" "I think you--are conceited, nevertheless," said Bathsheba, looking askance at a reed she was fitfully pulling with one hand, having lately grown feverish under the soldier's system of procedure--not because the nature of his cajolery was entirely unperceived, but because its vigour was overwhelming. "I would not own it to anybody else--nor do I exactly to you. Still, there might have been some self-conceit in my foolish supposition the other night. I knew that what I said in admiration might be an opinion too often forced upon you to give any pleasure, but I certainly did think that the kindness of your nature might prevent you judging an uncontrolled tongue harshly--which you have done--and thinking badly of me and wounding me this morning, when I am working hard to save your hay." "Well, you need not think more of that: perhaps you did not mean to be rude to me by speaking out your mind: indeed, I believe you did not," said the shrewd woman, in painfully innocent earnest. "And I thank you for giving help here. But--but mind you don't speak to me again in that way, or in any other, unless I speak to you." "Oh, Miss Bathsheba! That is too hard!" "No, it isn't. Why is it?" "You will never speak to me; for I shall not be here long. I am soon going back again to the miserable monotony of drill--and perhaps our regiment will be ordered out soon. And yet you take away the one little ewe-lamb of pleasure that I have in this dull life of mine. Well, perhaps generosity is not a woman's most marked characteristic." "When are you going from here?" she asked, with some interest. "In a month." "But how can it give you pleasure to speak to me?" "Can you ask Miss Everdene--knowing as you do--what my offence is based on?" "If you do care so much for a silly trifle of that kind, then, I don't mind doing it," she uncertainly and doubtingly answered. "But you can't really care for a word from me? you only say so--I think you only say so." "That's unjust--but I won't repeat the remark. I am too gratified to get such a mark of your friendship at any price to cavil at the tone. I DO, Miss Everdene, care for it. You may think a man foolish to want a mere word--just a good morning. Perhaps he is--I don't know. But you have never been a man looking upon a woman, and that woman yourself." "Well." "Then you know nothing of what such an experience is like--and Heaven forbid that you ever should!" "Nonsense, flatterer! What is it like? I am interested in knowing." "Put shortly, it is not being able to think, hear, or look in any direction except one without wretchedness, nor there without torture." "Ah, sergeant, it won't do--you are pretending!" she said, shaking her head. "Your words are too dashing to be true." "I am not, upon the honour of a soldier." "But WHY is it so?--Of course I ask for mere pastime." "Because you are so distracting--and I am so distracted." "You look like it." "I am indeed." "Why, you only saw me the other night!" "That makes no difference. The lightning works instantaneously. I loved you then, at once--as I do now." Bathsheba surveyed him curiously, from the feet upward, as high as she liked to venture her glance, which was not quite so high as his eyes. "You cannot and you don't," she said demurely. "There is no such sudden feeling in people. I won't listen to you any longer. Hear me, I wish I knew what o'clock it is--I am going--I have wasted too much time here already!" The sergeant looked at his watch and told her. "What, haven't you a watch, miss?" he inquired. "I have not just at present--I am about to get a new one." "No. You shall be given one. Yes--you shall. A gift, Miss Everdene--a gift." And before she knew what the young man was intending, a heavy gold watch was in her hand. "It is an unusually good one for a man like me to possess," he quietly said. "That watch has a history. Press the spring and open the back." She did so. "What do you see?" "A crest and a motto." "A coronet with five points, and beneath, _Cedit amor rebus_--'Love yields to circumstance.' It's the motto of the Earls of Severn. That watch belonged to the last lord, and was given to my mother's husband, a medical man, for his use till I came of age, when it was to be given to me. It was all the fortune that ever I inherited. That watch has regulated imperial interests in its time--the stately ceremonial, the courtly assignation, pompous travels, and lordly sleeps. Now it is yours." "But, Sergeant Troy, I cannot take this--I cannot!" she exclaimed, with round-eyed wonder. "A gold watch! What are you doing? Don't be such a dissembler!" The sergeant retreated to avoid receiving back his gift, which she held out persistently towards him. Bathsheba followed as he retired. "Keep it--do, Miss Everdene--keep it!" said the erratic child of impulse. "The fact of your possessing it makes it worth ten times as much to me. A more plebeian one will answer my purpose just as well, and the pleasure of knowing whose heart my old one beats against--well, I won't speak of that. It is in far worthier hands than ever it has been in before." "But indeed I can't have it!" she said, in a perfect simmer of distress. "Oh, how can you do such a thing; that is if you really mean it! Give me your dead father's watch, and such a valuable one! You should not be so reckless, indeed, Sergeant Troy!" "I loved my father: good; but better, I love you more. That's how I can do it," said the sergeant, with an intonation of such exquisite fidelity to nature that it was evidently not all acted now. Her beauty, which, whilst it had been quiescent, he had praised in jest, had in its animated phases moved him to earnest; and though his seriousness was less than she imagined, it was probably more than he imagined himself. Bathsheba was brimming with agitated bewilderment, and she said, in half-suspicious accents of feeling, "Can it be! Oh, how can it be, that you care for me, and so suddenly! You have seen so little of me: I may not be really so--so nice-looking as I seem to you. Please, do take it; Oh, do! I cannot and will not have it. Believe me, your generosity is too great. I have never done you a single kindness, and why should you be so kind to me?" A factitious reply had been again upon his lips, but it was again suspended, and he looked at her with an arrested eye. The truth was, that as she now stood--excited, wild, and honest as the day--her alluring beauty bore out so fully the epithets he had bestowed upon it that he was quite startled at his temerity in advancing them as false. He said mechanically, "Ah, why?" and continued to look at her. "And my workfolk see me following you about the field, and are wondering. Oh, this is dreadful!" she went on, unconscious of the transmutation she was effecting. "I did not quite mean you to accept it at first, for it was my one poor patent of nobility," he broke out, bluntly; "but, upon my soul, I wish you would now. Without any shamming, come! Don't deny me the happiness of wearing it for my sake? But you are too lovely even to care to be kind as others are." "No, no; don't say so! I have reasons for reserve which I cannot explain." "Let it be, then, let it be," he said, receiving back the watch at last; "I must be leaving you now. And will you speak to me for these few weeks of my stay?" "Indeed I will. Yet, I don't know if I will! Oh, why did you come and disturb me so!" "Perhaps in setting a gin, I have caught myself. Such things have happened. Well, will you let me work in your fields?" he coaxed. "Yes, I suppose so; if it is any pleasure to you." "Miss Everdene, I thank you." "No, no." "Good-bye!" The sergeant brought his hand to the cap on the slope of his head, saluted, and returned to the distant group of haymakers. Bathsheba could not face the haymakers now. Her heart erratically flitting hither and thither from perplexed excitement, hot, and almost tearful, she retreated homeward, murmuring, "Oh, what have I done! What does it mean! I wish I knew how much of it was true!" HIVING THE BEES The Weatherbury bees were late in their swarming this year. It was in the latter part of June, and the day after the interview with Troy in the hayfield, that Bathsheba was standing in her garden, watching a swarm in the air and guessing their probable settling place. Not only were they late this year, but unruly. Sometimes throughout a whole season all the swarms would alight on the lowest attainable bough--such as part of a currant-bush or espalier apple-tree; next year they would, with just the same unanimity, make straight off to the uppermost member of some tall, gaunt costard, or quarrenden, and there defy all invaders who did not come armed with ladders and staves to take them. This was the case at present. Bathsheba's eyes, shaded by one hand, were following the ascending multitude against the unexplorable stretch of blue till they ultimately halted by one of the unwieldy trees spoken of. A process somewhat analogous to that of alleged formations of the universe, time and times ago, was observable. The bustling swarm had swept the sky in a scattered and uniform haze, which now thickened to a nebulous centre: this glided on to a bough and grew still denser, till it formed a solid black spot upon the light. The men and women being all busily engaged in saving the hay--even Liddy had left the house for the purpose of lending a hand--Bathsheba resolved to hive the bees herself, if possible. She had dressed the hive with herbs and honey, fetched a ladder, brush, and crook, made herself impregnable with armour of leather gloves, straw hat, and large gauze veil--once green but now faded to snuff colour--and ascended a dozen rungs of the ladder. At once she heard, not ten yards off, a voice that was beginning to have a strange power in agitating her. "Miss Everdene, let me assist you; you should not attempt such a thing alone." Troy was just opening the garden gate. Bathsheba flung down the brush, crook, and empty hive, pulled the skirt of her dress tightly round her ankles in a tremendous flurry, and as well as she could slid down the ladder. By the time she reached the bottom Troy was there also, and he stooped to pick up the hive. "How fortunate I am to have dropped in at this moment!" exclaimed the sergeant. She found her voice in a minute. "What! and will you shake them in for me?" she asked, in what, for a defiant girl, was a faltering way; though, for a timid girl, it would have seemed a brave way enough. "Will I!" said Troy. "Why, of course I will. How blooming you are to-day!" Troy flung down his cane and put his foot on the ladder to ascend. "But you must have on the veil and gloves, or you'll be stung fearfully!" "Ah, yes. I must put on the veil and gloves. Will you kindly show me how to fix them properly?" "And you must have the broad-brimmed hat, too, for your cap has no brim to keep the veil off, and they'd reach your face." "The broad-brimmed hat, too, by all means." So a whimsical fate ordered that her hat should be taken off--veil and all attached--and placed upon his head, Troy tossing his own into a gooseberry bush. Then the veil had to be tied at its lower edge round his collar and the gloves put on him. He looked such an extraordinary object in this guise that, flurried as she was, she could not avoid laughing outright. It was the removal of yet another stake from the palisade of cold manners which had kept him off. Bathsheba looked on from the ground whilst he was busy sweeping and shaking the bees from the tree, holding up the hive with the other hand for them to fall into. She made use of an unobserved minute whilst his attention was absorbed in the operation to arrange her plumes a little. He came down holding the hive at arm's length, behind which trailed a cloud of bees. "Upon my life," said Troy, through the veil, "holding up this hive makes one's arm ache worse than a week of sword-exercise." When the manoeuvre was complete he approached her. "Would you be good enough to untie me and let me out? I am nearly stifled inside this silk cage." To hide her embarrassment during the unwonted process of untying the string about his neck, she said:-- "I have never seen that you spoke of." "What?" "The sword-exercise." "Ah! would you like to?" said Troy. Bathsheba hesitated. She had heard wondrous reports from time to time by dwellers in Weatherbury, who had by chance sojourned awhile in Casterbridge, near the barracks, of this strange and glorious performance, the sword-exercise. Men and boys who had peeped through chinks or over walls into the barrack-yard returned with accounts of its being the most flashing affair conceivable; accoutrements and weapons glistening like stars--here, there, around--yet all by rule and compass. So she said mildly what she felt strongly. "Yes; I should like to see it very much." "And so you shall; you shall see me go through it." "No! How?" "Let me consider." "Not with a walking-stick--I don't care to see that. It must be a real sword." "Yes, I know; and I have no sword here; but I think I could get one by the evening. Now, will you do this?" Troy bent over her and murmured some suggestion in a low voice. "Oh no, indeed!" said Bathsheba, blushing. "Thank you very much, but I couldn't on any account." "Surely you might? Nobody would know." She shook her head, but with a weakened negation. "If I were to," she said, "I must bring Liddy too. Might I not?" Troy looked far away. "I don't see why you want to bring her," he said coldly. An unconscious look of assent in Bathsheba's eyes betrayed that something more than his coldness had made her also feel that Liddy would be superfluous in the suggested scene. She had felt it, even whilst making the proposal. "Well, I won't bring Liddy--and I'll come. But only for a very short time," she added; "a very short time." "It will not take five minutes," said Troy.

Chapters 21-27

https://web.archive.org/web/20210108004047/https://www.gradesaver.com/far-from-the-madding-crowd/study-guide/summary-chapters-21-27

In June, it is time for the sheep shearing. While shearing in the barn, Gabriel notices that Boldwood has come to speak with Bathsheba. He is distracted by speculating about the nature of their conversation and wounds one of the sheep, leading Bathsheba to rebuke him. After Boldwood and Bathsheba ride off together, the other farmworkers speculate that the two of them will soon marry. After the shearing is finished, Bathsheba and her workers celebrate with a traditional shearing-supper. At the end of supper, when Boldwood and Bathsheba are alone together, she tells him that she is willing to consider marrying him but wants more time to think about it. She tells him that she expects she will be able to give him a definitive answer by harvest time. That night, Bathsheba follows her nightly routine of walking around the property and inspecting it before going to bed. As she passes through the fir plantation, a man in military dress walks up behind her, and her skirt gets accidentally hooked onto the spur of his boot. He tries to free her and during the time spent untangling the knot, he identifies himself as Sergeant Troy. Troy also compliments Bathsheba's beauty and flirts with her, making her uncomfortable. When she is freed, she hurries home and asks Liddy if she knows anything about this man. Liddy explains that Troy is well-educated and from a good family, and that he also has a reputation as a flirt and a ladies' man. A week after the shearing, Bathsheba goes to supervise her workers as they load hay and finds that Troy has come to help them. He approaches her and the two flirt with each other, although Bathsheba is somewhat guarded and skeptical. She is shocked when Troy impulsively gives her a watch that belonged to his father. The next day, he comes to the farm again and helps her with her beehive. She mentions that she would like to see him perform his sword exercises and they make a plan to meet that evening in secret. When they meet, Troy dazzles her with his skill as a swordsman and his bold charm. He kisses her before he leaves, leaving Bathsheba overwhelmed and confused by her feelings.

Bathsheba's situation was already complicated as she tried to come to a decision about Boldwood's proposal, but the encounter with Troy throws another suitor into the mix. With both Gabriel and Boldwood, Bathsheba could be detached and rational about what was in her best interest. With Troy, it is immediately clear that she is going to be led by her emotions and desires. The scene in which they meet is rich with symbolism: as a woman walking alone at night, Bathsheba is to some extent in a dangerous situation, and the sudden presence of a man walking near her has the initial possibility of being threatening. When her dress catches on his spur, she is symbolically ensnared or captured by him. Paradoxically, Bathsheba seems to find this vulnerable and relatively helpless situation to be exciting and arousing. The scene is one of the rare moments in the novel where she embodies a more traditionally feminine role of being dependent on a man to resolve a situation for her. The idea that this dependency might have destructive consequences becomes clear when she pleads with Troy to rip her dress in order to set her free: this moment foreshadows the future in which she will endure suffering and damage in order to try and escape from her unhappy marriage. In her subsequent interactions with Troy, Bathsheba wavers back and forth between being somewhat conservative and traditional, and quite reckless in her behavior. She is curious about his reputation, which she reveals by seeking information from Liddy. In a world where reputation and an honorable public identity were major parts of what made someone worthy of respect, Bathsheba is anxious to find out how Troy is perceived. She is also conservative enough to be shocked and somewhat distressed by Troy giving away his father's watch. In a more traditional worldview, an expensive item that is also a family heirloom would not be discarded lightly. However, by agreeing to meet Troy alone in the woods at night, Bathsheba takes a significant risk. This action reflects the precarious freedom of her independent and autonomous position; because she is effectively the head of her own household, Bathsheba has no one to supervise or try and control her behavior. This means that she can do things it would be difficult for other young women of her social position to get away with. Not only does she sneak off alone with him, Bathsheba allows Troy relatively intimate access to her body as he practices his sword exercises with her as a target. There is a literal danger in terms of the injury she could sustain if his sword were to slip, but there is also the symbolic danger of what this sexually charged flirtation could lead to. Troy's sword takes on a clear phallic symbolism in this scene; it is a source of danger for Bathsheba, but she is entranced and seduced by it.

pinkmonkey

all_chapterized_books/5658-chapters/03.txt

finished_summaries/pinkmonkey/Lord Jim/section_2_part_0.txt

Lord Jim.chapter 3

chapter 3

{"name": "Chapter 3", "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20180820051943/http://www.pinkmonkey.com/booknotes/monkeynotes/pmLordJim11.asp", "summary": "It is a clear and still night as the Patna travels through the Arabian Sea. Jim is on night watch; as usual, he is dreaming of romantic adventures in which he will be the hero. As he walks, he observes the different people on board the ship. There are pilgrims with their children and rich families who have made special shelters for themselves. He observes his shipmates and sees the skipper of the ship, half-dressed in pajamas, looking at the charts. He watches the second engineer, who has traveled with the skipper for many years. He looks at the two Malays who steer the ship. Jim is again filled with confidence, for he is sure that no other officer has his abilities. These thoughts are interrupted by the sudden quivering of the ship. Jim and the others are thrown forward, but manage to control themselves. The ship then settles down and moves steadily forward through the calm water.", "analysis": "Notes This chapter opens with a description of the peaceful darkness and Jim responsibly performing his duties as night watch; but it also says that he is again romantically dreaming about his own heroism. In contrast to Jim's prim performance on deck and the calm beauty of the night sky, the captain is obscenely described as half-dressed with a disgusting and sweaty belly, \"the incarnation of everything vile and base.\" He argues loudly with his second engineer, who seems to be drunk. It does not appear to be a very reliable or moral crew, a fact that once again foreshadows trouble on the Patna. As the engineer turns to go back below deck, the ship seems to struggle, quiver, and pitch forward, foreshadowing its future troubles. As the ship groans, all of the officers, including Jim, lurch forward, almost in a jumping motion, again foreshadowing later actions. Almost simultaneously, there is an appropriate roll of distant thunder, changing the Mood from serious to somber."}

A marvellous stillness pervaded the world, and the stars, together with the serenity of their rays, seemed to shed upon the earth the assurance of everlasting security. The young moon recurved, and shining low in the west, was like a slender shaving thrown up from a bar of gold, and the Arabian Sea, smooth and cool to the eye like a sheet of ice, extended its perfect level to the perfect circle of a dark horizon. The propeller turned without a check, as though its beat had been part of the scheme of a safe universe; and on each side of the Patna two deep folds of water, permanent and sombre on the unwrinkled shimmer, enclosed within their straight and diverging ridges a few white swirls of foam bursting in a low hiss, a few wavelets, a few ripples, a few undulations that, left behind, agitated the surface of the sea for an instant after the passage of the ship, subsided splashing gently, calmed down at last into the circular stillness of water and sky with the black speck of the moving hull remaining everlastingly in its centre. Jim on the bridge was penetrated by the great certitude of unbounded safety and peace that could be read on the silent aspect of nature like the certitude of fostering love upon the placid tenderness of a mother's face. Below the roof of awnings, surrendered to the wisdom of white men and to their courage, trusting the power of their unbelief and the iron shell of their fire-ship, the pilgrims of an exacting faith slept on mats, on blankets, on bare planks, on every deck, in all the dark corners, wrapped in dyed cloths, muffled in soiled rags, with their heads resting on small bundles, with their faces pressed to bent forearms: the men, the women, the children; the old with the young, the decrepit with the lusty--all equal before sleep, death's brother. A draught of air, fanned from forward by the speed of the ship, passed steadily through the long gloom between the high bulwarks, swept over the rows of prone bodies; a few dim flames in globe-lamps were hung short here and there under the ridge-poles, and in the blurred circles of light thrown down and trembling slightly to the unceasing vibration of the ship appeared a chin upturned, two closed eyelids, a dark hand with silver rings, a meagre limb draped in a torn covering, a head bent back, a naked foot, a throat bared and stretched as if offering itself to the knife. The well-to-do had made for their families shelters with heavy boxes and dusty mats; the poor reposed side by side with all they had on earth tied up in a rag under their heads; the lone old men slept, with drawn-up legs, upon their prayer-carpets, with their hands over their ears and one elbow on each side of the face; a father, his shoulders up and his knees under his forehead, dozed dejectedly by a boy who slept on his back with tousled hair and one arm commandingly extended; a woman covered from head to foot, like a corpse, with a piece of white sheeting, had a naked child in the hollow of each arm; the Arab's belongings, piled right aft, made a heavy mound of broken outlines, with a cargo-lamp swung above, and a great confusion of vague forms behind: gleams of paunchy brass pots, the foot-rest of a deck-chair, blades of spears, the straight scabbard of an old sword leaning against a heap of pillows, the spout of a tin coffee-pot. The patent log on the taffrail periodically rang a single tinkling stroke for every mile traversed on an errand of faith. Above the mass of sleepers a faint and patient sigh at times floated, the exhalation of a troubled dream; and short metallic clangs bursting out suddenly in the depths of the ship, the harsh scrape of a shovel, the violent slam of a furnace-door, exploded brutally, as if the men handling the mysterious things below had their breasts full of fierce anger: while the slim high hull of the steamer went on evenly ahead, without a sway of her bare masts, cleaving continuously the great calm of the waters under the inaccessible serenity of the sky. Jim paced athwart, and his footsteps in the vast silence were loud to his own ears, as if echoed by the watchful stars: his eyes, roaming about the line of the horizon, seemed to gaze hungrily into the unattainable, and did not see the shadow of the coming event. The only shadow on the sea was the shadow of the black smoke pouring heavily from the funnel its immense streamer, whose end was constantly dissolving in the air. Two Malays, silent and almost motionless, steered, one on each side of the wheel, whose brass rim shone fragmentarily in the oval of light thrown out by the binnacle. Now and then a hand, with black fingers alternately letting go and catching hold of revolving spokes, appeared in the illumined part; the links of wheel-chains ground heavily in the grooves of the barrel. Jim would glance at the compass, would glance around the unattainable horizon, would stretch himself till his joints cracked, with a leisurely twist of the body, in the very excess of well-being; and, as if made audacious by the invincible aspect of the peace, he felt he cared for nothing that could happen to him to the end of his days. From time to time he glanced idly at a chart pegged out with four drawing-pins on a low three-legged table abaft the steering-gear case. The sheet of paper portraying the depths of the sea presented a shiny surface under the light of a bull's-eye lamp lashed to a stanchion, a surface as level and smooth as the glimmering surface of the waters. Parallel rulers with a pair of dividers reposed on it; the ship's position at last noon was marked with a small black cross, and the straight pencil-line drawn firmly as far as Perim figured the course of the ship--the path of souls towards the holy place, the promise of salvation, the reward of eternal life--while the pencil with its sharp end touching the Somali coast lay round and still like a naked ship's spar floating in the pool of a sheltered dock. 'How steady she goes,' thought Jim with wonder, with something like gratitude for this high peace of sea and sky. At such times his thoughts would be full of valorous deeds: he loved these dreams and the success of his imaginary achievements. They were the best parts of life, its secret truth, its hidden reality. They had a gorgeous virility, the charm of vagueness, they passed before him with an heroic tread; they carried his soul away with them and made it drunk with the divine philtre of an unbounded confidence in itself. There was nothing he could not face. He was so pleased with the idea that he smiled, keeping perfunctorily his eyes ahead; and when he happened to glance back he saw the white streak of the wake drawn as straight by the ship's keel upon the sea as the black line drawn by the pencil upon the chart. The ash-buckets racketed, clanking up and down the stoke-hold ventilators, and this tin-pot clatter warned him the end of his watch was near. He sighed with content, with regret as well at having to part from that serenity which fostered the adventurous freedom of his thoughts. He was a little sleepy too, and felt a pleasurable languor running through every limb as though all the blood in his body had turned to warm milk. His skipper had come up noiselessly, in pyjamas and with his sleeping-jacket flung wide open. Red of face, only half awake, the left eye partly closed, the right staring stupid and glassy, he hung his big head over the chart and scratched his ribs sleepily. There was something obscene in the sight of his naked flesh. His bared breast glistened soft and greasy as though he had sweated out his fat in his sleep. He pronounced a professional remark in a voice harsh and dead, resembling the rasping sound of a wood-file on the edge of a plank; the fold of his double chin hung like a bag triced up close under the hinge of his jaw. Jim started, and his answer was full of deference; but the odious and fleshy figure, as though seen for the first time in a revealing moment, fixed itself in his memory for ever as the incarnation of everything vile and base that lurks in the world we love: in our own hearts we trust for our salvation, in the men that surround us, in the sights that fill our eyes, in the sounds that fill our ears, and in the air that fills our lungs. The thin gold shaving of the moon floating slowly downwards had lost itself on the darkened surface of the waters, and the eternity beyond the sky seemed to come down nearer to the earth, with the augmented glitter of the stars, with the more profound sombreness in the lustre of the half-transparent dome covering the flat disc of an opaque sea. The ship moved so smoothly that her onward motion was imperceptible to the senses of men, as though she had been a crowded planet speeding through the dark spaces of ether behind the swarm of suns, in the appalling and calm solitudes awaiting the breath of future creations. 'Hot is no name for it down below,' said a voice. Jim smiled without looking round. The skipper presented an unmoved breadth of back: it was the renegade's trick to appear pointedly unaware of your existence unless it suited his purpose to turn at you with a devouring glare before he let loose a torrent of foamy, abusive jargon that came like a gush from a sewer. Now he emitted only a sulky grunt; the second engineer at the head of the bridge-ladder, kneading with damp palms a dirty sweat-rag, unabashed, continued the tale of his complaints. The sailors had a good time of it up here, and what was the use of them in the world he would be blowed if he could see. The poor devils of engineers had to get the ship along anyhow, and they could very well do the rest too; by gosh they--'Shut up!' growled the German stolidly. 'Oh yes! Shut up--and when anything goes wrong you fly to us, don't you?' went on the other. He was more than half cooked, he expected; but anyway, now, he did not mind how much he sinned, because these last three days he had passed through a fine course of training for the place where the bad boys go when they die--b'gosh, he had--besides being made jolly well deaf by the blasted racket below. The durned, compound, surface-condensing, rotten scrap-heap rattled and banged down there like an old deck-winch, only more so; and what made him risk his life every night and day that God made amongst the refuse of a breaking-up yard flying round at fifty-seven revolutions, was more than _he_ could tell. He must have been born reckless, b'gosh. He . . . 'Where did you get drink?' inquired the German, very savage; but motionless in the light of the binnacle, like a clumsy effigy of a man cut out of a block of fat. Jim went on smiling at the retreating horizon; his heart was full of generous impulses, and his thought was contemplating his own superiority. 'Drink!' repeated the engineer with amiable scorn: he was hanging on with both hands to the rail, a shadowy figure with flexible legs. 'Not from you, captain. You're far too mean, b'gosh. You would let a good man die sooner than give him a drop of schnapps. That's what you Germans call economy. Penny wise, pound foolish.' He became sentimental. The chief had given him a four-finger nip about ten o'clock--'only one, s'elp me!'--good old chief; but as to getting the old fraud out of his bunk--a five-ton crane couldn't do it. Not it. Not to-night anyhow. He was sleeping sweetly like a little child, with a bottle of prime brandy under his pillow. From the thick throat of the commander of the Patna came a low rumble, on which the sound of the word schwein fluttered high and low like a capricious feather in a faint stir of air. He and the chief engineer had been cronies for a good few years--serving the same jovial, crafty, old Chinaman, with horn-rimmed goggles and strings of red silk plaited into the venerable grey hairs of his pigtail. The quay-side opinion in the Patna's home-port was that these two in the way of brazen peculation 'had done together pretty well everything you can think of.' Outwardly they were badly matched: one dull-eyed, malevolent, and of soft fleshy curves; the other lean, all hollows, with a head long and bony like the head of an old horse, with sunken cheeks, with sunken temples, with an indifferent glazed glance of sunken eyes. He had been stranded out East somewhere--in Canton, in Shanghai, or perhaps in Yokohama; he probably did not care to remember himself the exact locality, nor yet the cause of his shipwreck. He had been, in mercy to his youth, kicked quietly out of his ship twenty years ago or more, and it might have been so much worse for him that the memory of the episode had in it hardly a trace of misfortune. Then, steam navigation expanding in these seas and men of his craft being scarce at first, he had 'got on' after a sort. He was eager to let strangers know in a dismal mumble that he was 'an old stager out here.' When he moved, a skeleton seemed to sway loose in his clothes; his walk was mere wandering, and he was given to wander thus around the engine-room skylight, smoking, without relish, doctored tobacco in a brass bowl at the end of a cherrywood stem four feet long, with the imbecile gravity of a thinker evolving a system of philosophy from the hazy glimpse of a truth. He was usually anything but free with his private store of liquor; but on that night he had departed from his principles, so that his second, a weak-headed child of Wapping, what with the unexpectedness of the treat and the strength of the stuff, had become very happy, cheeky, and talkative. The fury of the New South Wales German was extreme; he puffed like an exhaust-pipe, and Jim, faintly amused by the scene, was impatient for the time when he could get below: the last ten minutes of the watch were irritating like a gun that hangs fire; those men did not belong to the world of heroic adventure; they weren't bad chaps though. Even the skipper himself . . . His gorge rose at the mass of panting flesh from which issued gurgling mutters, a cloudy trickle of filthy expressions; but he was too pleasurably languid to dislike actively this or any other thing. The quality of these men did not matter; he rubbed shoulders with them, but they could not touch him; he shared the air they breathed, but he was different. . . . Would the skipper go for the engineer? . . . The life was easy and he was too sure of himself--too sure of himself to . . . The line dividing his meditation from a surreptitious doze on his feet was thinner than a thread in a spider's web. The second engineer was coming by easy transitions to the consideration of his finances and of his courage. 'Who's drunk? I? No, no, captain! That won't do. You ought to know by this time the chief ain't free-hearted enough to make a sparrow drunk, b'gosh. I've never been the worse for liquor in my life; the stuff ain't made yet that would make _me_ drunk. I could drink liquid fire against your whisky peg for peg, b'gosh, and keep as cool as a cucumber. If I thought I was drunk I would jump overboard--do away with myself, b'gosh. I would! Straight! And I won't go off the bridge. Where do you expect me to take the air on a night like this, eh? On deck amongst that vermin down there? Likely--ain't it! And I am not afraid of anything you can do.' The German lifted two heavy fists to heaven and shook them a little without a word. 'I don't know what fear is,' pursued the engineer, with the enthusiasm of sincere conviction. 'I am not afraid of doing all the bloomin' work in this rotten hooker, b'gosh! And a jolly good thing for you that there are some of us about the world that aren't afraid of their lives, or where would you be--you and this old thing here with her plates like brown paper--brown paper, s'elp me? It's all very fine for you--you get a power of pieces out of her one way and another; but what about me--what do I get? A measly hundred and fifty dollars a month and find yourself. I wish to ask you respectfully--respectfully, mind--who wouldn't chuck a dratted job like this? 'Tain't safe, s'elp me, it ain't! Only I am one of them fearless fellows . . .' He let go the rail and made ample gestures as if demonstrating in the air the shape and extent of his valour; his thin voice darted in prolonged squeaks upon the sea, he tiptoed back and forth for the better emphasis of utterance, and suddenly pitched down head-first as though he had been clubbed from behind. He said 'Damn!' as he tumbled; an instant of silence followed upon his screeching: Jim and the skipper staggered forward by common accord, and catching themselves up, stood very stiff and still gazing, amazed, at the undisturbed level of the sea. Then they looked upwards at the stars. What had happened? The wheezy thump of the engines went on. Had the earth been checked in her course? They could not understand; and suddenly the calm sea, the sky without a cloud, appeared formidably insecure in their immobility, as if poised on the brow of yawning destruction. The engineer rebounded vertically full length and collapsed again into a vague heap. This heap said 'What's that?' in the muffled accents of profound grief. A faint noise as of thunder, of thunder infinitely remote, less than a sound, hardly more than a vibration, passed slowly, and the ship quivered in response, as if the thunder had growled deep down in the water. The eyes of the two Malays at the wheel glittered towards the white men, but their dark hands remained closed on the spokes. The sharp hull driving on its way seemed to rise a few inches in succession through its whole length, as though it had become pliable, and settled down again rigidly to its work of cleaving the smooth surface of the sea. Its quivering stopped, and the faint noise of thunder ceased all at once, as though the ship had steamed across a narrow belt of vibrating water and of humming air.

Chapter 3

https://web.archive.org/web/20180820051943/http://www.pinkmonkey.com/booknotes/monkeynotes/pmLordJim11.asp

It is a clear and still night as the Patna travels through the Arabian Sea. Jim is on night watch; as usual, he is dreaming of romantic adventures in which he will be the hero. As he walks, he observes the different people on board the ship. There are pilgrims with their children and rich families who have made special shelters for themselves. He observes his shipmates and sees the skipper of the ship, half-dressed in pajamas, looking at the charts. He watches the second engineer, who has traveled with the skipper for many years. He looks at the two Malays who steer the ship. Jim is again filled with confidence, for he is sure that no other officer has his abilities. These thoughts are interrupted by the sudden quivering of the ship. Jim and the others are thrown forward, but manage to control themselves. The ship then settles down and moves steadily forward through the calm water.

Notes This chapter opens with a description of the peaceful darkness and Jim responsibly performing his duties as night watch; but it also says that he is again romantically dreaming about his own heroism. In contrast to Jim's prim performance on deck and the calm beauty of the night sky, the captain is obscenely described as half-dressed with a disgusting and sweaty belly, "the incarnation of everything vile and base." He argues loudly with his second engineer, who seems to be drunk. It does not appear to be a very reliable or moral crew, a fact that once again foreshadows trouble on the Patna. As the engineer turns to go back below deck, the ship seems to struggle, quiver, and pitch forward, foreshadowing its future troubles. As the ship groans, all of the officers, including Jim, lurch forward, almost in a jumping motion, again foreshadowing later actions. Almost simultaneously, there is an appropriate roll of distant thunder, changing the Mood from serious to somber.

cliffnotes

all_chapterized_books/28054-chapters/book_xii.txt

finished_summaries/cliffnotes/The Brothers Karamazov/section_15_part_0.txt

The Brothers Karamazov.book xii.chapter i-chapter xiv

book xii

{"name": "Book XII", "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20201219142226/https://www.cliffsnotes.com/literature/b/the-brothers-karamazov/summary-and-analysis/part-4-book-xii", "summary": "The day of Dmitri's trial arrives, and the courtroom is filled with curious visitors from distant parts of the land; the trial has aroused much interest. Besides the gruesome details of parricide that will be discussed, Dmitri is being defended by the celebrated criminal lawyer Fetyukovitch, who has come from Moscow to undertake the defense. And, it is noted, the jury is made up mostly of peasants. Can such country people understand the subtleties of the much-discussed case? Dmitri enters the courtroom exquisitely dressed in a new frock coat. The judge then reads the indictment against him and asks for his plea. Dmitri responds, \"I plead guilty to drunkenness and dissipation . . . to idleness and debauchery . . . but I am not guilty of the death of that old man.\" Most of the people in the courtroom, however, even those who are partial to Dmitri, believe that the case against him is a strong one, for much of the evidence and nearly all of the witnesses' statements seem to indicate Dmitri's guilt. Fetyukovitch is an exceptionally skilled trial lawyer. He has grasped all the various aspects of the case, and as Grigory, Rakitin, Captain Snegiryov, the innkeeper from Mokroe, and others are called to testify, he skillfully discredits the testimony of each of them, pointing out inconsistencies in their statements and creating doubts about the integrity of their motives. Later, when three medical experts are called to testify about Dmitri's mental state, each doctor suggests a different cause for Dmitri's behavior. Thus, with the medical evidence so contradictory, there is no firm support for either the prosecution or the defense. There is a minor exception, however; the local doctor, Herzenstube, tells several interesting stories about Dmitri's childhood and creates some new sympathy among the listeners. Alyosha proves to be an asset for his brother because he is well known for his integrity. During his testimony, he is able to recall an incident with Dmitri, one that happened just before the murder. It proves that Dmitri did have a large sum of money on him and that he did not murder Fyodor for the 3,000 rubles. This fact impresses most people and convinces them that Dmitri has not stolen old Karamazov's secret fund. Following Alyosha in the witness stand is Katerina, who tells of Dmitri's saving her father from ruin and then refraining from blackmailing and thereby seducing her. Her story is heard with mixed interest, but Dmitri feels that she need not have told the tale because it is a severe blow to her integrity. Now it is publicly known how thoroughly she has humiliated herself for Dmitri. Grushenka is able to add little to Dmitri's defense except for her passionate outcries that he is innocent. Ivan has not yet testified. His testimony has been postponed because of his illness, but suddenly he appears at the trial. At first he is unable to speak sense. He can give no evidence. Then, as he is about to leave, he turns and shows the court the 3,000 rubles that Smerdyakov gave him. He reveals that Smerdyakov is the murderer and that he allowed the servant to perform the act. He becomes so excited that he says that he has a witness for everything he has said -- a devil who visits him at night. Hysterically, he asserts the truth of his testimony but is finally dragged from the courtroom, screaming incoherently. The trial has one more surprise before it recesses. Katerina reverses her statements and shows the court the letter that Dmitri wrote, stating that he might be forced to kill his father. She defends Ivan because she knows that he is suffering from mental illness. Grushenka then accuses Katerina of being a serpent, and an uproar follows. When order is finally restored, the lawyers give their concluding speeches. Once more, Kirillovitch, the prosecutor, describes the murder and analyzes the members of the Karamazov family, emphasizing Dmitri's passionate and undisciplined personality and reviewing in detail Dmitri's activities and statements during the days preceding the murder. He insists that Dmitri is exactly the sort of man whose violent disposition would drive him to seek a solution to all his problems through crime. Kirillovitch then dismisses Ivan's theory that Smerdyakov is the murderer by pointing out that the servant did not have any of the qualities of a murderer's personality; he had no motive and, further, was incapacitated on the night of the crime. Dmitri, on the other hand, did have a motive -- his hatred for his father -- and he had a great need for money. All this, plus the letter he wrote to Katerina, says the prosecutor, is conclusive proof that the crime was premeditated and was, in fact, committed by Dmitri Karamazov. He concludes by making a stirring appeal to the jury to uphold the sacred principles of justice and the moral foundation on which Russian civilization is built by punishing this most horrible of crimes -- the murder of a father by his son. Fetyukovitch begins his defense by emphasizing that all evidence against Dmitri is circumstantial. No fact withstands objective criticism if examined separately. He also points out that there is no real proof that a robbery took place; the belief that Fyodor kept 3,000 rubles, he says, is based on hearsay, and there is no reason to disbelieve Dmitri's explanation of where the money he spent at Mokroe came from. He also reminds the jury that the letter Dmitri wrote to Katerina was the result of extreme drunkenness and despair and cannot be equated with premeditated murder. Then, after reviewing all the evidence, he makes this final and important point: Fyodor's murder was not that of parricide. The man was never a father to Dmitri, nor was he a father to any of his sons. It is true that Fyodor's sensuousness resulted in Dmitri's birth, but Fyodor was a father in that respect only. After Dmitri was born, Fyodor continually mistreated the boy and from then on neglected all his parental duties. In fact, he abandoned the boy. All his life Dmitri endured mistreatment, and now, if he is convicted, the jury will destroy his only chance to reform and to make a decent life for himself. The lawyer asks for mercy so that Dmitri can be redeemed. He reminds the jury that the end of Russian justice is not to punish. Rather, it is pronounced so that a criminal can be helped toward salvation and regeneration. The audience is overcome with sympathy and enthusiasm and breaks into applause. The jury retires. The general consensus is that Dmitri will surely be acquitted, but such is not the case. When the verdict is read, Dmitri is found guilty on every count.", "analysis": "Recorded in detail in this book is Dmitri's trial. Here is massive evidence of Dostoevsky's long interest in the proceedings of the Russian courts and of the psychology practiced by lawyers. Dmitri's attorney, Fetyukovitch, for example, is able to undermine and cleverly discredit the testimony of every witness. He is particularly masterful as he points out that Grigory, unused to drinking, had been imbibing on the night of the murder and could have seen \"the gates of heaven open up.\" Likewise, with all witnesses, Fetyukovitch discovers and enlarges a loophole in their statements so that truth becomes extremely tenuous. The trial, which up to a certain point has been shaped by the incisive intelligence of Dmitri's lawyer, takes on a new turn as Ivan comes forward to give his testimony. He desires to tell all he knows and to confess his own part in the murder, but he rages incoherently and finally suffers a nervous collapse. This, in turn, forces Katerina to admit evidence that ultimately convicts Dmitri. The confused young girl, in her attempt to save Ivan from disgrace, produces the letter written by Dmitri announcing his plan to murder his father, if necessary, to pay back the money he owes. More than any other factor, this letter condemns Dmitri. The final section of Book XII covers the long speeches of the prosecutor and the defense attorney in which each summarizes the arguments of the trial and offers his interpretation. Actually, nothing new is revealed in these speeches. They serve chiefly to illustrate the nature of the legal minds emerging in Russia during this period."}

Book XII. A Judicial Error Chapter I. The Fatal Day At ten o'clock in the morning of the day following the events I have described, the trial of Dmitri Karamazov began in our district court. I hasten to emphasize the fact that I am far from esteeming myself capable of reporting all that took place at the trial in full detail, or even in the actual order of events. I imagine that to mention everything with full explanation would fill a volume, even a very large one. And so I trust I may not be reproached, for confining myself to what struck me. I may have selected as of most interest what was of secondary importance, and may have omitted the most prominent and essential details. But I see I shall do better not to apologize. I will do my best and the reader will see for himself that I have done all I can. And, to begin with, before entering the court, I will mention what surprised me most on that day. Indeed, as it appeared later, every one was surprised at it, too. We all knew that the affair had aroused great interest, that every one was burning with impatience for the trial to begin, that it had been a subject of talk, conjecture, exclamation and surmise for the last two months in local society. Every one knew, too, that the case had become known throughout Russia, but yet we had not imagined that it had aroused such burning, such intense, interest in every one, not only among ourselves, but all over Russia. This became evident at the trial this day. Visitors had arrived not only from the chief town of our province, but from several other Russian towns, as well as from Moscow and Petersburg. Among them were lawyers, ladies, and even several distinguished personages. Every ticket of admission had been snatched up. A special place behind the table at which the three judges sat was set apart for the most distinguished and important of the men visitors; a row of arm-chairs had been placed there--something exceptional, which had never been allowed before. A large proportion--not less than half of the public--were ladies. There was such a large number of lawyers from all parts that they did not know where to seat them, for every ticket had long since been eagerly sought for and distributed. I saw at the end of the room, behind the platform, a special partition hurriedly put up, behind which all these lawyers were admitted, and they thought themselves lucky to have standing room there, for all chairs had been removed for the sake of space, and the crowd behind the partition stood throughout the case closely packed, shoulder to shoulder. Some of the ladies, especially those who came from a distance, made their appearance in the gallery very smartly dressed, but the majority of the ladies were oblivious even of dress. Their faces betrayed hysterical, intense, almost morbid, curiosity. A peculiar fact--established afterwards by many observations--was that almost all the ladies, or, at least the vast majority of them, were on Mitya's side and in favor of his being acquitted. This was perhaps chiefly owing to his reputation as a conqueror of female hearts. It was known that two women rivals were to appear in the case. One of them--Katerina Ivanovna--was an object of general interest. All sorts of extraordinary tales were told about her, amazing anecdotes of her passion for Mitya, in spite of his crime. Her pride and "aristocratic connections" were particularly insisted upon (she had called upon scarcely any one in the town). People said she intended to petition the Government for leave to accompany the criminal to Siberia and to be married to him somewhere in the mines. The appearance of Grushenka in court was awaited with no less impatience. The public was looking forward with anxious curiosity to the meeting of the two rivals--the proud aristocratic girl and "the hetaira." But Grushenka was a more familiar figure to the ladies of the district than Katerina Ivanovna. They had already seen "the woman who had ruined Fyodor Pavlovitch and his unhappy son," and all, almost without exception, wondered how father and son could be so in love with "such a very common, ordinary Russian girl, who was not even pretty." In brief, there was a great deal of talk. I know for a fact that there were several serious family quarrels on Mitya's account in our town. Many ladies quarreled violently with their husbands over differences of opinion about the dreadful case, and it was only natural that the husbands of these ladies, far from being favorably disposed to the prisoner, should enter the court bitterly prejudiced against him. In fact, one may say pretty certainly that the masculine, as distinguished from the feminine, part of the audience were biased against the prisoner. There were numbers of severe, frowning, even vindictive faces. Mitya, indeed, had managed to offend many people during his stay in the town. Some of the visitors were, of course, in excellent spirits and quite unconcerned as to the fate of Mitya personally. But all were interested in the trial, and the majority of the men were certainly hoping for the conviction of the criminal, except perhaps the lawyers, who were more interested in the legal than in the moral aspect of the case. Everybody was excited at the presence of the celebrated lawyer, Fetyukovitch. His talent was well known, and this was not the first time he had defended notorious criminal cases in the provinces. And if he defended them, such cases became celebrated and long remembered all over Russia. There were stories, too, about our prosecutor and about the President of the Court. It was said that Ippolit Kirillovitch was in a tremor at meeting Fetyukovitch, and that they had been enemies from the beginning of their careers in Petersburg, that though our sensitive prosecutor, who always considered that he had been aggrieved by some one in Petersburg because his talents had not been properly appreciated, was keenly excited over the Karamazov case, and was even dreaming of rebuilding his flagging fortunes by means of it, Fetyukovitch, they said, was his one anxiety. But these rumors were not quite just. Our prosecutor was not one of those men who lose heart in face of danger. On the contrary, his self-confidence increased with the increase of danger. It must be noted that our prosecutor was in general too hasty and morbidly impressionable. He would put his whole soul into some case and work at it as though his whole fate and his whole fortune depended on its result. This was the subject of some ridicule in the legal world, for just by this characteristic our prosecutor had gained a wider notoriety than could have been expected from his modest position. People laughed particularly at his passion for psychology. In my opinion, they were wrong, and our prosecutor was, I believe, a character of greater depth than was generally supposed. But with his delicate health he had failed to make his mark at the outset of his career and had never made up for it later. As for the President of our Court, I can only say that he was a humane and cultured man, who had a practical knowledge of his work and progressive views. He was rather ambitious, but did not concern himself greatly about his future career. The great aim of his life was to be a man of advanced ideas. He was, too, a man of connections and property. He felt, as we learnt afterwards, rather strongly about the Karamazov case, but from a social, not from a personal standpoint. He was interested in it as a social phenomenon, in its classification and its character as a product of our social conditions, as typical of the national character, and so on, and so on. His attitude to the personal aspect of the case, to its tragic significance and the persons involved in it, including the prisoner, was rather indifferent and abstract, as was perhaps fitting, indeed. The court was packed and overflowing long before the judges made their appearance. Our court is the best hall in the town--spacious, lofty, and good for sound. On the right of the judges, who were on a raised platform, a table and two rows of chairs had been put ready for the jury. On the left was the place for the prisoner and the counsel for the defense. In the middle of the court, near the judges, was a table with the "material proofs." On it lay Fyodor Pavlovitch's white silk dressing-gown, stained with blood; the fatal brass pestle with which the supposed murder had been committed; Mitya's shirt, with a blood-stained sleeve; his coat, stained with blood in patches over the pocket in which he had put his handkerchief; the handkerchief itself, stiff with blood and by now quite yellow; the pistol loaded by Mitya at Perhotin's with a view to suicide, and taken from him on the sly at Mokroe by Trifon Borissovitch; the envelope in which the three thousand roubles had been put ready for Grushenka, the narrow pink ribbon with which it had been tied, and many other articles I don't remember. In the body of the hall, at some distance, came the seats for the public. But in front of the balustrade a few chairs had been placed for witnesses who remained in the court after giving their evidence. At ten o'clock the three judges arrived--the President, one honorary justice of the peace, and one other. The prosecutor, of course, entered immediately after. The President was a short, stout, thick-set man of fifty, with a dyspeptic complexion, dark hair turning gray and cut short, and a red ribbon, of what Order I don't remember. The prosecutor struck me and the others, too, as looking particularly pale, almost green. His face seemed to have grown suddenly thinner, perhaps in a single night, for I had seen him looking as usual only two days before. The President began with asking the court whether all the jury were present. But I see I can't go on like this, partly because some things I did not hear, others I did not notice, and others I have forgotten, but most of all because, as I have said before, I have literally no time or space to mention everything that was said and done. I only know that neither side objected to very many of the jurymen. I remember the twelve jurymen--four were petty officials of the town, two were merchants, and six peasants and artisans of the town. I remember, long before the trial, questions were continually asked with some surprise, especially by ladies: "Can such a delicate, complex and psychological case be submitted for decision to petty officials and even peasants?" and "What can an official, still more a peasant, understand in such an affair?" All the four officials in the jury were, in fact, men of no consequence and of low rank. Except one who was rather younger, they were gray-headed men, little known in society, who had vegetated on a pitiful salary, and who probably had elderly, unpresentable wives and crowds of children, perhaps even without shoes and stockings. At most, they spent their leisure over cards and, of course, had never read a single book. The two merchants looked respectable, but were strangely silent and stolid. One of them was close-shaven, and was dressed in European style; the other had a small, gray beard, and wore a red ribbon with some sort of a medal upon it on his neck. There is no need to speak of the artisans and the peasants. The artisans of Skotoprigonyevsk are almost peasants, and even work on the land. Two of them also wore European dress, and, perhaps for that reason, were dirtier and more uninviting-looking than the others. So that one might well wonder, as I did as soon as I had looked at them, "what men like that could possibly make of such a case?" Yet their faces made a strangely imposing, almost menacing, impression; they were stern and frowning. At last the President opened the case of the murder of Fyodor Pavlovitch Karamazov. I don't quite remember how he described him. The court usher was told to bring in the prisoner, and Mitya made his appearance. There was a hush through the court. One could have heard a fly. I don't know how it was with others, but Mitya made a most unfavorable impression on me. He looked an awful dandy in a brand-new frock-coat. I heard afterwards that he had ordered it in Moscow expressly for the occasion from his own tailor, who had his measure. He wore immaculate black kid gloves and exquisite linen. He walked in with his yard-long strides, looking stiffly straight in front of him, and sat down in his place with a most unperturbed air. At the same moment the counsel for defense, the celebrated Fetyukovitch, entered, and a sort of subdued hum passed through the court. He was a tall, spare man, with long thin legs, with extremely long, thin, pale fingers, clean-shaven face, demurely brushed, rather short hair, and thin lips that were at times curved into something between a sneer and a smile. He looked about forty. His face would have been pleasant, if it had not been for his eyes, which, in themselves small and inexpressive, were set remarkably close together, with only the thin, long nose as a dividing line between them. In fact, there was something strikingly birdlike about his face. He was in evening dress and white tie. I remember the President's first questions to Mitya, about his name, his calling, and so on. Mitya answered sharply, and his voice was so unexpectedly loud that it made the President start and look at the prisoner with surprise. Then followed a list of persons who were to take part in the proceedings--that is, of the witnesses and experts. It was a long list. Four of the witnesses were not present--Miuesov, who had given evidence at the preliminary inquiry, but was now in Paris; Madame Hohlakov and Maximov, who were absent through illness; and Smerdyakov, through his sudden death, of which an official statement from the police was presented. The news of Smerdyakov's death produced a sudden stir and whisper in the court. Many of the audience, of course, had not heard of the sudden suicide. What struck people most was Mitya's sudden outburst As soon as the statement of Smerdyakov's death was made, he cried out aloud from his place: "He was a dog and died like a dog!" I remember how his counsel rushed to him, and how the President addressed him, threatening to take stern measures, if such an irregularity were repeated. Mitya nodded and in a subdued voice repeated several times abruptly to his counsel, with no show of regret: "I won't again, I won't. It escaped me. I won't do it again." And, of course, this brief episode did him no good with the jury or the public. His character was displayed, and it spoke for itself. It was under the influence of this incident that the opening statement was read. It was rather short, but circumstantial. It only stated the chief reasons why he had been arrested, why he must be tried, and so on. Yet it made a great impression on me. The clerk read it loudly and distinctly. The whole tragedy was suddenly unfolded before us, concentrated, in bold relief, in a fatal and pitiless light. I remember how, immediately after it had been read, the President asked Mitya in a loud impressive voice: "Prisoner, do you plead guilty?" Mitya suddenly rose from his seat. "I plead guilty to drunkenness and dissipation," he exclaimed, again in a startling, almost frenzied, voice, "to idleness and debauchery. I meant to become an honest man for good, just at the moment when I was struck down by fate. But I am not guilty of the death of that old man, my enemy and my father. No, no, I am not guilty of robbing him! I could not be. Dmitri Karamazov is a scoundrel, but not a thief." He sat down again, visibly trembling all over. The President again briefly, but impressively, admonished him to answer only what was asked, and not to go off into irrelevant exclamations. Then he ordered the case to proceed. All the witnesses were led up to take the oath. Then I saw them all together. The brothers of the prisoner were, however, allowed to give evidence without taking the oath. After an exhortation from the priest and the President, the witnesses were led away and were made to sit as far as possible apart from one another. Then they began calling them up one by one. Chapter II. Dangerous Witnesses I do not know whether the witnesses for the defense and for the prosecution were separated into groups by the President, and whether it was arranged to call them in a certain order. But no doubt it was so. I only know that the witnesses for the prosecution were called first. I repeat I don't intend to describe all the questions step by step. Besides, my account would be to some extent superfluous, because in the speeches for the prosecution and for the defense the whole course of the evidence was brought together and set in a strong and significant light, and I took down parts of those two remarkable speeches in full, and will quote them in due course, together with one extraordinary and quite unexpected episode, which occurred before the final speeches, and undoubtedly influenced the sinister and fatal outcome of the trial. I will only observe that from the first moments of the trial one peculiar characteristic of the case was conspicuous and observed by all, that is, the overwhelming strength of the prosecution as compared with the arguments the defense had to rely upon. Every one realized it from the first moment that the facts began to group themselves round a single point, and the whole horrible and bloody crime was gradually revealed. Every one, perhaps, felt from the first that the case was beyond dispute, that there was no doubt about it, that there could be really no discussion, and that the defense was only a matter of form, and that the prisoner was guilty, obviously and conclusively guilty. I imagine that even the ladies, who were so impatiently longing for the acquittal of the interesting prisoner, were at the same time, without exception, convinced of his guilt. What's more, I believe they would have been mortified if his guilt had not been so firmly established, as that would have lessened the effect of the closing scene of the criminal's acquittal. That he would be acquitted, all the ladies, strange to say, were firmly persuaded up to the very last moment. "He is guilty, but he will be acquitted, from motives of humanity, in accordance with the new ideas, the new sentiments that had come into fashion," and so on, and so on. And that was why they had crowded into the court so impatiently. The men were more interested in the contest between the prosecutor and the famous Fetyukovitch. All were wondering and asking themselves what could even a talent like Fetyukovitch's make of such a desperate case; and so they followed his achievements, step by step, with concentrated attention. But Fetyukovitch remained an enigma to all up to the very end, up to his speech. Persons of experience suspected that he had some design, that he was working towards some object, but it was almost impossible to guess what it was. His confidence and self-reliance were unmistakable, however. Every one noticed with pleasure, moreover, that he, after so short a stay, not more than three days, perhaps, among us, had so wonderfully succeeded in mastering the case and "had studied it to a nicety." People described with relish, afterwards, how cleverly he had "taken down" all the witnesses for the prosecution, and as far as possible perplexed them and, what's more, had aspersed their reputation and so depreciated the value of their evidence. But it was supposed that he did this rather by way of sport, so to speak, for professional glory, to show nothing had been omitted of the accepted methods, for all were convinced that he could do no real good by such disparagement of the witnesses, and probably was more aware of this than any one, having some idea of his own in the background, some concealed weapon of defense, which he would suddenly reveal when the time came. But meanwhile, conscious of his strength, he seemed to be diverting himself. So, for instance, when Grigory, Fyodor Pavlovitch's old servant, who had given the most damning piece of evidence about the open door, was examined, the counsel for the defense positively fastened upon him when his turn came to question him. It must be noted that Grigory entered the hall with a composed and almost stately air, not the least disconcerted by the majesty of the court or the vast audience listening to him. He gave evidence with as much confidence as though he had been talking with his Marfa, only perhaps more respectfully. It was impossible to make him contradict himself. The prosecutor questioned him first in detail about the family life of the Karamazovs. The family picture stood out in lurid colors. It was plain to ear and eye that the witness was guileless and impartial. In spite of his profound reverence for the memory of his deceased master, he yet bore witness that he had been unjust to Mitya and "hadn't brought up his children as he should. He'd have been devoured by lice when he was little, if it hadn't been for me," he added, describing Mitya's early childhood. "It wasn't fair either of the father to wrong his son over his mother's property, which was by right his." In reply to the prosecutor's question what grounds he had for asserting that Fyodor Pavlovitch had wronged his son in their money relations, Grigory, to the surprise of every one, had no proof at all to bring forward, but he still persisted that the arrangement with the son was "unfair," and that he ought "to have paid him several thousand roubles more." I must note, by the way, that the prosecutor asked this question whether Fyodor Pavlovitch had really kept back part of Mitya's inheritance with marked persistence of all the witnesses who could be asked it, not excepting Alyosha and Ivan, but he obtained no exact information from any one; all alleged that it was so, but were unable to bring forward any distinct proof. Grigory's description of the scene at the dinner-table, when Dmitri had burst in and beaten his father, threatening to come back to kill him, made a sinister impression on the court, especially as the old servant's composure in telling it, his parsimony of words and peculiar phraseology, were as effective as eloquence. He observed that he was not angry with Mitya for having knocked him down and struck him on the face; he had forgiven him long ago, he said. Of the deceased Smerdyakov he observed, crossing himself, that he was a lad of ability, but stupid and afflicted, and, worse still, an infidel, and that it was Fyodor Pavlovitch and his elder son who had taught him to be so. But he defended Smerdyakov's honesty almost with warmth, and related how Smerdyakov had once found the master's money in the yard, and, instead of concealing it, had taken it to his master, who had rewarded him with a "gold piece" for it, and trusted him implicitly from that time forward. He maintained obstinately that the door into the garden had been open. But he was asked so many questions that I can't recall them all. At last the counsel for the defense began to cross-examine him, and the first question he asked was about the envelope in which Fyodor Pavlovitch was supposed to have put three thousand roubles for "a certain person." "Have you ever seen it, you, who were for so many years in close attendance on your master?" Grigory answered that he had not seen it and had never heard of the money from any one "till everybody was talking about it." This question about the envelope Fetyukovitch put to every one who could conceivably have known of it, as persistently as the prosecutor asked his question about Dmitri's inheritance, and got the same answer from all, that no one had seen the envelope, though many had heard of it. From the beginning every one noticed Fetyukovitch's persistence on this subject. "Now, with your permission I'll ask you a question," Fetyukovitch said, suddenly and unexpectedly. "Of what was that balsam, or, rather, decoction, made, which, as we learn from the preliminary inquiry, you used on that evening to rub your lumbago, in the hope of curing it?" Grigory looked blankly at the questioner, and after a brief silence muttered, "There was saffron in it." "Nothing but saffron? Don't you remember any other ingredient?" "There was milfoil in it, too." "And pepper perhaps?" Fetyukovitch queried. "Yes, there was pepper, too." "Etcetera. And all dissolved in vodka?" "In spirit." There was a faint sound of laughter in the court. "You see, in spirit. After rubbing your back, I believe, you drank what was left in the bottle with a certain pious prayer, only known to your wife?" "I did." "Did you drink much? Roughly speaking, a wine-glass or two?" "It might have been a tumbler-full." "A tumbler-full, even. Perhaps a tumbler and a half?" Grigory did not answer. He seemed to see what was meant. "A glass and a half of neat spirit--is not at all bad, don't you think? You might see the gates of heaven open, not only the door into the garden?" Grigory remained silent. There was another laugh in the court. The President made a movement. "Do you know for a fact," Fetyukovitch persisted, "whether you were awake or not when you saw the open door?" "I was on my legs." "That's not a proof that you were awake." (There was again laughter in the court.) "Could you have answered at that moment, if any one had asked you a question--for instance, what year it is?" "I don't know." "And what year is it, Anno Domini, do you know?" Grigory stood with a perplexed face, looking straight at his tormentor. Strange to say, it appeared he really did not know what year it was. "But perhaps you can tell me how many fingers you have on your hands?" "I am a servant," Grigory said suddenly, in a loud and distinct voice. "If my betters think fit to make game of me, it is my duty to suffer it." Fetyukovitch was a little taken aback, and the President intervened, reminding him that he must ask more relevant questions. Fetyukovitch bowed with dignity and said that he had no more questions to ask of the witness. The public and the jury, of course, were left with a grain of doubt in their minds as to the evidence of a man who might, while undergoing a certain cure, have seen "the gates of heaven," and who did not even know what year he was living in. But before Grigory left the box another episode occurred. The President, turning to the prisoner, asked him whether he had any comment to make on the evidence of the last witness. "Except about the door, all he has said is true," cried Mitya, in a loud voice. "For combing the lice off me, I thank him; for forgiving my blows, I thank him. The old man has been honest all his life and as faithful to my father as seven hundred poodles." "Prisoner, be careful in your language," the President admonished him. "I am not a poodle," Grigory muttered. "All right, it's I am a poodle myself," cried Mitya. "If it's an insult, I take it to myself and I beg his pardon. I was a beast and cruel to him. I was cruel to AEsop too." "What AEsop?" the President asked sternly again. "Oh, Pierrot ... my father, Fyodor Pavlovitch." The President again and again warned Mitya impressively and very sternly to be more careful in his language. "You are injuring yourself in the opinion of your judges." The counsel for the defense was equally clever in dealing with the evidence of Rakitin. I may remark that Rakitin was one of the leading witnesses and one to whom the prosecutor attached great significance. It appeared that he knew everything; his knowledge was amazing, he had been everywhere, seen everything, talked to everybody, knew every detail of the biography of Fyodor Pavlovitch and all the Karamazovs. Of the envelope, it is true, he had only heard from Mitya himself. But he described minutely Mitya's exploits in the "Metropolis," all his compromising doings and sayings, and told the story of Captain Snegiryov's "wisp of tow." But even Rakitin could say nothing positive about Mitya's inheritance, and confined himself to contemptuous generalities. "Who could tell which of them was to blame, and which was in debt to the other, with their crazy Karamazov way of muddling things so that no one could make head or tail of it?" He attributed the tragic crime to the habits that had become ingrained by ages of serfdom and the distressed condition of Russia, due to the lack of appropriate institutions. He was, in fact, allowed some latitude of speech. This was the first occasion on which Rakitin showed what he could do, and attracted notice. The prosecutor knew that the witness was preparing a magazine article on the case, and afterwards in his speech, as we shall see later, quoted some ideas from the article, showing that he had seen it already. The picture drawn by the witness was a gloomy and sinister one, and greatly strengthened the case for the prosecution. Altogether, Rakitin's discourse fascinated the public by its independence and the extraordinary nobility of its ideas. There were even two or three outbreaks of applause when he spoke of serfdom and the distressed condition of Russia. But Rakitin, in his youthful ardor, made a slight blunder, of which the counsel for the defense at once adroitly took advantage. Answering certain questions about Grushenka, and carried away by the loftiness of his own sentiments and his success, of which he was, of course, conscious, he went so far as to speak somewhat contemptuously of Agrafena Alexandrovna as "the kept mistress of Samsonov." He would have given a good deal to take back his words afterwards, for Fetyukovitch caught him out over it at once. And it was all because Rakitin had not reckoned on the lawyer having been able to become so intimately acquainted with every detail in so short a time. "Allow me to ask," began the counsel for the defense, with the most affable and even respectful smile, "you are, of course, the same Mr. Rakitin whose pamphlet, _The Life of the Deceased Elder, Father Zossima_, published by the diocesan authorities, full of profound and religious reflections and preceded by an excellent and devout dedication to the bishop, I have just read with such pleasure?" "I did not write it for publication ... it was published afterwards," muttered Rakitin, for some reason fearfully disconcerted and almost ashamed. "Oh, that's excellent! A thinker like you can, and indeed ought to, take the widest view of every social question. Your most instructive pamphlet has been widely circulated through the patronage of the bishop, and has been of appreciable service.... But this is the chief thing I should like to learn from you. You stated just now that you were very intimately acquainted with Madame Svyetlov." (It must be noted that Grushenka's surname was Svyetlov. I heard it for the first time that day, during the case.) "I cannot answer for all my acquaintances.... I am a young man ... and who can be responsible for every one he meets?" cried Rakitin, flushing all over. "I understand, I quite understand," cried Fetyukovitch, as though he, too, were embarrassed and in haste to excuse himself. "You, like any other, might well be interested in an acquaintance with a young and beautiful woman who would readily entertain the _elite_ of the youth of the neighborhood, but ... I only wanted to know ... It has come to my knowledge that Madame Svyetlov was particularly anxious a couple of months ago to make the acquaintance of the younger Karamazov, Alexey Fyodorovitch, and promised you twenty-five roubles, if you would bring him to her in his monastic dress. And that actually took place on the evening of the day on which the terrible crime, which is the subject of the present investigation, was committed. You brought Alexey Karamazov to Madame Svyetlov, and did you receive the twenty-five roubles from Madame Svyetlov as a reward, that's what I wanted to hear from you?" "It was a joke.... I don't see of what interest that can be to you.... I took it for a joke ... meaning to give it back later...." "Then you did take-- But you have not given it back yet ... or have you?" "That's of no consequence," muttered Rakitin, "I refuse to answer such questions.... Of course I shall give it back." The President intervened, but Fetyukovitch declared he had no more questions to ask of the witness. Mr. Rakitin left the witness-box not absolutely without a stain upon his character. The effect left by the lofty idealism of his speech was somewhat marred, and Fetyukovitch's expression, as he watched him walk away, seemed to suggest to the public "this is a specimen of the lofty-minded persons who accuse him." I remember that this incident, too, did not pass off without an outbreak from Mitya. Enraged by the tone in which Rakitin had referred to Grushenka, he suddenly shouted "Bernard!" When, after Rakitin's cross- examination, the President asked the prisoner if he had anything to say, Mitya cried loudly: "Since I've been arrested, he has borrowed money from me! He is a contemptible Bernard and opportunist, and he doesn't believe in God; he took the bishop in!" Mitya, of course, was pulled up again for the intemperance of his language, but Rakitin was done for. Captain Snegiryov's evidence was a failure, too, but from quite a different reason. He appeared in ragged and dirty clothes, muddy boots, and in spite of the vigilance and expert observation of the police officers, he turned out to be hopelessly drunk. On being asked about Mitya's attack upon him, he refused to answer. "God bless him. Ilusha told me not to. God will make it up to me yonder." "Who told you not to tell? Of whom are you talking?" "Ilusha, my little son. 'Father, father, how he insulted you!' He said that at the stone. Now he is dying...." The captain suddenly began sobbing, and plumped down on his knees before the President. He was hurriedly led away amidst the laughter of the public. The effect prepared by the prosecutor did not come off at all. Fetyukovitch went on making the most of every opportunity, and amazed people more and more by his minute knowledge of the case. Thus, for example, Trifon Borissovitch made a great impression, of course, very prejudicial to Mitya. He calculated almost on his fingers that on his first visit to Mokroe, Mitya must have spent three thousand roubles, "or very little less. Just think what he squandered on those gypsy girls alone! And as for our lousy peasants, it wasn't a case of flinging half a rouble in the street, he made them presents of twenty-five roubles each, at least, he didn't give them less. And what a lot of money was simply stolen from him! And if any one did steal, he did not leave a receipt. How could one catch the thief when he was flinging his money away all the time? Our peasants are robbers, you know; they have no care for their souls. And the way he went on with the girls, our village girls! They're completely set up since then, I tell you, they used to be poor." He recalled, in fact, every item of expense and added it all up. So the theory that only fifteen hundred had been spent and the rest had been put aside in a little bag seemed inconceivable. "I saw three thousand as clear as a penny in his hands, I saw it with my own eyes; I should think I ought to know how to reckon money," cried Trifon Borissovitch, doing his best to satisfy "his betters." When Fetyukovitch had to cross-examine him, he scarcely tried to refute his evidence, but began asking him about an incident at the first carousal at Mokroe, a month before the arrest, when Timofey and another peasant called Akim had picked up on the floor in the passage a hundred roubles dropped by Mitya when he was drunk, and had given them to Trifon Borissovitch and received a rouble each from him for doing so. "Well," asked the lawyer, "did you give that hundred roubles back to Mr. Karamazov?" Trifon Borissovitch shuffled in vain.... He was obliged, after the peasants had been examined, to admit the finding of the hundred roubles, only adding that he had religiously returned it all to Dmitri Fyodorovitch "in perfect honesty, and it's only because his honor was in liquor at the time, he wouldn't remember it." But, as he had denied the incident of the hundred roubles till the peasants had been called to prove it, his evidence as to returning the money to Mitya was naturally regarded with great suspicion. So one of the most dangerous witnesses brought forward by the prosecution was again discredited. The same thing happened with the Poles. They took up an attitude of pride and independence; they vociferated loudly that they had both been in the service of the Crown, and that "Pan Mitya" had offered them three thousand "to buy their honor," and that they had seen a large sum of money in his hands. Pan Mussyalovitch introduced a terrible number of Polish words into his sentences, and seeing that this only increased his consequence in the eyes of the President and the prosecutor, grew more and more pompous, and ended by talking in Polish altogether. But Fetyukovitch caught them, too, in his snares. Trifon Borissovitch, recalled, was forced, in spite of his evasions, to admit that Pan Vrublevsky had substituted another pack of cards for the one he had provided, and that Pan Mussyalovitch had cheated during the game. Kalganov confirmed this, and both the Poles left the witness-box with damaged reputations, amidst laughter from the public. Then exactly the same thing happened with almost all the most dangerous witnesses. Fetyukovitch succeeded in casting a slur on all of them, and dismissing them with a certain derision. The lawyers and experts were lost in admiration, and were only at a loss to understand what good purpose could be served by it, for all, I repeat, felt that the case for the prosecution could not be refuted, but was growing more and more tragically overwhelming. But from the confidence of the "great magician" they saw that he was serene, and they waited, feeling that "such a man" had not come from Petersburg for nothing, and that he was not a man to return unsuccessful. Chapter III. The Medical Experts And A Pound Of Nuts The evidence of the medical experts, too, was of little use to the prisoner. And it appeared later that Fetyukovitch had not reckoned much upon it. The medical line of defense had only been taken up through the insistence of Katerina Ivanovna, who had sent for a celebrated doctor from Moscow on purpose. The case for the defense could, of course, lose nothing by it and might, with luck, gain something from it. There was, however, an element of comedy about it, through the difference of opinion of the doctors. The medical experts were the famous doctor from Moscow, our doctor, Herzenstube, and the young doctor, Varvinsky. The two latter appeared also as witnesses for the prosecution. The first to be called in the capacity of expert was Doctor Herzenstube. He was a gray and bald old man of seventy, of middle height and sturdy build. He was much esteemed and respected by every one in the town. He was a conscientious doctor and an excellent and pious man, a Hernguter or Moravian brother, I am not quite sure which. He had been living amongst us for many years and behaved with wonderful dignity. He was a kind-hearted and humane man. He treated the sick poor and peasants for nothing, visited them in their slums and huts, and left money for medicine, but he was as obstinate as a mule. If once he had taken an idea into his head, there was no shaking it. Almost every one in the town was aware, by the way, that the famous doctor had, within the first two or three days of his presence among us, uttered some extremely offensive allusions to Doctor Herzenstube's qualifications. Though the Moscow doctor asked twenty-five roubles for a visit, several people in the town were glad to take advantage of his arrival, and rushed to consult him regardless of expense. All these had, of course, been previously patients of Doctor Herzenstube, and the celebrated doctor had criticized his treatment with extreme harshness. Finally, he had asked the patients as soon as he saw them, "Well, who has been cramming you with nostrums? Herzenstube? He, he!" Doctor Herzenstube, of course, heard all this, and now all the three doctors made their appearance, one after another, to be examined. Doctor Herzenstube roundly declared that the abnormality of the prisoner's mental faculties was self-evident. Then giving his grounds for this opinion, which I omit here, he added that the abnormality was not only evident in many of the prisoner's actions in the past, but was apparent even now at this very moment. When he was asked to explain how it was apparent now at this moment, the old doctor, with simple-hearted directness, pointed out that the prisoner on entering the court had "an extraordinary air, remarkable in the circumstances"; that he had "marched in like a soldier, looking straight before him, though it would have been more natural for him to look to the left where, among the public, the ladies were sitting, seeing that he was a great admirer of the fair sex and must be thinking much of what the ladies are saying of him now," the old man concluded in his peculiar language. I must add that he spoke Russian readily, but every phrase was formed in German style, which did not, however, trouble him, for it had always been a weakness of his to believe that he spoke Russian perfectly, better indeed than Russians. And he was very fond of using Russian proverbs, always declaring that the Russian proverbs were the best and most expressive sayings in the whole world. I may remark, too, that in conversation, through absent-mindedness he often forgot the most ordinary words, which sometimes went out of his head, though he knew them perfectly. The same thing happened, though, when he spoke German, and at such times he always waved his hand before his face as though trying to catch the lost word, and no one could induce him to go on speaking till he had found the missing word. His remark that the prisoner ought to have looked at the ladies on entering roused a whisper of amusement in the audience. All our ladies were very fond of our old doctor; they knew, too, that having been all his life a bachelor and a religious man of exemplary conduct, he looked upon women as lofty creatures. And so his unexpected observation struck every one as very queer. The Moscow doctor, being questioned in his turn, definitely and emphatically repeated that he considered the prisoner's mental condition abnormal in the highest degree. He talked at length and with erudition of "aberration" and "mania," and argued that, from all the facts collected, the prisoner had undoubtedly been in a condition of aberration for several days before his arrest, and, if the crime had been committed by him, it must, even if he were conscious of it, have been almost involuntary, as he had not the power to control the morbid impulse that possessed him. But apart from temporary aberration, the doctor diagnosed mania, which premised, in his words, to lead to complete insanity in the future. (It must be noted that I report this in my own words, the doctor made use of very learned and professional language.) "All his actions are in contravention of common sense and logic," he continued. "Not to refer to what I have not seen, that is, the crime itself and the whole catastrophe, the day before yesterday, while he was talking to me, he had an unaccountably fixed look in his eye. He laughed unexpectedly when there was nothing to laugh at. He showed continual and inexplicable irritability, using strange words, 'Bernard!' 'Ethics!' and others equally inappropriate." But the doctor detected mania, above all, in the fact that the prisoner could not even speak of the three thousand roubles, of which he considered himself to have been cheated, without extraordinary irritation, though he could speak comparatively lightly of other misfortunes and grievances. According to all accounts, he had even in the past, whenever the subject of the three thousand roubles was touched on, flown into a perfect frenzy, and yet he was reported to be a disinterested and not grasping man. "As to the opinion of my learned colleague," the Moscow doctor added ironically in conclusion, "that the prisoner would, on entering the court, have naturally looked at the ladies and not straight before him, I will only say that, apart from the playfulness of this theory, it is radically unsound. For though I fully agree that the prisoner, on entering the court where his fate will be decided, would not naturally look straight before him in that fixed way, and that that may really be a sign of his abnormal mental condition, at the same time I maintain that he would naturally not look to the left at the ladies, but, on the contrary, to the right to find his legal adviser, on whose help all his hopes rest and on whose defense all his future depends." The doctor expressed his opinion positively and emphatically. But the unexpected pronouncement of Doctor Varvinsky gave the last touch of comedy to the difference of opinion between the experts. In his opinion the prisoner was now, and had been all along, in a perfectly normal condition, and, although he certainly must have been in a nervous and exceedingly excited state before his arrest, this might have been due to several perfectly obvious causes, jealousy, anger, continual drunkenness, and so on. But this nervous condition would not involve the mental aberration of which mention had just been made. As to the question whether the prisoner should have looked to the left or to the right on entering the court, "in his modest opinion," the prisoner would naturally look straight before him on entering the court, as he had in fact done, as that was where the judges, on whom his fate depended, were sitting. So that it was just by looking straight before him that he showed his perfectly normal state of mind at the present. The young doctor concluded his "modest" testimony with some heat. "Bravo, doctor!" cried Mitya, from his seat, "just so!" Mitya, of course, was checked, but the young doctor's opinion had a decisive influence on the judges and on the public, and, as appeared afterwards, every one agreed with him. But Doctor Herzenstube, when called as a witness, was quite unexpectedly of use to Mitya. As an old resident in the town who had known the Karamazov family for years, he furnished some facts of great value for the prosecution, and suddenly, as though recalling something, he added: "But the poor young man might have had a very different life, for he had a good heart both in childhood and after childhood, that I know. But the Russian proverb says, 'If a man has one head, it's good, but if another clever man comes to visit him, it would be better still, for then there will be two heads and not only one.' " "One head is good, but two are better," the prosecutor put in impatiently. He knew the old man's habit of talking slowly and deliberately, regardless of the impression he was making and of the delay he was causing, and highly prizing his flat, dull and always gleefully complacent German wit. The old man was fond of making jokes. "Oh, yes, that's what I say," he went on stubbornly. "One head is good, but two are much better, but he did not meet another head with wits, and his wits went. Where did they go? I've forgotten the word." He went on, passing his hand before his eyes, "Oh, yes, _spazieren_." "Wandering?" "Oh, yes, wandering, that's what I say. Well, his wits went wandering and fell in such a deep hole that he lost himself. And yet he was a grateful and sensitive boy. Oh, I remember him very well, a little chap so high, left neglected by his father in the back yard, when he ran about without boots on his feet, and his little breeches hanging by one button." A note of feeling and tenderness suddenly came into the honest old man's voice. Fetyukovitch positively started, as though scenting something, and caught at it instantly. "Oh, yes, I was a young man then.... I was ... well, I was forty-five then, and had only just come here. And I was so sorry for the boy then; I asked myself why shouldn't I buy him a pound of ... a pound of what? I've forgotten what it's called. A pound of what children are very fond of, what is it, what is it?" The doctor began waving his hands again. "It grows on a tree and is gathered and given to every one...." "Apples?" "Oh, no, no. You have a dozen of apples, not a pound.... No, there are a lot of them, and all little. You put them in the mouth and crack." "Nuts?" "Quite so, nuts, I say so." The doctor repeated in the calmest way as though he had been at no loss for a word. "And I bought him a pound of nuts, for no one had ever bought the boy a pound of nuts before. And I lifted my finger and said to him, 'Boy, _Gott der Vater_.' He laughed and said, '_Gott der Vater_.'... '_Gott der Sohn_.' He laughed again and lisped, '_Gott der Sohn_.' '_Gott der heilige Geist_.' Then he laughed and said as best he could, '_Gott der heilige Geist_.' I went away, and two days after I happened to be passing, and he shouted to me of himself, 'Uncle, _Gott der Vater, Gott der Sohn_,' and he had only forgotten '_Gott der heilige Geist_.' But I reminded him of it and I felt very sorry for him again. But he was taken away, and I did not see him again. Twenty- three years passed. I am sitting one morning in my study, a white-haired old man, when there walks into the room a blooming young man, whom I should never have recognized, but he held up his finger and said, laughing, '_Gott der Vater, Gott der Sohn_, and _Gott der heilige Geist_. I have just arrived and have come to thank you for that pound of nuts, for no one else ever bought me a pound of nuts; you are the only one that ever did.' And then I remembered my happy youth and the poor child in the yard, without boots on his feet, and my heart was touched and I said, 'You are a grateful young man, for you have remembered all your life the pound of nuts I bought you in your childhood.' And I embraced him and blessed him. And I shed tears. He laughed, but he shed tears, too ... for the Russian often laughs when he ought to be weeping. But he did weep; I saw it. And now, alas!..." "And I am weeping now, German, I am weeping now, too, you saintly man," Mitya cried suddenly. In any case the anecdote made a certain favorable impression on the public. But the chief sensation in Mitya's favor was created by the evidence of Katerina Ivanovna, which I will describe directly. Indeed, when the witnesses _a decharge_, that is, called by the defense, began giving evidence, fortune seemed all at once markedly more favorable to Mitya, and what was particularly striking, this was a surprise even to the counsel for the defense. But before Katerina Ivanovna was called, Alyosha was examined, and he recalled a fact which seemed to furnish positive evidence against one important point made by the prosecution. Chapter IV. Fortune Smiles On Mitya It came quite as a surprise even to Alyosha himself. He was not required to take the oath, and I remember that both sides addressed him very gently and sympathetically. It was evident that his reputation for goodness had preceded him. Alyosha gave his evidence modestly and with restraint, but his warm sympathy for his unhappy brother was unmistakable. In answer to one question, he sketched his brother's character as that of a man, violent-tempered perhaps and carried away by his passions, but at the same time honorable, proud and generous, capable of self-sacrifice, if necessary. He admitted, however, that, through his passion for Grushenka and his rivalry with his father, his brother had been of late in an intolerable position. But he repelled with indignation the suggestion that his brother might have committed a murder for the sake of gain, though he recognized that the three thousand roubles had become almost an obsession with Mitya; that he looked upon them as part of the inheritance he had been cheated of by his father, and that, indifferent as he was to money as a rule, he could not even speak of that three thousand without fury. As for the rivalry of the two "ladies," as the prosecutor expressed it--that is, of Grushenka and Katya--he answered evasively and was even unwilling to answer one or two questions altogether. "Did your brother tell you, anyway, that he intended to kill your father?" asked the prosecutor. "You can refuse to answer if you think necessary," he added. "He did not tell me so directly," answered Alyosha. "How so? Did he indirectly?" "He spoke to me once of his hatred for our father and his fear that at an extreme moment ... at a moment of fury, he might perhaps murder him." "And you believed him?" "I am afraid to say that I did. But I never doubted that some higher feeling would always save him at the fatal moment, as it has indeed saved him, for it was not he killed my father," Alyosha said firmly, in a loud voice that was heard throughout the court. The prosecutor started like a war-horse at the sound of a trumpet. "Let me assure you that I fully believe in the complete sincerity of your conviction and do not explain it by or identify it with your affection for your unhappy brother. Your peculiar view of the whole tragic episode is known to us already from the preliminary investigation. I won't attempt to conceal from you that it is highly individual and contradicts all the other evidence collected by the prosecution. And so I think it essential to press you to tell me what facts have led you to this conviction of your brother's innocence and of the guilt of another person against whom you gave evidence at the preliminary inquiry?" "I only answered the questions asked me at the preliminary inquiry," replied Alyosha, slowly and calmly. "I made no accusation against Smerdyakov of myself." "Yet you gave evidence against him?" "I was led to do so by my brother Dmitri's words. I was told what took place at his arrest and how he had pointed to Smerdyakov before I was examined. I believe absolutely that my brother is innocent, and if he didn't commit the murder, then--" "Then Smerdyakov? Why Smerdyakov? And why are you so completely persuaded of your brother's innocence?" "I cannot help believing my brother. I know he wouldn't lie to me. I saw from his face he wasn't lying." "Only from his face? Is that all the proof you have?" "I have no other proof." "And of Smerdyakov's guilt you have no proof whatever but your brother's word and the expression of his face?" "No, I have no other proof." The prosecutor dropped the examination at this point. The impression left by Alyosha's evidence on the public was most disappointing. There had been talk about Smerdyakov before the trial; some one had heard something, some one had pointed out something else, it was said that Alyosha had gathered together some extraordinary proofs of his brother's innocence and Smerdyakov's guilt, and after all there was nothing, no evidence except certain moral convictions so natural in a brother. But Fetyukovitch began his cross-examination. On his asking Alyosha when it was that the prisoner had told him of his hatred for his father and that he might kill him, and whether he had heard it, for instance, at their last meeting before the catastrophe, Alyosha started as he answered, as though only just recollecting and understanding something. "I remember one circumstance now which I'd quite forgotten myself. It wasn't clear to me at the time, but now--" And, obviously only now for the first time struck by an idea, he recounted eagerly how, at his last interview with Mitya that evening under the tree, on the road to the monastery, Mitya had struck himself on the breast, "the upper part of the breast," and had repeated several times that he had a means of regaining his honor, that that means was here, here on his breast. "I thought, when he struck himself on the breast, he meant that it was in his heart," Alyosha continued, "that he might find in his heart strength to save himself from some awful disgrace which was awaiting him and which he did not dare confess even to me. I must confess I did think at the time that he was speaking of our father, and that the disgrace he was shuddering at was the thought of going to our father and doing some violence to him. Yet it was just then that he pointed to something on his breast, so that I remember the idea struck me at the time that the heart is not on that part of the breast, but below, and that he struck himself much too high, just below the neck, and kept pointing to that place. My idea seemed silly to me at the time, but he was perhaps pointing then to that little bag in which he had fifteen hundred roubles!" "Just so," Mitya cried from his place. "That's right, Alyosha, it was the little bag I struck with my fist." Fetyukovitch flew to him in hot haste entreating him to keep quiet, and at the same instant pounced on Alyosha. Alyosha, carried away himself by his recollection, warmly expressed his theory that this disgrace was probably just that fifteen hundred roubles on him, which he might have returned to Katerina Ivanovna as half of what he owed her, but which he had yet determined not to repay her and to use for another purpose--namely, to enable him to elope with Grushenka, if she consented. "It is so, it must be so," exclaimed Alyosha, in sudden excitement. "My brother cried several times that half of the disgrace, half of it (he said _half_ several times) he could free himself from at once, but that he was so unhappy in his weakness of will that he wouldn't do it ... that he knew beforehand he was incapable of doing it!" "And you clearly, confidently remember that he struck himself just on this part of the breast?" Fetyukovitch asked eagerly. "Clearly and confidently, for I thought at the time, 'Why does he strike himself up there when the heart is lower down?' and the thought seemed stupid to me at the time ... I remember its seeming stupid ... it flashed through my mind. That's what brought it back to me just now. How could I have forgotten it till now? It was that little bag he meant when he said he had the means but wouldn't give back that fifteen hundred. And when he was arrested at Mokroe he cried out--I know, I was told it--that he considered it the most disgraceful act of his life that when he had the means of repaying Katerina Ivanovna half (half, note!) what he owed her, he yet could not bring himself to repay the money and preferred to remain a thief in her eyes rather than part with it. And what torture, what torture that debt has been to him!" Alyosha exclaimed in conclusion. The prosecutor, of course, intervened. He asked Alyosha to describe once more how it had all happened, and several times insisted on the question, "Had the prisoner seemed to point to anything? Perhaps he had simply struck himself with his fist on the breast?" "But it was not with his fist," cried Alyosha; "he pointed with his fingers and pointed here, very high up.... How could I have so completely forgotten it till this moment?" The President asked Mitya what he had to say to the last witness's evidence. Mitya confirmed it, saying that he had been pointing to the fifteen hundred roubles which were on his breast, just below the neck, and that that was, of course, the disgrace, "A disgrace I cannot deny, the most shameful act of my whole life," cried Mitya. "I might have repaid it and didn't repay it. I preferred to remain a thief in her eyes rather than give it back. And the most shameful part of it was that I knew beforehand I shouldn't give it back! You are right, Alyosha! Thanks, Alyosha!" So Alyosha's cross-examination ended. What was important and striking about it was that one fact at least had been found, and even though this were only one tiny bit of evidence, a mere hint at evidence, it did go some little way towards proving that the bag had existed and had contained fifteen hundred roubles and that the prisoner had not been lying at the preliminary inquiry when he alleged at Mokroe that those fifteen hundred roubles were "his own." Alyosha was glad. With a flushed face he moved away to the seat assigned to him. He kept repeating to himself: "How was it I forgot? How could I have forgotten it? And what made it come back to me now?" Katerina Ivanovna was called to the witness-box. As she entered something extraordinary happened in the court. The ladies clutched their lorgnettes and opera-glasses. There was a stir among the men: some stood up to get a better view. Everybody alleged afterwards that Mitya had turned "white as a sheet" on her entrance. All in black, she advanced modestly, almost timidly. It was impossible to tell from her face that she was agitated; but there was a resolute gleam in her dark and gloomy eyes. I may remark that many people mentioned that she looked particularly handsome at that moment. She spoke softly but clearly, so that she was heard all over the court. She expressed herself with composure, or at least tried to appear composed. The President began his examination discreetly and very respectfully, as though afraid to touch on "certain chords," and showing consideration for her great unhappiness. But in answer to one of the first questions Katerina Ivanovna replied firmly that she had been formerly betrothed to the prisoner, "until he left me of his own accord..." she added quietly. When they asked her about the three thousand she had entrusted to Mitya to post to her relations, she said firmly, "I didn't give him the money simply to send it off. I felt at the time that he was in great need of money.... I gave him the three thousand on the understanding that he should post it within the month if he cared to. There was no need for him to worry himself about that debt afterwards." I will not repeat all the questions asked her and all her answers in detail. I will only give the substance of her evidence. "I was firmly convinced that he would send off that sum as soon as he got money from his father," she went on. "I have never doubted his disinterestedness and his honesty ... his scrupulous honesty ... in money matters. He felt quite certain that he would receive the money from his father, and spoke to me several times about it. I knew he had a feud with his father and have always believed that he had been unfairly treated by his father. I don't remember any threat uttered by him against his father. He certainly never uttered any such threat before me. If he had come to me at that time, I should have at once relieved his anxiety about that unlucky three thousand roubles, but he had given up coming to see me ... and I myself was put in such a position ... that I could not invite him.... And I had no right, indeed, to be exacting as to that money," she added suddenly, and there was a ring of resolution in her voice. "I was once indebted to him for assistance in money for more than three thousand, and I took it, although I could not at that time foresee that I should ever be in a position to repay my debt." There was a note of defiance in her voice. It was then Fetyukovitch began his cross-examination. "Did that take place not here, but at the beginning of your acquaintance?" Fetyukovitch suggested cautiously, feeling his way, instantly scenting something favorable. I must mention in parenthesis that, though Fetyukovitch had been brought from Petersburg partly at the instance of Katerina Ivanovna herself, he knew nothing about the episode of the four thousand roubles given her by Mitya, and of her "bowing to the ground to him." She concealed this from him and said nothing about it, and that was strange. It may be pretty certainly assumed that she herself did not know till the very last minute whether she would speak of that episode in the court, and waited for the inspiration of the moment. No, I can never forget those moments. She began telling her story. She told everything, the whole episode that Mitya had told Alyosha, and her bowing to the ground, and her reason. She told about her father and her going to Mitya, and did not in one word, in a single hint, suggest that Mitya had himself, through her sister, proposed they should "send him Katerina Ivanovna" to fetch the money. She generously concealed that and was not ashamed to make it appear as though she had of her own impulse run to the young officer, relying on something ... to beg him for the money. It was something tremendous! I turned cold and trembled as I listened. The court was hushed, trying to catch each word. It was something unexampled. Even from such a self-willed and contemptuously proud girl as she was, such an extremely frank avowal, such sacrifice, such self-immolation, seemed incredible. And for what, for whom? To save the man who had deceived and insulted her and to help, in however small a degree, in saving him, by creating a strong impression in his favor. And, indeed, the figure of the young officer who, with a respectful bow to the innocent girl, handed her his last four thousand roubles--all he had in the world--was thrown into a very sympathetic and attractive light, but ... I had a painful misgiving at heart! I felt that calumny might come of it later (and it did, in fact, it did). It was repeated all over the town afterwards with spiteful laughter that the story was perhaps not quite complete--that is, in the statement that the officer had let the young lady depart "with nothing but a respectful bow." It was hinted that something was here omitted. "And even if nothing had been omitted, if this were the whole story," the most highly respected of our ladies maintained, "even then it's very doubtful whether it was creditable for a young girl to behave in that way, even for the sake of saving her father." And can Katerina Ivanovna, with her intelligence, her morbid sensitiveness, have failed to understand that people would talk like that? She must have understood it, yet she made up her mind to tell everything. Of course, all these nasty little suspicions as to the truth of her story only arose afterwards and at the first moment all were deeply impressed by it. As for the judges and the lawyers, they listened in reverent, almost shame-faced silence to Katerina Ivanovna. The prosecutor did not venture upon even one question on the subject. Fetyukovitch made a low bow to her. Oh, he was almost triumphant! Much ground had been gained. For a man to give his last four thousand on a generous impulse and then for the same man to murder his father for the sake of robbing him of three thousand--the idea seemed too incongruous. Fetyukovitch felt that now the charge of theft, at least, was as good as disproved. "The case" was thrown into quite a different light. There was a wave of sympathy for Mitya. As for him.... I was told that once or twice, while Katerina Ivanovna was giving her evidence, he jumped up from his seat, sank back again, and hid his face in his hands. But when she had finished, he suddenly cried in a sobbing voice: "Katya, why have you ruined me?" and his sobs were audible all over the court. But he instantly restrained himself, and cried again: "Now I am condemned!" Then he sat rigid in his place, with his teeth clenched and his arms across his chest. Katerina Ivanovna remained in the court and sat down in her place. She was pale and sat with her eyes cast down. Those who were sitting near her declared that for a long time she shivered all over as though in a fever. Grushenka was called. I am approaching the sudden catastrophe which was perhaps the final cause of Mitya's ruin. For I am convinced, so is every one--all the lawyers said the same afterwards--that if the episode had not occurred, the prisoner would at least have been recommended to mercy. But of that later. A few words first about Grushenka. She, too, was dressed entirely in black, with her magnificent black shawl on her shoulders. She walked to the witness-box with her smooth, noiseless tread, with the slightly swaying gait common in women of full figure. She looked steadily at the President, turning her eyes neither to the right nor to the left. To my thinking she looked very handsome at that moment, and not at all pale, as the ladies alleged afterwards. They declared, too, that she had a concentrated and spiteful expression. I believe that she was simply irritated and painfully conscious of the contemptuous and inquisitive eyes of our scandal-loving public. She was proud and could not stand contempt. She was one of those people who flare up, angry and eager to retaliate, at the mere suggestion of contempt. There was an element of timidity, too, of course, and inward shame at her own timidity, so it was not strange that her tone kept changing. At one moment it was angry, contemptuous and rough, and at another there was a sincere note of self- condemnation. Sometimes she spoke as though she were taking a desperate plunge; as though she felt, "I don't care what happens, I'll say it...." Apropos of her acquaintance with Fyodor Pavlovitch, she remarked curtly, "That's all nonsense, and was it my fault that he would pester me?" But a minute later she added, "It was all my fault. I was laughing at them both--at the old man and at him, too--and I brought both of them to this. It was all on account of me it happened." Samsonov's name came up somehow. "That's nobody's business," she snapped at once, with a sort of insolent defiance. "He was my benefactor; he took me when I hadn't a shoe to my foot, when my family had turned me out." The President reminded her, though very politely, that she must answer the questions directly, without going off into irrelevant details. Grushenka crimsoned and her eyes flashed. The envelope with the notes in it she had not seen, but had only heard from "that wicked wretch" that Fyodor Pavlovitch had an envelope with notes for three thousand in it. "But that was all foolishness. I was only laughing. I wouldn't have gone to him for anything." "To whom are you referring as 'that wicked wretch'?" inquired the prosecutor. "The lackey, Smerdyakov, who murdered his master and hanged himself last night." She was, of course, at once asked what ground she had for such a definite accusation; but it appeared that she, too, had no grounds for it. "Dmitri Fyodorovitch told me so himself; you can believe him. The woman who came between us has ruined him; she is the cause of it all, let me tell you," Grushenka added. She seemed to be quivering with hatred, and there was a vindictive note in her voice. She was again asked to whom she was referring. "The young lady, Katerina Ivanovna there. She sent for me, offered me chocolate, tried to fascinate me. There's not much true shame about her, I can tell you that...." At this point the President checked her sternly, begging her to moderate her language. But the jealous woman's heart was burning, and she did not care what she did. "When the prisoner was arrested at Mokroe," the prosecutor asked, "every one saw and heard you run out of the next room and cry out: 'It's all my fault. We'll go to Siberia together!' So you already believed him to have murdered his father?" "I don't remember what I felt at the time," answered Grushenka. "Every one was crying out that he had killed his father, and I felt that it was my fault, that it was on my account he had murdered him. But when he said he wasn't guilty, I believed him at once, and I believe him now and always shall believe him. He is not the man to tell a lie." Fetyukovitch began his cross-examination. I remember that among other things he asked about Rakitin and the twenty-five roubles "you paid him for bringing Alexey Fyodorovitch Karamazov to see you." "There was nothing strange about his taking the money," sneered Grushenka, with angry contempt. "He was always coming to me for money: he used to get thirty roubles a month at least out of me, chiefly for luxuries: he had enough to keep him without my help." "What led you to be so liberal to Mr. Rakitin?" Fetyukovitch asked, in spite of an uneasy movement on the part of the President. "Why, he is my cousin. His mother was my mother's sister. But he's always besought me not to tell any one here of it, he is so dreadfully ashamed of me." This fact was a complete surprise to every one; no one in the town nor in the monastery, not even Mitya, knew of it. I was told that Rakitin turned purple with shame where he sat. Grushenka had somehow heard before she came into the court that he had given evidence against Mitya, and so she was angry. The whole effect on the public, of Rakitin's speech, of his noble sentiments, of his attacks upon serfdom and the political disorder of Russia, was this time finally ruined. Fetyukovitch was satisfied: it was another godsend. Grushenka's cross-examination did not last long and, of course, there could be nothing particularly new in her evidence. She left a very disagreeable impression on the public; hundreds of contemptuous eyes were fixed upon her, as she finished giving her evidence and sat down again in the court, at a good distance from Katerina Ivanovna. Mitya was silent throughout her evidence. He sat as though turned to stone, with his eyes fixed on the ground. Ivan was called to give evidence. Chapter V. A Sudden Catastrophe I may note that he had been called before Alyosha. But the usher of the court announced to the President that, owing to an attack of illness or some sort of fit, the witness could not appear at the moment, but was ready to give his evidence as soon as he recovered. But no one seemed to have heard it and it only came out later. His entrance was for the first moment almost unnoticed. The principal witnesses, especially the two rival ladies, had already been questioned. Curiosity was satisfied for the time; the public was feeling almost fatigued. Several more witnesses were still to be heard, who probably had little information to give after all that had been given. Time was passing. Ivan walked up with extraordinary slowness, looking at no one, and with his head bowed, as though plunged in gloomy thought. He was irreproachably dressed, but his face made a painful impression, on me at least: there was an earthy look in it, a look like a dying man's. His eyes were lusterless; he raised them and looked slowly round the court. Alyosha jumped up from his seat and moaned "Ah!" I remember that, but it was hardly noticed. The President began by informing him that he was a witness not on oath, that he might answer or refuse to answer, but that, of course, he must bear witness according to his conscience, and so on, and so on. Ivan listened and looked at him blankly, but his face gradually relaxed into a smile, and as soon as the President, looking at him in astonishment, finished, he laughed outright. "Well, and what else?" he asked in a loud voice. There was a hush in the court; there was a feeling of something strange. The President showed signs of uneasiness. "You ... are perhaps still unwell?" he began, looking everywhere for the usher. "Don't trouble yourself, your excellency, I am well enough and can tell you something interesting," Ivan answered with sudden calmness and respectfulness. "You have some special communication to make?" the President went on, still mistrustfully. Ivan looked down, waited a few seconds and, raising his head, answered, almost stammering: "No ... I haven't. I have nothing particular." They began asking him questions. He answered, as it were, reluctantly, with extreme brevity, with a sort of disgust which grew more and more marked, though he answered rationally. To many questions he answered that he did not know. He knew nothing of his father's money relations with Dmitri. "I wasn't interested in the subject," he added. Threats to murder his father he had heard from the prisoner. Of the money in the envelope he had heard from Smerdyakov. "The same thing over and over again," he interrupted suddenly, with a look of weariness. "I have nothing particular to tell the court." "I see you are unwell and understand your feelings," the President began. He turned to the prosecutor and the counsel for the defense to invite them to examine the witness, if necessary, when Ivan suddenly asked in an exhausted voice: "Let me go, your excellency, I feel very ill." And with these words, without waiting for permission, he turned to walk out of the court. But after taking four steps he stood still, as though he had reached a decision, smiled slowly, and went back. "I am like the peasant girl, your excellency ... you know. How does it go? 'I'll stand up if I like, and I won't if I don't.' They were trying to put on her sarafan to take her to church to be married, and she said, 'I'll stand up if I like, and I won't if I don't.'... It's in some book about the peasantry." "What do you mean by that?" the President asked severely. "Why, this," Ivan suddenly pulled out a roll of notes. "Here's the money ... the notes that lay in that envelope" (he nodded towards the table on which lay the material evidence), "for the sake of which our father was murdered. Where shall I put them? Mr. Superintendent, take them." The usher of the court took the whole roll and handed it to the President. "How could this money have come into your possession if it is the same money?" the President asked wonderingly. "I got them from Smerdyakov, from the murderer, yesterday.... I was with him just before he hanged himself. It was he, not my brother, killed our father. He murdered him and I incited him to do it ... Who doesn't desire his father's death?" "Are you in your right mind?" broke involuntarily from the President. "I should think I am in my right mind ... in the same nasty mind as all of you ... as all these ... ugly faces." He turned suddenly to the audience. "My father has been murdered and they pretend they are horrified," he snarled, with furious contempt. "They keep up the sham with one another. Liars! They all desire the death of their fathers. One reptile devours another.... If there hadn't been a murder, they'd have been angry and gone home ill-humored. It's a spectacle they want! _Panem et circenses_. Though I am one to talk! Have you any water? Give me a drink for Christ's sake!" He suddenly clutched his head. The usher at once approached him. Alyosha jumped up and cried, "He is ill. Don't believe him: he has brain fever." Katerina Ivanovna rose impulsively from her seat and, rigid with horror, gazed at Ivan. Mitya stood up and greedily looked at his brother and listened to him with a wild, strange smile. "Don't disturb yourselves. I am not mad, I am only a murderer," Ivan began again. "You can't expect eloquence from a murderer," he added suddenly for some reason and laughed a queer laugh. The prosecutor bent over to the President in obvious dismay. The two other judges communicated in agitated whispers. Fetyukovitch pricked up his ears as he listened: the hall was hushed in expectation. The President seemed suddenly to recollect himself. "Witness, your words are incomprehensible and impossible here. Calm yourself, if you can, and tell your story ... if you really have something to tell. How can you confirm your statement ... if indeed you are not delirious?" "That's just it. I have no proof. That cur Smerdyakov won't send you proofs from the other world ... in an envelope. You think of nothing but envelopes--one is enough. I've no witnesses ... except one, perhaps," he smiled thoughtfully. "Who is your witness?" "He has a tail, your excellency, and that would be irregular! _Le diable n'existe point!_ Don't pay attention: he is a paltry, pitiful devil," he added suddenly. He ceased laughing and spoke as it were, confidentially. "He is here somewhere, no doubt--under that table with the material evidence on it, perhaps. Where should he sit if not there? You see, listen to me. I told him I don't want to keep quiet, and he talked about the geological cataclysm ... idiocy! Come, release the monster ... he's been singing a hymn. That's because his heart is light! It's like a drunken man in the street bawling how 'Vanka went to Petersburg,' and I would give a quadrillion quadrillions for two seconds of joy. You don't know me! Oh, how stupid all this business is! Come, take me instead of him! I didn't come for nothing.... Why, why is everything so stupid?..." And he began slowly, and as it were reflectively, looking round him again. But the court was all excitement by now. Alyosha rushed towards him, but the court usher had already seized Ivan by the arm. "What are you about?" he cried, staring into the man's face, and suddenly seizing him by the shoulders, he flung him violently to the floor. But the police were on the spot and he was seized. He screamed furiously. And all the time he was being removed, he yelled and screamed something incoherent. The whole court was thrown into confusion. I don't remember everything as it happened. I was excited myself and could not follow. I only know that afterwards, when everything was quiet again and every one understood what had happened, the court usher came in for a reprimand, though he very reasonably explained that the witness had been quite well, that the doctor had seen him an hour ago, when he had a slight attack of giddiness, but that, until he had come into the court, he had talked quite consecutively, so that nothing could have been foreseen--that he had, in fact, insisted on giving evidence. But before every one had completely regained their composure and recovered from this scene, it was followed by another. Katerina Ivanovna had an attack of hysterics. She sobbed, shrieking loudly, but refused to leave the court, struggled, and besought them not to remove her. Suddenly she cried to the President: "There is more evidence I must give at once ... at once! Here is a document, a letter ... take it, read it quickly, quickly! It's a letter from that monster ... that man there, there!" she pointed to Mitya. "It was he killed his father, you will see that directly. He wrote to me how he would kill his father! But the other one is ill, he is ill, he is delirious!" she kept crying out, beside herself. The court usher took the document she held out to the President, and she, dropping into her chair, hiding her face in her hands, began convulsively and noiselessly sobbing, shaking all over, and stifling every sound for fear she should be ejected from the court. The document she had handed up was that letter Mitya had written at the "Metropolis" tavern, which Ivan had spoken of as a "mathematical proof." Alas! its mathematical conclusiveness was recognized, and had it not been for that letter, Mitya might have escaped his doom or, at least, that doom would have been less terrible. It was, I repeat, difficult to notice every detail. What followed is still confused to my mind. The President must, I suppose, have at once passed on the document to the judges, the jury, and the lawyers on both sides. I only remember how they began examining the witness. On being gently asked by the President whether she had recovered sufficiently, Katerina Ivanovna exclaimed impetuously: "I am ready, I am ready! I am quite equal to answering you," she added, evidently still afraid that she would somehow be prevented from giving evidence. She was asked to explain in detail what this letter was and under what circumstances she received it. "I received it the day before the crime was committed, but he wrote it the day before that, at the tavern--that is, two days before he committed the crime. Look, it is written on some sort of bill!" she cried breathlessly. "He hated me at that time, because he had behaved contemptibly and was running after that creature ... and because he owed me that three thousand.... Oh! he was humiliated by that three thousand on account of his own meanness! This is how it happened about that three thousand. I beg you, I beseech you, to hear me. Three weeks before he murdered his father, he came to me one morning. I knew he was in want of money, and what he wanted it for. Yes, yes--to win that creature and carry her off. I knew then that he had been false to me and meant to abandon me, and it was I, I, who gave him that money, who offered it to him on the pretext of his sending it to my sister in Moscow. And as I gave it him, I looked him in the face and said that he could send it when he liked, 'in a month's time would do.' How, how could he have failed to understand that I was practically telling him to his face, 'You want money to be false to me with your creature, so here's the money for you. I give it to you myself. Take it, if you have so little honor as to take it!' I wanted to prove what he was, and what happened? He took it, he took it, and squandered it with that creature in one night.... But he knew, he knew that I knew all about it. I assure you he understood, too, that I gave him that money to test him, to see whether he was so lost to all sense of honor as to take it from me. I looked into his eyes and he looked into mine, and he understood it all and he took it--he carried off my money!" "That's true, Katya," Mitya roared suddenly, "I looked into your eyes and I knew that you were dishonoring me, and yet I took your money. Despise me as a scoundrel, despise me, all of you! I've deserved it!" "Prisoner," cried the President, "another word and I will order you to be removed." "That money was a torment to him," Katya went on with impulsive haste. "He wanted to repay it me. He wanted to, that's true; but he needed money for that creature, too. So he murdered his father, but he didn't repay me, and went off with her to that village where he was arrested. There, again, he squandered the money he had stolen after the murder of his father. And a day before the murder he wrote me this letter. He was drunk when he wrote it. I saw it at once, at the time. He wrote it from spite, and feeling certain, positively certain, that I should never show it to any one, even if he did kill him, or else he wouldn't have written it. For he knew I shouldn't want to revenge myself and ruin him! But read it, read it attentively--more attentively, please--and you will see that he had described it all in his letter, all beforehand, how he would kill his father and where his money was kept. Look, please, don't overlook that, there's one phrase there, 'I shall kill him as soon as Ivan has gone away.' So he thought it all out beforehand how he would kill him," Katerina Ivanovna pointed out to the court with venomous and malignant triumph. Oh! it was clear she had studied every line of that letter and detected every meaning underlining it. "If he hadn't been drunk, he wouldn't have written to me; but, look, everything is written there beforehand, just as he committed the murder after. A complete program of it!" she exclaimed frantically. She was reckless now of all consequences to herself, though, no doubt, she had foreseen them even a month ago, for even then, perhaps, shaking with anger, she had pondered whether to show it at the trial or not. Now she had taken the fatal plunge. I remember that the letter was read aloud by the clerk, directly afterwards, I believe. It made an overwhelming impression. They asked Mitya whether he admitted having written the letter. "It's mine, mine!" cried Mitya. "I shouldn't have written it, if I hadn't been drunk!... We've hated each other for many things, Katya, but I swear, I swear I loved you even while I hated you, and you didn't love me!" He sank back on his seat, wringing his hands in despair. The prosecutor and counsel for the defense began cross-examining her, chiefly to ascertain what had induced her to conceal such a document and to give her evidence in quite a different tone and spirit just before. "Yes, yes. I was telling lies just now. I was lying against my honor and my conscience, but I wanted to save him, for he has hated and despised me so!" Katya cried madly. "Oh, he has despised me horribly, he has always despised me, and do you know, he has despised me from the very moment that I bowed down to him for that money. I saw that.... I felt it at once at the time, but for a long time I wouldn't believe it. How often I have read it in his eyes, 'You came of yourself, though.' Oh, he didn't understand, he had no idea why I ran to him, he can suspect nothing but baseness, he judged me by himself, he thought every one was like himself!" Katya hissed furiously, in a perfect frenzy. "And he only wanted to marry me, because I'd inherited a fortune, because of that, because of that! I always suspected it was because of that! Oh, he is a brute! He was always convinced that I should be trembling with shame all my life before him, because I went to him then, and that he had a right to despise me for ever for it, and so to be superior to me--that's why he wanted to marry me! That's so, that's all so! I tried to conquer him by my love--a love that knew no bounds. I even tried to forgive his faithlessness; but he understood nothing, nothing! How could he understand indeed? He is a monster! I only received that letter the next evening: it was brought me from the tavern--and only that morning, only that morning I wanted to forgive him everything, everything--even his treachery!" The President and the prosecutor, of course, tried to calm her. I can't help thinking that they felt ashamed of taking advantage of her hysteria and of listening to such avowals. I remember hearing them say to her, "We understand how hard it is for you; be sure we are able to feel for you," and so on, and so on. And yet they dragged the evidence out of the raving, hysterical woman. She described at last with extraordinary clearness, which is so often seen, though only for a moment, in such over-wrought states, how Ivan had been nearly driven out of his mind during the last two months trying to save "the monster and murderer," his brother. "He tortured himself," she exclaimed, "he was always trying to minimize his brother's guilt and confessing to me that he, too, had never loved his father, and perhaps desired his death himself. Oh, he has a tender, over- tender conscience! He tormented himself with his conscience! He told me everything, everything! He came every day and talked to me as his only friend. I have the honor to be his only friend!" she cried suddenly with a sort of defiance, and her eyes flashed. "He had been twice to see Smerdyakov. One day he came to me and said, 'If it was not my brother, but Smerdyakov committed the murder' (for the legend was circulating everywhere that Smerdyakov had done it), 'perhaps I too am guilty, for Smerdyakov knew I didn't like my father and perhaps believed that I desired my father's death.' Then I brought out that letter and showed it him. He was entirely convinced that his brother had done it, and he was overwhelmed by it. He couldn't endure the thought that his own brother was a parricide! Only a week ago I saw that it was making him ill. During the last few days he has talked incoherently in my presence. I saw his mind was giving way. He walked about, raving; he was seen muttering in the streets. The doctor from Moscow, at my request, examined him the day before yesterday and told me that he was on the eve of brain fever--and all on his account, on account of this monster! And last night he learnt that Smerdyakov was dead! It was such a shock that it drove him out of his mind ... and all through this monster, all for the sake of saving the monster!" Oh, of course, such an outpouring, such an avowal is only possible once in a lifetime--at the hour of death, for instance, on the way to the scaffold! But it was in Katya's character, and it was such a moment in her life. It was the same impetuous Katya who had thrown herself on the mercy of a young profligate to save her father; the same Katya who had just before, in her pride and chastity, sacrificed herself and her maidenly modesty before all these people, telling of Mitya's generous conduct, in the hope of softening his fate a little. And now, again, she sacrificed herself; but this time it was for another, and perhaps only now--perhaps only at this moment--she felt and knew how dear that other was to her! She had sacrificed herself in terror for him, conceiving all of a sudden that he had ruined himself by his confession that it was he who had committed the murder, not his brother, she had sacrificed herself to save him, to save his good name, his reputation! And yet one terrible doubt occurred to one--was she lying in her description of her former relations with Mitya?--that was the question. No, she had not intentionally slandered him when she cried that Mitya despised her for her bowing down to him! She believed it herself. She had been firmly convinced, perhaps ever since that bow, that the simple-hearted Mitya, who even then adored her, was laughing at her and despising her. She had loved him with an hysterical, "lacerated" love only from pride, from wounded pride, and that love was not like love, but more like revenge. Oh! perhaps that lacerated love would have grown into real love, perhaps Katya longed for nothing more than that, but Mitya's faithlessness had wounded her to the bottom of her heart, and her heart could not forgive him. The moment of revenge had come upon her suddenly, and all that had been accumulating so long and so painfully in the offended woman's breast burst out all at once and unexpectedly. She betrayed Mitya, but she betrayed herself, too. And no sooner had she given full expression to her feelings than the tension of course was over and she was overwhelmed with shame. Hysterics began again: she fell on the floor, sobbing and screaming. She was carried out. At that moment Grushenka, with a wail, rushed towards Mitya before they had time to prevent her. "Mitya," she wailed, "your serpent has destroyed you! There, she has shown you what she is!" she shouted to the judges, shaking with anger. At a signal from the President they seized her and tried to remove her from the court. She wouldn't allow it. She fought and struggled to get back to Mitya. Mitya uttered a cry and struggled to get to her. He was overpowered. Yes, I think the ladies who came to see the spectacle must have been satisfied--the show had been a varied one. Then I remember the Moscow doctor appeared on the scene. I believe the President had previously sent the court usher to arrange for medical aid for Ivan. The doctor announced to the court that the sick man was suffering from a dangerous attack of brain fever, and that he must be at once removed. In answer to questions from the prosecutor and the counsel for the defense he said that the patient had come to him of his own accord the day before yesterday and that he had warned him that he had such an attack coming on, but he had not consented to be looked after. "He was certainly not in a normal state of mind: he told me himself that he saw visions when he was awake, that he met several persons in the street, who were dead, and that Satan visited him every evening," said the doctor, in conclusion. Having given his evidence, the celebrated doctor withdrew. The letter produced by Katerina Ivanovna was added to the material proofs. After some deliberation, the judges decided to proceed with the trial and to enter both the unexpected pieces of evidence (given by Ivan and Katerina Ivanovna) on the protocol. But I will not detail the evidence of the other witnesses, who only repeated and confirmed what had been said before, though all with their characteristic peculiarities. I repeat, all was brought together in the prosecutor's speech, which I shall quote immediately. Every one was excited, every one was electrified by the late catastrophe, and all were awaiting the speeches for the prosecution and the defense with intense impatience. Fetyukovitch was obviously shaken by Katerina Ivanovna's evidence. But the prosecutor was triumphant. When all the evidence had been taken, the court was adjourned for almost an hour. I believe it was just eight o'clock when the President returned to his seat and our prosecutor, Ippolit Kirillovitch, began his speech. Chapter VI. The Prosecutor's Speech. Sketches Of Character Ippolit Kirillovitch began his speech, trembling with nervousness, with cold sweat on his forehead, feeling hot and cold all over by turns. He described this himself afterwards. He regarded this speech as his _chef- d'oeuvre_, the _chef-d'oeuvre_ of his whole life, as his swan-song. He died, it is true, nine months later of rapid consumption, so that he had the right, as it turned out, to compare himself to a swan singing his last song. He had put his whole heart and all the brain he had into that speech. And poor Ippolit Kirillovitch unexpectedly revealed that at least some feeling for the public welfare and "the eternal question" lay concealed in him. Where his speech really excelled was in its sincerity. He genuinely believed in the prisoner's guilt; he was accusing him not as an official duty only, and in calling for vengeance he quivered with a genuine passion "for the security of society." Even the ladies in the audience, though they remained hostile to Ippolit Kirillovitch, admitted that he made an extraordinary impression on them. He began in a breaking voice, but it soon gained strength and filled the court to the end of his speech. But as soon as he had finished, he almost fainted. "Gentlemen of the jury," began the prosecutor, "this case has made a stir throughout Russia. But what is there to wonder at, what is there so peculiarly horrifying in it for us? We are so accustomed to such crimes! That's what's so horrible, that such dark deeds have ceased to horrify us. What ought to horrify us is that we are so accustomed to it, and not this or that isolated crime. What are the causes of our indifference, our lukewarm attitude to such deeds, to such signs of the times, ominous of an unenviable future? Is it our cynicism, is it the premature exhaustion of intellect and imagination in a society that is sinking into decay, in spite of its youth? Is it that our moral principles are shattered to their foundations, or is it, perhaps, a complete lack of such principles among us? I cannot answer such questions; nevertheless they are disturbing, and every citizen not only must, but ought to be harassed by them. Our newborn and still timid press has done good service to the public already, for without it we should never have heard of the horrors of unbridled violence and moral degradation which are continually made known by the press, not merely to those who attend the new jury courts established in the present reign, but to every one. And what do we read almost daily? Of things beside which the present case grows pale, and seems almost commonplace. But what is most important is that the majority of our national crimes of violence bear witness to a widespread evil, now so general among us that it is difficult to contend against it. "One day we see a brilliant young officer of high society, at the very outset of his career, in a cowardly underhand way, without a pang of conscience, murdering an official who had once been his benefactor, and the servant girl, to steal his own I.O.U. and what ready money he could find on him; 'it will come in handy for my pleasures in the fashionable world and for my career in the future.' After murdering them, he puts pillows under the head of each of his victims; he goes away. Next, a young hero 'decorated for bravery' kills the mother of his chief and benefactor, like a highwayman, and to urge his companions to join him he asserts that 'she loves him like a son, and so will follow all his directions and take no precautions.' Granted that he is a monster, yet I dare not say in these days that he is unique. Another man will not commit the murder, but will feel and think like him, and is as dishonorable in soul. In silence, alone with his conscience, he asks himself perhaps, 'What is honor, and isn't the condemnation of bloodshed a prejudice?' "Perhaps people will cry out against me that I am morbid, hysterical, that it is a monstrous slander, that I am exaggerating. Let them say so--and heavens! I should be the first to rejoice if it were so! Oh, don't believe me, think of me as morbid, but remember my words; if only a tenth, if only a twentieth part of what I say is true--even so it's awful! Look how our young people commit suicide, without asking themselves Hamlet's question what there is beyond, without a sign of such a question, as though all that relates to the soul and to what awaits us beyond the grave had long been erased in their minds and buried under the sands. Look at our vice, at our profligates. Fyodor Pavlovitch, the luckless victim in the present case, was almost an innocent babe compared with many of them. And yet we all knew him, 'he lived among us!'... "Yes, one day perhaps the leading intellects of Russia and of Europe will study the psychology of Russian crime, for the subject is worth it. But this study will come later, at leisure, when all the tragic topsy-turvydom of to-day is farther behind us, so that it's possible to examine it with more insight and more impartiality than I can do. Now we are either horrified or pretend to be horrified, though we really gloat over the spectacle, and love strong and eccentric sensations which tickle our cynical, pampered idleness. Or, like little children, we brush the dreadful ghosts away and hide our heads in the pillow so as to return to our sports and merriment as soon as they have vanished. But we must one day begin life in sober earnest, we must look at ourselves as a society; it's time we tried to grasp something of our social position, or at least to make a beginning in that direction. "A great writer(9) of the last epoch, comparing Russia to a swift troika galloping to an unknown goal, exclaims, 'Oh, troika, birdlike troika, who invented thee!' and adds, in proud ecstasy, that all the peoples of the world stand aside respectfully to make way for the recklessly galloping troika to pass. That may be, they may stand aside, respectfully or no, but in my poor opinion the great writer ended his book in this way either in an access of childish and naive optimism, or simply in fear of the censorship of the day. For if the troika were drawn by his heroes, Sobakevitch, Nozdryov, Tchitchikov, it could reach no rational goal, whoever might be driving it. And those were the heroes of an older generation, ours are worse specimens still...." At this point Ippolit Kirillovitch's speech was interrupted by applause. The liberal significance of this simile was appreciated. The applause was, it's true, of brief duration, so that the President did not think it necessary to caution the public, and only looked severely in the direction of the offenders. But Ippolit Kirillovitch was encouraged; he had never been applauded before! He had been all his life unable to get a hearing, and now he suddenly had an opportunity of securing the ear of all Russia. "What, after all, is this Karamazov family, which has gained such an unenviable notoriety throughout Russia?" he continued. "Perhaps I am exaggerating, but it seems to me that certain fundamental features of the educated class of to-day are reflected in this family picture--only, of course, in miniature, 'like the sun in a drop of water.' Think of that unhappy, vicious, unbridled old man, who has met with such a melancholy end, the head of a family! Beginning life of noble birth, but in a poor dependent position, through an unexpected marriage he came into a small fortune. A petty knave, a toady and buffoon, of fairly good, though undeveloped, intelligence, he was, above all, a moneylender, who grew bolder with growing prosperity. His abject and servile characteristics disappeared, his malicious and sarcastic cynicism was all that remained. On the spiritual side he was undeveloped, while his vitality was excessive. He saw nothing in life but sensual pleasure, and he brought his children up to be the same. He had no feelings for his duties as a father. He ridiculed those duties. He left his little children to the servants, and was glad to be rid of them, forgot about them completely. The old man's maxim was _Apres moi le deluge_. He was an example of everything that is opposed to civic duty, of the most complete and malignant individualism. 'The world may burn for aught I care, so long as I am all right,' and he was all right; he was content, he was eager to go on living in the same way for another twenty or thirty years. He swindled his own son and spent his money, his maternal inheritance, on trying to get his mistress from him. No, I don't intend to leave the prisoner's defense altogether to my talented colleague from Petersburg. I will speak the truth myself, I can well understand what resentment he had heaped up in his son's heart against him. "But enough, enough of that unhappy old man; he has paid the penalty. Let us remember, however, that he was a father, and one of the typical fathers of to-day. Am I unjust, indeed, in saying that he is typical of many modern fathers? Alas! many of them only differ in not openly professing such cynicism, for they are better educated, more cultured, but their philosophy is essentially the same as his. Perhaps I am a pessimist, but you have agreed to forgive me. Let us agree beforehand, you need not believe me, but let me speak. Let me say what I have to say, and remember something of my words. "Now for the children of this father, this head of a family. One of them is the prisoner before us, all the rest of my speech will deal with him. Of the other two I will speak only cursorily. "The elder is one of those modern young men of brilliant education and vigorous intellect, who has lost all faith in everything. He has denied and rejected much already, like his father. We have all heard him, he was a welcome guest in local society. He never concealed his opinions, quite the contrary in fact, which justifies me in speaking rather openly of him now, of course, not as an individual, but as a member of the Karamazov family. Another personage closely connected with the case died here by his own hand last night. I mean an afflicted idiot, formerly the servant, and possibly the illegitimate son, of Fyodor Pavlovitch, Smerdyakov. At the preliminary inquiry, he told me with hysterical tears how the young Ivan Karamazov had horrified him by his spiritual audacity. 'Everything in the world is lawful according to him, and nothing must be forbidden in the future--that is what he always taught me.' I believe that idiot was driven out of his mind by this theory, though, of course, the epileptic attacks from which he suffered, and this terrible catastrophe, have helped to unhinge his faculties. But he dropped one very interesting observation, which would have done credit to a more intelligent observer, and that is, indeed, why I've mentioned it: 'If there is one of the sons that is like Fyodor Pavlovitch in character, it is Ivan Fyodorovitch.' "With that remark I conclude my sketch of his character, feeling it indelicate to continue further. Oh, I don't want to draw any further conclusions and croak like a raven over the young man's future. We've seen to-day in this court that there are still good impulses in his young heart, that family feeling has not been destroyed in him by lack of faith and cynicism, which have come to him rather by inheritance than by the exercise of independent thought. "Then the third son. Oh, he is a devout and modest youth, who does not share his elder brother's gloomy and destructive theory of life. He has sought to cling to the 'ideas of the people,' or to what goes by that name in some circles of our intellectual classes. He clung to the monastery, and was within an ace of becoming a monk. He seems to me to have betrayed unconsciously, and so early, that timid despair which leads so many in our unhappy society, who dread cynicism and its corrupting influences, and mistakenly attribute all the mischief to European enlightenment, to return to their 'native soil,' as they say, to the bosom, so to speak, of their mother earth, like frightened children, yearning to fall asleep on the withered bosom of their decrepit mother, and to sleep there for ever, only to escape the horrors that terrify them. "For my part I wish the excellent and gifted young man every success; I trust that his youthful idealism and impulse towards the ideas of the people may never degenerate, as often happens, on the moral side into gloomy mysticism, and on the political into blind chauvinism--two elements which are even a greater menace to Russia than the premature decay, due to misunderstanding and gratuitous adoption of European ideas, from which his elder brother is suffering." Two or three people clapped their hands at the mention of chauvinism and mysticism. Ippolit Kirillovitch had been, indeed, carried away by his own eloquence. All this had little to do with the case in hand, to say nothing of the fact of its being somewhat vague, but the sickly and consumptive man was overcome by the desire to express himself once in his life. People said afterwards that he was actuated by unworthy motives in his criticism of Ivan, because the latter had on one or two occasions got the better of him in argument, and Ippolit Kirillovitch, remembering it, tried now to take his revenge. But I don't know whether it was true. All this was only introductory, however, and the speech passed to more direct consideration of the case. "But to return to the eldest son," Ippolit Kirillovitch went on. "He is the prisoner before us. We have his life and his actions, too, before us; the fatal day has come and all has been brought to the surface. While his brothers seem to stand for 'Europeanism' and 'the principles of the people,' he seems to represent Russia as she is. Oh, not all Russia, not all! God preserve us, if it were! Yet, here we have her, our mother Russia, the very scent and sound of her. Oh, he is spontaneous, he is a marvelous mingling of good and evil, he is a lover of culture and Schiller, yet he brawls in taverns and plucks out the beards of his boon companions. Oh, he, too, can be good and noble, but only when all goes well with him. What is more, he can be carried off his feet, positively carried off his feet by noble ideals, but only if they come of themselves, if they fall from heaven for him, if they need not be paid for. He dislikes paying for anything, but is very fond of receiving, and that's so with him in everything. Oh, give him every possible good in life (he couldn't be content with less), and put no obstacle in his way, and he will show that he, too, can be noble. He is not greedy, no, but he must have money, a great deal of money, and you will see how generously, with what scorn of filthy lucre, he will fling it all away in the reckless dissipation of one night. But if he has not money, he will show what he is ready to do to get it when he is in great need of it. But all this later, let us take events in their chronological order. "First, we have before us a poor abandoned child, running about the back- yard 'without boots on his feet,' as our worthy and esteemed fellow citizen, of foreign origin, alas! expressed it just now. I repeat it again, I yield to no one the defense of the criminal. I am here to accuse him, but to defend him also. Yes, I, too, am human; I, too, can weigh the influence of home and childhood on the character. But the boy grows up and becomes an officer; for a duel and other reckless conduct he is exiled to one of the remote frontier towns of Russia. There he led a wild life as an officer. And, of course, he needed money, money before all things, and so after prolonged disputes he came to a settlement with his father, and the last six thousand was sent him. A letter is in existence in which he practically gives up his claim to the rest and settles his conflict with his father over the inheritance on the payment of this six thousand. "Then came his meeting with a young girl of lofty character and brilliant education. Oh, I do not venture to repeat the details; you have only just heard them. Honor, self-sacrifice were shown there, and I will be silent. The figure of the young officer, frivolous and profligate, doing homage to true nobility and a lofty ideal, was shown in a very sympathetic light before us. But the other side of the medal was unexpectedly turned to us immediately after in this very court. Again I will not venture to conjecture why it happened so, but there were causes. The same lady, bathed in tears of long-concealed indignation, alleged that he, he of all men, had despised her for her action, which, though incautious, reckless perhaps, was still dictated by lofty and generous motives. He, he, the girl's betrothed, looked at her with that smile of mockery, which was more insufferable from him than from any one. And knowing that he had already deceived her (he had deceived her, believing that she was bound to endure everything from him, even treachery), she intentionally offered him three thousand roubles, and clearly, too clearly, let him understand that she was offering him money to deceive her. 'Well, will you take it or not, are you so lost to shame?' was the dumb question in her scrutinizing eyes. He looked at her, saw clearly what was in her mind (he's admitted here before you that he understood it all), appropriated that three thousand unconditionally, and squandered it in two days with the new object of his affections. "What are we to believe then? The first legend of the young officer sacrificing his last farthing in a noble impulse of generosity and doing reverence to virtue, or this other revolting picture? As a rule, between two extremes one has to find the mean, but in the present case this is not true. The probability is that in the first case he was genuinely noble, and in the second as genuinely base. And why? Because he was of the broad Karamazov character--that's just what I am leading up to--capable of combining the most incongruous contradictions, and capable of the greatest heights and of the greatest depths. Remember the brilliant remark made by a young observer who has seen the Karamazov family at close quarters--Mr. Rakitin: 'The sense of their own degradation is as essential to those reckless, unbridled natures as the sense of their lofty generosity.' And that's true, they need continually this unnatural mixture. Two extremes at the same moment, or they are miserable and dissatisfied and their existence is incomplete. They are wide, wide as mother Russia; they include everything and put up with everything. "By the way, gentlemen of the jury, we've just touched upon that three thousand roubles, and I will venture to anticipate things a little. Can you conceive that a man like that, on receiving that sum and in such a way, at the price of such shame, such disgrace, such utter degradation, could have been capable that very day of setting apart half that sum, that very day, and sewing it up in a little bag, and would have had the firmness of character to carry it about with him for a whole month afterwards, in spite of every temptation and his extreme need of it! Neither in drunken debauchery in taverns, nor when he was flying into the country, trying to get from God knows whom, the money so essential to him to remove the object of his affections from being tempted by his father, did he bring himself to touch that little bag! Why, if only to avoid abandoning his mistress to the rival of whom he was so jealous, he would have been certain to have opened that bag and to have stayed at home to keep watch over her, and to await the moment when she would say to him at last 'I am yours,' and to fly with her far from their fatal surroundings. "But no, he did not touch his talisman, and what is the reason he gives for it? The chief reason, as I have just said, was that when she would say, 'I am yours, take me where you will,' he might have the wherewithal to take her. But that first reason, in the prisoner's own words, was of little weight beside the second. While I have that money on me, he said, I am a scoundrel, not a thief, for I can always go to my insulted betrothed, and, laying down half the sum I have fraudulently appropriated, I can always say to her, 'You see, I've squandered half your money, and shown I am a weak and immoral man, and, if you like, a scoundrel' (I use the prisoner's own expressions), 'but though I am a scoundrel, I am not a thief, for if I had been a thief, I shouldn't have brought you back this half of the money, but should have taken it as I did the other half!' A marvelous explanation! This frantic, but weak man, who could not resist the temptation of accepting the three thousand roubles at the price of such disgrace, this very man suddenly develops the most stoical firmness, and carries about a thousand roubles without daring to touch it. Does that fit in at all with the character we have analyzed? No, and I venture to tell you how the real Dmitri Karamazov would have behaved in such circumstances, if he really had brought himself to put away the money. "At the first temptation--for instance, to entertain the woman with whom he had already squandered half the money--he would have unpicked his little bag and have taken out some hundred roubles, for why should he have taken back precisely half the money, that is, fifteen hundred roubles? why not fourteen hundred? He could just as well have said then that he was not a thief, because he brought back fourteen hundred roubles. Then another time he would have unpicked it again and taken out another hundred, and then a third, and then a fourth, and before the end of the month he would have taken the last note but one, feeling that if he took back only a hundred it would answer the purpose, for a thief would have stolen it all. And then he would have looked at this last note, and have said to himself, 'It's really not worth while to give back one hundred; let's spend that, too!' That's how the real Dmitri Karamazov, as we know him, would have behaved. One cannot imagine anything more incongruous with the actual fact than this legend of the little bag. Nothing could be more inconceivable. But we shall return to that later." After touching upon what had come out in the proceedings concerning the financial relations of father and son, and arguing again and again that it was utterly impossible, from the facts known, to determine which was in the wrong, Ippolit Kirillovitch passed to the evidence of the medical experts in reference to Mitya's fixed idea about the three thousand owing him. Chapter VII. An Historical Survey "The medical experts have striven to convince us that the prisoner is out of his mind and, in fact, a maniac. I maintain that he is in his right mind, and that if he had not been, he would have behaved more cleverly. As for his being a maniac, that I would agree with, but only in one point, that is, his fixed idea about the three thousand. Yet I think one might find a much simpler cause than his tendency to insanity. For my part I agree thoroughly with the young doctor who maintained that the prisoner's mental faculties have always been normal, and that he has only been irritable and exasperated. The object of the prisoner's continual and violent anger was not the sum itself; there was a special motive at the bottom of it. That motive is jealousy!" Here Ippolit Kirillovitch described at length the prisoner's fatal passion for Grushenka. He began from the moment when the prisoner went to the "young person's" lodgings "to beat her"--"I use his own expression," the prosecutor explained--"but instead of beating her, he remained there, at her feet. That was the beginning of the passion. At the same time the prisoner's father was captivated by the same young person--a strange and fatal coincidence, for they both lost their hearts to her simultaneously, though both had known her before. And she inspired in both of them the most violent, characteristically Karamazov passion. We have her own confession: 'I was laughing at both of them.' Yes, the sudden desire to make a jest of them came over her, and she conquered both of them at once. The old man, who worshiped money, at once set aside three thousand roubles as a reward for one visit from her, but soon after that, he would have been happy to lay his property and his name at her feet, if only she would become his lawful wife. We have good evidence of this. As for the prisoner, the tragedy of his fate is evident; it is before us. But such was the young person's 'game.' The enchantress gave the unhappy young man no hope until the last moment, when he knelt before her, stretching out hands that were already stained with the blood of his father and rival. It was in that position that he was arrested. 'Send me to Siberia with him, I have brought him to this, I am most to blame,' the woman herself cried, in genuine remorse at the moment of his arrest. "The talented young man, to whom I have referred already, Mr. Rakitin, characterized this heroine in brief and impressive terms: 'She was disillusioned early in life, deceived and ruined by a betrothed, who seduced and abandoned her. She was left in poverty, cursed by her respectable family, and taken under the protection of a wealthy old man, whom she still, however, considers as her benefactor. There was perhaps much that was good in her young heart, but it was embittered too early. She became prudent and saved money. She grew sarcastic and resentful against society.' After this sketch of her character it may well be understood that she might laugh at both of them simply from mischief, from malice. "After a month of hopeless love and moral degradation, during which he betrayed his betrothed and appropriated money entrusted to his honor, the prisoner was driven almost to frenzy, almost to madness by continual jealousy--and of whom? His father! And the worst of it was that the crazy old man was alluring and enticing the object of his affection by means of that very three thousand roubles, which the son looked upon as his own property, part of his inheritance from his mother, of which his father was cheating him. Yes, I admit it was hard to bear! It might well drive a man to madness. It was not the money, but the fact that this money was used with such revolting cynicism to ruin his happiness!" Then the prosecutor went on to describe how the idea of murdering his father had entered the prisoner's head, and illustrated his theory with facts. "At first he only talked about it in taverns--he was talking about it all that month. Ah, he likes being always surrounded with company, and he likes to tell his companions everything, even his most diabolical and dangerous ideas; he likes to share every thought with others, and expects, for some reason, that those he confides in will meet him with perfect sympathy, enter into all his troubles and anxieties, take his part and not oppose him in anything. If not, he flies into a rage and smashes up everything in the tavern. [Then followed the anecdote about Captain Snegiryov.] Those who heard the prisoner began to think at last that he might mean more than threats, and that such a frenzy might turn threats into actions." Here the prosecutor described the meeting of the family at the monastery, the conversations with Alyosha, and the horrible scene of violence when the prisoner had rushed into his father's house just after dinner. "I cannot positively assert," the prosecutor continued, "that the prisoner fully intended to murder his father before that incident. Yet the idea had several times presented itself to him, and he had deliberated on it--for that we have facts, witnesses, and his own words. I confess, gentlemen of the jury," he added, "that till to-day I have been uncertain whether to attribute to the prisoner conscious premeditation. I was firmly convinced that he had pictured the fatal moment beforehand, but had only pictured it, contemplating it as a possibility. He had not definitely considered when and how he might commit the crime. "But I was only uncertain till to-day, till that fatal document was presented to the court just now. You yourselves heard that young lady's exclamation, 'It is the plan, the program of the murder!' That is how she defined that miserable, drunken letter of the unhappy prisoner. And, in fact, from that letter we see that the whole fact of the murder was premeditated. It was written two days before, and so we know now for a fact that, forty-eight hours before the perpetration of his terrible design, the prisoner swore that, if he could not get money next day, he would murder his father in order to take the envelope with the notes from under his pillow, as soon as Ivan had left. 'As soon as Ivan had gone away'--you hear that; so he had thought everything out, weighing every circumstance, and he carried it all out just as he had written it. The proof of premeditation is conclusive; the crime must have been committed for the sake of the money, that is stated clearly, that is written and signed. The prisoner does not deny his signature. "I shall be told he was drunk when he wrote it. But that does not diminish the value of the letter, quite the contrary; he wrote when drunk what he had planned when sober. Had he not planned it when sober, he would not have written it when drunk. I shall be asked: Then why did he talk about it in taverns? A man who premeditates such a crime is silent and keeps it to himself. Yes, but he talked about it before he had formed a plan, when he had only the desire, only the impulse to it. Afterwards he talked less about it. On the evening he wrote that letter at the 'Metropolis' tavern, contrary to his custom he was silent, though he had been drinking. He did not play billiards, he sat in a corner, talked to no one. He did indeed turn a shopman out of his seat, but that was done almost unconsciously, because he could never enter a tavern without making a disturbance. It is true that after he had taken the final decision, he must have felt apprehensive that he had talked too much about his design beforehand, and that this might lead to his arrest and prosecution afterwards. But there was nothing for it; he could not take his words back, but his luck had served him before, it would serve him again. He believed in his star, you know! I must confess, too, that he did a great deal to avoid the fatal catastrophe. 'To-morrow I shall try and borrow the money from every one,' as he writes in his peculiar language, 'and if they won't give it to me, there will be bloodshed.' " Here Ippolit Kirillovitch passed to a detailed description of all Mitya's efforts to borrow the money. He described his visit to Samsonov, his journey to Lyagavy. "Harassed, jeered at, hungry, after selling his watch to pay for the journey (though he tells us he had fifteen hundred roubles on him--a likely story), tortured by jealousy at having left the object of his affections in the town, suspecting that she would go to Fyodor Pavlovitch in his absence, he returned at last to the town, to find, to his joy, that she had not been near his father. He accompanied her himself to her protector. (Strange to say, he doesn't seem to have been jealous of Samsonov, which is psychologically interesting.) Then he hastens back to his ambush in the back gardens, and there learns that Smerdyakov is in a fit, that the other servant is ill--the coast is clear and he knows the 'signals'--what a temptation! Still he resists it; he goes off to a lady who has for some time been residing in the town, and who is highly esteemed among us, Madame Hohlakov. That lady, who had long watched his career with compassion, gave him the most judicious advice, to give up his dissipated life, his unseemly love-affair, the waste of his youth and vigor in pot-house debauchery, and to set off to Siberia to the gold- mines: 'that would be an outlet for your turbulent energies, your romantic character, your thirst for adventure.' " After describing the result of this conversation and the moment when the prisoner learnt that Grushenka had not remained at Samsonov's, the sudden frenzy of the luckless man worn out with jealousy and nervous exhaustion, at the thought that she had deceived him and was now with his father, Ippolit Kirillovitch concluded by dwelling upon the fatal influence of chance. "Had the maid told him that her mistress was at Mokroe with her former lover, nothing would have happened. But she lost her head, she could only swear and protest her ignorance, and if the prisoner did not kill her on the spot, it was only because he flew in pursuit of his false mistress. "But note, frantic as he was, he took with him a brass pestle. Why that? Why not some other weapon? But since he had been contemplating his plan and preparing himself for it for a whole month, he would snatch up anything like a weapon that caught his eye. He had realized for a month past that any object of the kind would serve as a weapon, so he instantly, without hesitation, recognized that it would serve his purpose. So it was by no means unconsciously, by no means involuntarily, that he snatched up that fatal pestle. And then we find him in his father's garden--the coast is clear, there are no witnesses, darkness and jealousy. The suspicion that she was there, with him, with his rival, in his arms, and perhaps laughing at him at that moment--took his breath away. And it was not mere suspicion, the deception was open, obvious. She must be there, in that lighted room, she must be behind the screen; and the unhappy man would have us believe that he stole up to the window, peeped respectfully in, and discreetly withdrew, for fear something terrible and immoral should happen. And he tries to persuade us of that, us, who understand his character, who know his state of mind at the moment, and that he knew the signals by which he could at once enter the house." At this point Ippolit Kirillovitch broke off to discuss exhaustively the suspected connection of Smerdyakov with the murder. He did this very circumstantially, and every one realized that, although he professed to despise that suspicion, he thought the subject of great importance. Chapter VIII. A Treatise On Smerdyakov "To begin with, what was the source of this suspicion?" (Ippolit Kirillovitch began.) "The first person who cried out that Smerdyakov had committed the murder was the prisoner himself at the moment of his arrest, yet from that time to this he had not brought forward a single fact to confirm the charge, nor the faintest suggestion of a fact. The charge is confirmed by three persons only--the two brothers of the prisoner and Madame Svyetlov. The elder of these brothers expressed his suspicions only to-day, when he was undoubtedly suffering from brain fever. But we know that for the last two months he has completely shared our conviction of his brother's guilt and did not attempt to combat that idea. But of that later. The younger brother has admitted that he has not the slightest fact to support his notion of Smerdyakov's guilt, and has only been led to that conclusion from the prisoner's own words and the expression of his face. Yes, that astounding piece of evidence has been brought forward twice to- day by him. Madame Svyetlov was even more astounding. 'What the prisoner tells you, you must believe; he is not a man to tell a lie.' That is all the evidence against Smerdyakov produced by these three persons, who are all deeply concerned in the prisoner's fate. And yet the theory of Smerdyakov's guilt has been noised about, has been and is still maintained. Is it credible? Is it conceivable?" Here Ippolit Kirillovitch thought it necessary to describe the personality of Smerdyakov, "who had cut short his life in a fit of insanity." He depicted him as a man of weak intellect, with a smattering of education, who had been thrown off his balance by philosophical ideas above his level and certain modern theories of duty, which he learnt in practice from the reckless life of his master, who was also perhaps his father--Fyodor Pavlovitch; and, theoretically, from various strange philosophical conversations with his master's elder son, Ivan Fyodorovitch, who readily indulged in this diversion, probably feeling dull or wishing to amuse himself at the valet's expense. "He spoke to me himself of his spiritual condition during the last few days at his father's house," Ippolit Kirillovitch explained; "but others too have borne witness to it--the prisoner himself, his brother, and the servant Grigory--that is, all who knew him well. "Moreover, Smerdyakov, whose health was shaken by his attacks of epilepsy, had not the courage of a chicken. 'He fell at my feet and kissed them,' the prisoner himself has told us, before he realized how damaging such a statement was to himself. 'He is an epileptic chicken,' he declared about him in his characteristic language. And the prisoner chose him for his confidant (we have his own word for it) and he frightened him into consenting at last to act as a spy for him. In that capacity he deceived his master, revealing to the prisoner the existence of the envelope with the notes in it and the signals by means of which he could get into the house. How could he help telling him, indeed? 'He would have killed me, I could see that he would have killed me,' he said at the inquiry, trembling and shaking even before us, though his tormentor was by that time arrested and could do him no harm. 'He suspected me at every instant. In fear and trembling I hastened to tell him every secret to pacify him, that he might see that I had not deceived him and let me off alive.' Those are his own words. I wrote them down and I remember them. 'When he began shouting at me, I would fall on my knees.' "He was naturally very honest and enjoyed the complete confidence of his master, ever since he had restored him some money he had lost. So it may be supposed that the poor fellow suffered pangs of remorse at having deceived his master, whom he loved as his benefactor. Persons severely afflicted with epilepsy are, so the most skillful doctors tell us, always prone to continual and morbid self-reproach. They worry over their 'wickedness,' they are tormented by pangs of conscience, often entirely without cause; they exaggerate and often invent all sorts of faults and crimes. And here we have a man of that type who had really been driven to wrong-doing by terror and intimidation. "He had, besides, a strong presentiment that something terrible would be the outcome of the situation that was developing before his eyes. When Ivan Fyodorovitch was leaving for Moscow, just before the catastrophe, Smerdyakov besought him to remain, though he was too timid to tell him plainly what he feared. He confined himself to hints, but his hints were not understood. "It must be observed that he looked on Ivan Fyodorovitch as a protector, whose presence in the house was a guarantee that no harm would come to pass. Remember the phrase in Dmitri Karamazov's drunken letter, 'I shall kill the old man, if only Ivan goes away.' So Ivan Fyodorovitch's presence seemed to every one a guarantee of peace and order in the house. "But he went away, and within an hour of his young master's departure Smerdyakov was taken with an epileptic fit. But that's perfectly intelligible. Here I must mention that Smerdyakov, oppressed by terror and despair of a sort, had felt during those last few days that one of the fits from which he had suffered before at moments of strain, might be coming upon him again. The day and hour of such an attack cannot, of course, be foreseen, but every epileptic can feel beforehand that he is likely to have one. So the doctors tell us. And so, as soon as Ivan Fyodorovitch had driven out of the yard, Smerdyakov, depressed by his lonely and unprotected position, went to the cellar. He went down the stairs wondering if he would have a fit or not, and what if it were to come upon him at once. And that very apprehension, that very wonder, brought on the spasm in his throat that always precedes such attacks, and he fell unconscious into the cellar. And in this perfectly natural occurrence people try to detect a suspicion, a hint that he was shamming an attack _on purpose_. But, if it were on purpose, the question arises at once, what was his motive? What was he reckoning on? What was he aiming at? I say nothing about medicine: science, I am told, may go astray: the doctors were not able to discriminate between the counterfeit and the real. That may be so, but answer me one question: what motive had he for such a counterfeit? Could he, had he been plotting the murder, have desired to attract the attention of the household by having a fit just before? "You see, gentlemen of the jury, on the night of the murder, there were five persons in Fyodor Pavlovitch's--Fyodor Pavlovitch himself (but he did not kill himself, that's evident); then his servant, Grigory, but he was almost killed himself; the third person was Grigory's wife, Marfa Ignatyevna, but it would be simply shameful to imagine her murdering her master. Two persons are left--the prisoner and Smerdyakov. But, if we are to believe the prisoner's statement that he is not the murderer, then Smerdyakov must have been, for there is no other alternative, no one else can be found. That is what accounts for the artful, astounding accusation against the unhappy idiot who committed suicide yesterday. Had a shadow of suspicion rested on any one else, had there been any sixth person, I am persuaded that even the prisoner would have been ashamed to accuse Smerdyakov, and would have accused that sixth person, for to charge Smerdyakov with that murder is perfectly absurd. "Gentlemen, let us lay aside psychology, let us lay aside medicine, let us even lay aside logic, let us turn only to the facts and see what the facts tell us. If Smerdyakov killed him, how did he do it? Alone or with the assistance of the prisoner? Let us consider the first alternative--that he did it alone. If he had killed him it must have been with some object, for some advantage to himself. But not having a shadow of the motive that the prisoner had for the murder--hatred, jealousy, and so on--Smerdyakov could only have murdered him for the sake of gain, in order to appropriate the three thousand roubles he had seen his master put in the envelope. And yet he tells another person--and a person most closely interested, that is, the prisoner--everything about the money and the signals, where the envelope lay, what was written on it, what it was tied up with, and, above all, told him of those signals by which he could enter the house. Did he do this simply to betray himself, or to invite to the same enterprise one who would be anxious to get that envelope for himself? 'Yes,' I shall be told, 'but he betrayed it from fear.' But how do you explain this? A man who could conceive such an audacious, savage act, and carry it out, tells facts which are known to no one else in the world, and which, if he held his tongue, no one would ever have guessed! "No, however cowardly he might be, if he had plotted such a crime, nothing would have induced him to tell any one about the envelope and the signals, for that was as good as betraying himself beforehand. He would have invented something, he would have told some lie if he had been forced to give information, but he would have been silent about that. For, on the other hand, if he had said nothing about the money, but had committed the murder and stolen the money, no one in the world could have charged him with murder for the sake of robbery, since no one but he had seen the money, no one but he knew of its existence in the house. Even if he had been accused of the murder, it could only have been thought that he had committed it from some other motive. But since no one had observed any such motive in him beforehand, and every one saw, on the contrary, that his master was fond of him and honored him with his confidence, he would, of course, have been the last to be suspected. People would have suspected first the man who had a motive, a man who had himself declared he had such motives, who had made no secret of it; they would, in fact, have suspected the son of the murdered man, Dmitri Fyodorovitch. Had Smerdyakov killed and robbed him, and the son been accused of it, that would, of course, have suited Smerdyakov. Yet are we to believe that, though plotting the murder, he told that son, Dmitri, about the money, the envelope, and the signals? Is that logical? Is that clear? "When the day of the murder planned by Smerdyakov came, we have him falling downstairs in a _feigned_ fit--with what object? In the first place that Grigory, who had been intending to take his medicine, might put it off and remain on guard, seeing there was no one to look after the house, and, in the second place, I suppose, that his master seeing that there was no one to guard him, and in terror of a visit from his son, might redouble his vigilance and precaution. And, most of all, I suppose that he, Smerdyakov, disabled by the fit, might be carried from the kitchen, where he always slept, apart from all the rest, and where he could go in and out as he liked, to Grigory's room at the other end of the lodge, where he was always put, shut off by a screen three paces from their own bed. This was the immemorial custom established by his master and the kind-hearted Marfa Ignatyevna, whenever he had a fit. There, lying behind the screen, he would most likely, to keep up the sham, have begun groaning, and so keeping them awake all night (as Grigory and his wife testified). And all this, we are to believe, that he might more conveniently get up and murder his master! "But I shall be told that he shammed illness on purpose that he might not be suspected and that he told the prisoner of the money and the signals to tempt him to commit the murder, and when he had murdered him and had gone away with the money, making a noise, most likely, and waking people, Smerdyakov got up, am I to believe, and went in--what for? To murder his master a second time and carry off the money that had already been stolen? Gentlemen, are you laughing? I am ashamed to put forward such suggestions, but, incredible as it seems, that's just what the prisoner alleges. When he had left the house, had knocked Grigory down and raised an alarm, he tells us Smerdyakov got up, went in and murdered his master and stole the money! I won't press the point that Smerdyakov could hardly have reckoned on this beforehand, and have foreseen that the furious and exasperated son would simply come to peep in respectfully, though he knew the signals, and beat a retreat, leaving Smerdyakov his booty. Gentlemen of the jury, I put this question to you in earnest; when was the moment when Smerdyakov could have committed his crime? Name that moment, or you can't accuse him. "But, perhaps, the fit was a real one, the sick man suddenly recovered, heard a shout, and went out. Well--what then? He looked about him and said, 'Why not go and kill the master?' And how did he know what had happened, since he had been lying unconscious till that moment? But there's a limit to these flights of fancy. " 'Quite so,' some astute people will tell me, 'but what if they were in agreement? What if they murdered him together and shared the money--what then?' A weighty question, truly! And the facts to confirm it are astounding. One commits the murder and takes all the trouble while his accomplice lies on one side shamming a fit, apparently to arouse suspicion in every one, alarm in his master and alarm in Grigory. It would be interesting to know what motives could have induced the two accomplices to form such an insane plan. "But perhaps it was not a case of active complicity on Smerdyakov's part, but only of passive acquiescence; perhaps Smerdyakov was intimidated and agreed not to prevent the murder, and foreseeing that he would be blamed for letting his master be murdered, without screaming for help or resisting, he may have obtained permission from Dmitri Karamazov to get out of the way by shamming a fit--'you may murder him as you like; it's nothing to me.' But as this attack of Smerdyakov's was bound to throw the household into confusion, Dmitri Karamazov could never have agreed to such a plan. I will waive that point however. Supposing that he did agree, it would still follow that Dmitri Karamazov is the murderer and the instigator, and Smerdyakov is only a passive accomplice, and not even an accomplice, but merely acquiesced against his will through terror. "But what do we see? As soon as he is arrested the prisoner instantly throws all the blame on Smerdyakov, not accusing him of being his accomplice, but of being himself the murderer. 'He did it alone,' he says. 'He murdered and robbed him. It was the work of his hands.' Strange sort of accomplices who begin to accuse one another at once! And think of the risk for Karamazov. After committing the murder while his accomplice lay in bed, he throws the blame on the invalid, who might well have resented it and in self-preservation might well have confessed the truth. For he might well have seen that the court would at once judge how far he was responsible, and so he might well have reckoned that if he were punished, it would be far less severely than the real murderer. But in that case he would have been certain to make a confession, yet he has not done so. Smerdyakov never hinted at their complicity, though the actual murderer persisted in accusing him and declaring that he had committed the crime alone. "What's more, Smerdyakov at the inquiry volunteered the statement that it was _he_ who had told the prisoner of the envelope of notes and of the signals, and that, but for him, he would have known nothing about them. If he had really been a guilty accomplice, would he so readily have made this statement at the inquiry? On the contrary, he would have tried to conceal it, to distort the facts or minimize them. But he was far from distorting or minimizing them. No one but an innocent man, who had no fear of being charged with complicity, could have acted as he did. And in a fit of melancholy arising from his disease and this catastrophe he hanged himself yesterday. He left a note written in his peculiar language, 'I destroy myself of my own will and inclination so as to throw no blame on any one.' What would it have cost him to add: 'I am the murderer, not Karamazov'? But that he did not add. Did his conscience lead him to suicide and not to avowing his guilt? "And what followed? Notes for three thousand roubles were brought into the court just now, and we were told that they were the same that lay in the envelope now on the table before us, and that the witness had received them from Smerdyakov the day before. But I need not recall the painful scene, though I will make one or two comments, selecting such trivial ones as might not be obvious at first sight to every one, and so may be overlooked. In the first place, Smerdyakov must have given back the money and hanged himself yesterday from remorse. And only yesterday he confessed his guilt to Ivan Karamazov, as the latter informs us. If it were not so, indeed, why should Ivan Fyodorovitch have kept silence till now? And so, if he has confessed, then why, I ask again, did he not avow the whole truth in the last letter he left behind, knowing that the innocent prisoner had to face this terrible ordeal the next day? "The money alone is no proof. A week ago, quite by chance, the fact came to the knowledge of myself and two other persons in this court that Ivan Fyodorovitch had sent two five per cent. coupons of five thousand each--that is, ten thousand in all--to the chief town of the province to be changed. I only mention this to point out that any one may have money, and that it can't be proved that these notes are the same as were in Fyodor Pavlovitch's envelope. "Ivan Karamazov, after receiving yesterday a communication of such importance from the real murderer, did not stir. Why didn't he report it at once? Why did he put it all off till morning? I think I have a right to conjecture why. His health had been giving way for a week past: he had admitted to a doctor and to his most intimate friends that he was suffering from hallucinations and seeing phantoms of the dead: he was on the eve of the attack of brain fever by which he has been stricken down to-day. In this condition he suddenly heard of Smerdyakov's death, and at once reflected, 'The man is dead, I can throw the blame on him and save my brother. I have money. I will take a roll of notes and say that Smerdyakov gave them me before his death.' You will say that was dishonorable: it's dishonorable to slander even the dead, and even to save a brother. True, but what if he slandered him unconsciously? What if, finally unhinged by the sudden news of the valet's death, he imagined it really was so? You saw the recent scene: you have seen the witness's condition. He was standing up and was speaking, but where was his mind? "Then followed the document, the prisoner's letter written two days before the crime, and containing a complete program of the murder. Why, then, are we looking for any other program? The crime was committed precisely according to this program, and by no other than the writer of it. Yes, gentlemen of the jury, it went off without a hitch! He did not run respectfully and timidly away from his father's window, though he was firmly convinced that the object of his affections was with him. No, that is absurd and unlikely! He went in and murdered him. Most likely he killed him in anger, burning with resentment, as soon as he looked on his hated rival. But having killed him, probably with one blow of the brass pestle, and having convinced himself, after careful search, that she was not there, he did not, however, forget to put his hand under the pillow and take out the envelope, the torn cover of which lies now on the table before us. "I mention this fact that you may note one, to my thinking, very characteristic circumstance. Had he been an experienced murderer and had he committed the murder for the sake of gain only, would he have left the torn envelope on the floor as it was found, beside the corpse? Had it been Smerdyakov, for instance, murdering his master to rob him, he would have simply carried away the envelope with him, without troubling himself to open it over his victim's corpse, for he would have known for certain that the notes were in the envelope--they had been put in and sealed up in his presence--and had he taken the envelope with him, no one would ever have known of the robbery. I ask you, gentlemen, would Smerdyakov have behaved in that way? Would he have left the envelope on the floor? "No, this was the action of a frantic murderer, a murderer who was not a thief and had never stolen before that day, who snatched the notes from under the pillow, not like a thief stealing them, but as though seizing his own property from the thief who had stolen it. For that was the idea which had become almost an insane obsession in Dmitri Karamazov in regard to that money. And pouncing upon the envelope, which he had never seen before, he tore it open to make sure whether the money was in it, and ran away with the money in his pocket, even forgetting to consider that he had left an astounding piece of evidence against himself in that torn envelope on the floor. All because it was Karamazov, not Smerdyakov, he didn't think, he didn't reflect, and how should he? He ran away; he heard behind him the servant cry out; the old man caught him, stopped him and was felled to the ground by the brass pestle. "The prisoner, moved by pity, leapt down to look at him. Would you believe it, he tells us that he leapt down out of pity, out of compassion, to see whether he could do anything for him. Was that a moment to show compassion? No; he jumped down simply to make certain whether the only witness of his crime were dead or alive. Any other feeling, any other motive would be unnatural. Note that he took trouble over Grigory, wiped his head with his handkerchief and, convincing himself he was dead, he ran to the house of his mistress, dazed and covered with blood. How was it he never thought that he was covered with blood and would be at once detected? But the prisoner himself assures us that he did not even notice that he was covered with blood. That may be believed, that is very possible, that always happens at such moments with criminals. On one point they will show diabolical cunning, while another will escape them altogether. But he was thinking at that moment of one thing only--where was _she_? He wanted to find out at once where she was, so he ran to her lodging and learnt an unexpected and astounding piece of news--she had gone off to Mokroe to meet her first lover." Chapter IX. The Galloping Troika. The End Of The Prosecutor's Speech. Ippolit Kirillovitch had chosen the historical method of exposition, beloved by all nervous orators, who find in its limitation a check on their own eager rhetoric. At this moment in his speech he went off into a dissertation on Grushenka's "first lover," and brought forward several interesting thoughts on this theme. "Karamazov, who had been frantically jealous of every one, collapsed, so to speak, and effaced himself at once before this first lover. What makes it all the more strange is that he seems to have hardly thought of this formidable rival. But he had looked upon him as a remote danger, and Karamazov always lives in the present. Possibly he regarded him as a fiction. But his wounded heart grasped instantly that the woman had been concealing this new rival and deceiving him, because he was anything but a fiction to her, because he was the one hope of her life. Grasping this instantly, he resigned himself. "Gentlemen of the jury, I cannot help dwelling on this unexpected trait in the prisoner's character. He suddenly evinces an irresistible desire for justice, a respect for woman and a recognition of her right to love. And all this at the very moment when he had stained his hands with his father's blood for her sake! It is true that the blood he had shed was already crying out for vengeance, for, after having ruined his soul and his life in this world, he was forced to ask himself at that same instant what he was and what he could be now to her, to that being, dearer to him than his own soul, in comparison with that former lover who had returned penitent, with new love, to the woman he had once betrayed, with honorable offers, with the promise of a reformed and happy life. And he, luckless man, what could he give her now, what could he offer her? "Karamazov felt all this, knew that all ways were barred to him by his crime and that he was a criminal under sentence, and not a man with life before him! This thought crushed him. And so he instantly flew to one frantic plan, which, to a man of Karamazov's character, must have appeared the one inevitable way out of his terrible position. That way out was suicide. He ran for the pistols he had left in pledge with his friend Perhotin and on the way, as he ran, he pulled out of his pocket the money, for the sake of which he had stained his hands with his father's gore. Oh, now he needed money more than ever. Karamazov would die, Karamazov would shoot himself and it should be remembered! To be sure, he was a poet and had burnt the candle at both ends all his life. 'To her, to her! and there, oh, there I will give a feast to the whole world, such as never was before, that will be remembered and talked of long after! In the midst of shouts of wild merriment, reckless gypsy songs and dances I shall raise the glass and drink to the woman I adore and her new-found happiness! And then, on the spot, at her feet, I shall dash out my brains before her and punish myself! She will remember Mitya Karamazov sometimes, she will see how Mitya loved her, she will feel for Mitya!' "Here we see in excess a love of effect, a romantic despair and sentimentality, and the wild recklessness of the Karamazovs. Yes, but there is something else, gentlemen of the jury, something that cries out in the soul, throbs incessantly in the mind, and poisons the heart unto death--that _something_ is conscience, gentlemen of the jury, its judgment, its terrible torments! The pistol will settle everything, the pistol is the only way out! But _beyond_--I don't know whether Karamazov wondered at that moment 'What lies beyond,' and whether Karamazov could, like Hamlet, wonder 'What lies beyond.' No, gentlemen of the jury, they have their Hamlets, but we still have our Karamazovs!" Here Ippolit Kirillovitch drew a minute picture of Mitya's preparations, the scene at Perhotin's, at the shop, with the drivers. He quoted numerous words and actions, confirmed by witnesses, and the picture made a terrible impression on the audience. The guilt of this harassed and desperate man stood out clear and convincing, when the facts were brought together. "What need had he of precaution? Two or three times he almost confessed, hinted at it, all but spoke out." (Then followed the evidence given by witnesses.) "He even cried out to the peasant who drove him, 'Do you know, you are driving a murderer!' But it was impossible for him to speak out, he had to get to Mokroe and there to finish his romance. But what was awaiting the luckless man? Almost from the first minute at Mokroe he saw that his invincible rival was perhaps by no means so invincible, that the toast to their new-found happiness was not desired and would not be acceptable. But you know the facts, gentlemen of the jury, from the preliminary inquiry. Karamazov's triumph over his rival was complete and his soul passed into quite a new phase, perhaps the most terrible phase through which his soul has passed or will pass. "One may say with certainty, gentlemen of the jury," the prosecutor continued, "that outraged nature and the criminal heart bring their own vengeance more completely than any earthly justice. What's more, justice and punishment on earth positively alleviate the punishment of nature and are, indeed, essential to the soul of the criminal at such moments, as its salvation from despair. For I cannot imagine the horror and moral suffering of Karamazov when he learnt that she loved him, that for his sake she had rejected her first lover, that she was summoning him, Mitya, to a new life, that she was promising him happiness--and when? When everything was over for him and nothing was possible! "By the way, I will note in parenthesis a point of importance for the light it throws on the prisoner's position at the moment. This woman, this love of his, had been till the last moment, till the very instant of his arrest, a being unattainable, passionately desired by him but unattainable. Yet why did he not shoot himself then, why did he relinquish his design and even forget where his pistol was? It was just that passionate desire for love and the hope of satisfying it that restrained him. Throughout their revels he kept close to his adored mistress, who was at the banquet with him and was more charming and fascinating to him than ever--he did not leave her side, abasing himself in his homage before her. "His passion might well, for a moment, stifle not only the fear of arrest, but even the torments of conscience. For a moment, oh, only for a moment! I can picture the state of mind of the criminal hopelessly enslaved by these influences--first, the influence of drink, of noise and excitement, of the thud of the dance and the scream of the song, and of her, flushed with wine, singing and dancing and laughing to him! Secondly, the hope in the background that the fatal end might still be far off, that not till next morning, at least, they would come and take him. So he had a few hours and that's much, very much! In a few hours one can think of many things. I imagine that he felt something like what criminals feel when they are being taken to the scaffold. They have another long, long street to pass down and at walking pace, past thousands of people. Then there will be a turning into another street and only at the end of that street the dread place of execution! I fancy that at the beginning of the journey the condemned man, sitting on his shameful cart, must feel that he has infinite life still before him. The houses recede, the cart moves on--oh, that's nothing, it's still far to the turning into the second street and he still looks boldly to right and to left at those thousands of callously curious people with their eyes fixed on him, and he still fancies that he is just such a man as they. But now the turning comes to the next street. Oh, that's nothing, nothing, there's still a whole street before him, and however many houses have been passed, he will still think there are many left. And so to the very end, to the very scaffold. "This I imagine is how it was with Karamazov then. 'They've not had time yet,' he must have thought, 'I may still find some way out, oh, there's still time to make some plan of defense, and now, now--she is so fascinating!' "His soul was full of confusion and dread, but he managed, however, to put aside half his money and hide it somewhere--I cannot otherwise explain the disappearance of quite half of the three thousand he had just taken from his father's pillow. He had been in Mokroe more than once before, he had caroused there for two days together already, he knew the old big house with all its passages and outbuildings. I imagine that part of the money was hidden in that house, not long before the arrest, in some crevice, under some floor, in some corner, under the roof. With what object? I shall be asked. Why, the catastrophe may take place at once, of course; he hadn't yet considered how to meet it, he hadn't the time, his head was throbbing and his heart was with _her_, but money--money was indispensable in any case! With money a man is always a man. Perhaps such foresight at such a moment may strike you as unnatural? But he assures us himself that a month before, at a critical and exciting moment, he had halved his money and sewn it up in a little bag. And though that was not true, as we shall prove directly, it shows the idea was a familiar one to Karamazov, he had contemplated it. What's more, when he declared at the inquiry that he had put fifteen hundred roubles in a bag (which never existed) he may have invented that little bag on the inspiration of the moment, because he had two hours before divided his money and hidden half of it at Mokroe till morning, in case of emergency, simply not to have it on himself. Two extremes, gentlemen of the jury, remember that Karamazov can contemplate two extremes and both at once. "We have looked in the house, but we haven't found the money. It may still be there or it may have disappeared next day and be in the prisoner's hands now. In any case he was at her side, on his knees before her, she was lying on the bed, he had his hands stretched out to her and he had so entirely forgotten everything that he did not even hear the men coming to arrest him. He hadn't time to prepare any line of defense in his mind. He was caught unawares and confronted with his judges, the arbiters of his destiny. "Gentlemen of the jury, there are moments in the execution of our duties when it is terrible for us to face a man, terrible on his account, too! The moments of contemplating that animal fear, when the criminal sees that all is lost, but still struggles, still means to struggle, the moments when every instinct of self-preservation rises up in him at once and he looks at you with questioning and suffering eyes, studies you, your face, your thoughts, uncertain on which side you will strike, and his distracted mind frames thousands of plans in an instant, but he is still afraid to speak, afraid of giving himself away! This purgatory of the spirit, this animal thirst for self-preservation, these humiliating moments of the human soul, are awful, and sometimes arouse horror and compassion for the criminal even in the lawyer. And this was what we all witnessed then. "At first he was thunderstruck and in his terror dropped some very compromising phrases. 'Blood! I've deserved it!' But he quickly restrained himself. He had not prepared what he was to say, what answer he was to make, he had nothing but a bare denial ready. 'I am not guilty of my father's death.' That was his fence for the moment and behind it he hoped to throw up a barricade of some sort. His first compromising exclamations he hastened to explain by declaring that he was responsible for the death of the servant Grigory only. 'Of that bloodshed I am guilty, but who has killed my father, gentlemen, who has killed him? Who can have killed him, _if not I_?' Do you hear, he asked us that, us, who had come to ask him that question! Do you hear that phrase uttered with such premature haste--'if not I'--the animal cunning, the naivete, the Karamazov impatience of it? 'I didn't kill him and you mustn't think I did! I wanted to kill him, gentlemen, I wanted to kill him,' he hastens to admit (he was in a hurry, in a terrible hurry), 'but still I am not guilty, it is not I murdered him.' He concedes to us that he wanted to murder him, as though to say, you can see for yourselves how truthful I am, so you'll believe all the sooner that I didn't murder him. Oh, in such cases the criminal is often amazingly shallow and credulous. "At that point one of the lawyers asked him, as it were incidentally, the most simple question, 'Wasn't it Smerdyakov killed him?' Then, as we expected, he was horribly angry at our having anticipated him and caught him unawares, before he had time to pave the way to choose and snatch the moment when it would be most natural to bring in Smerdyakov's name. He rushed at once to the other extreme, as he always does, and began to assure us that Smerdyakov could not have killed him, was not capable of it. But don't believe him, that was only his cunning; he didn't really give up the idea of Smerdyakov; on the contrary, he meant to bring him forward again; for, indeed, he had no one else to bring forward, but he would do that later, because for the moment that line was spoiled for him. He would bring him forward perhaps next day, or even a few days later, choosing an opportunity to cry out to us, 'You know I was more skeptical about Smerdyakov than you, you remember that yourselves, but now I am convinced. He killed him, he must have done!' And for the present he falls back upon a gloomy and irritable denial. Impatience and anger prompted him, however, to the most inept and incredible explanation of how he looked into his father's window and how he respectfully withdrew. The worst of it was that he was unaware of the position of affairs, of the evidence given by Grigory. "We proceeded to search him. The search angered, but encouraged him, the whole three thousand had not been found on him, only half of it. And no doubt only at that moment of angry silence, the fiction of the little bag first occurred to him. No doubt he was conscious himself of the improbability of the story and strove painfully to make it sound more likely, to weave it into a romance that would sound plausible. In such cases the first duty, the chief task of the investigating lawyers, is to prevent the criminal being prepared, to pounce upon him unexpectedly so that he may blurt out his cherished ideas in all their simplicity, improbability and inconsistency. The criminal can only be made to speak by the sudden and apparently incidental communication of some new fact, of some circumstance of great importance in the case, of which he had no previous idea and could not have foreseen. We had such a fact in readiness--that was Grigory's evidence about the open door through which the prisoner had run out. He had completely forgotten about that door and had not even suspected that Grigory could have seen it. "The effect of it was amazing. He leapt up and shouted to us, 'Then Smerdyakov murdered him, it was Smerdyakov!' and so betrayed the basis of the defense he was keeping back, and betrayed it in its most improbable shape, for Smerdyakov could only have committed the murder after he had knocked Grigory down and run away. When we told him that Grigory saw the door was open before he fell down, and had heard Smerdyakov behind the screen as he came out of his bedroom--Karamazov was positively crushed. My esteemed and witty colleague, Nikolay Parfenovitch, told me afterwards that he was almost moved to tears at the sight of him. And to improve matters, the prisoner hastened to tell us about the much-talked-of little bag--so be it, you shall hear this romance! "Gentlemen of the jury, I have told you already why I consider this romance not only an absurdity, but the most improbable invention that could have been brought forward in the circumstances. If one tried for a bet to invent the most unlikely story, one could hardly find anything more incredible. The worst of such stories is that the triumphant romancers can always be put to confusion and crushed by the very details in which real life is so rich and which these unhappy and involuntary story-tellers neglect as insignificant trifles. Oh, they have no thought to spare for such details, their minds are concentrated on their grand invention as a whole, and fancy any one daring to pull them up for a trifle! But that's how they are caught. The prisoner was asked the question, 'Where did you get the stuff for your little bag and who made it for you?' 'I made it myself.' 'And where did you get the linen?' The prisoner was positively offended, he thought it almost insulting to ask him such a trivial question, and would you believe it, his resentment was genuine! But they are all like that. 'I tore it off my shirt.' 'Then we shall find that shirt among your linen to-morrow, with a piece torn off.' And only fancy, gentlemen of the jury, if we really had found that torn shirt (and how could we have failed to find it in his chest of drawers or trunk?) that would have been a fact, a material fact in support of his statement! But he was incapable of that reflection. 'I don't remember, it may not have been off my shirt, I sewed it up in one of my landlady's caps.' 'What sort of a cap?' 'It was an old cotton rag of hers lying about.' 'And do you remember that clearly?' 'No, I don't.' And he was angry, very angry, and yet imagine not remembering it! At the most terrible moments of man's life, for instance when he is being led to execution, he remembers just such trifles. He will forget anything but some green roof that has flashed past him on the road, or a jackdaw on a cross--that he will remember. He concealed the making of that little bag from his household, he must have remembered his humiliating fear that some one might come in and find him needle in hand, how at the slightest sound he slipped behind the screen (there is a screen in his lodgings). "But, gentlemen of the jury, why do I tell you all this, all these details, trifles?" cried Ippolit Kirillovitch suddenly. "Just because the prisoner still persists in these absurdities to this moment. He has not explained anything since that fatal night two months ago, he has not added one actual illuminating fact to his former fantastic statements; all those are trivialities. 'You must believe it on my honor.' Oh, we are glad to believe it, we are eager to believe it, even if only on his word of honor! Are we jackals thirsting for human blood? Show us a single fact in the prisoner's favor and we shall rejoice; but let it be a substantial, real fact, and not a conclusion drawn from the prisoner's expression by his own brother, or that when he beat himself on the breast he must have meant to point to the little bag, in the darkness, too. We shall rejoice at the new fact, we shall be the first to repudiate our charge, we shall hasten to repudiate it. But now justice cries out and we persist, we cannot repudiate anything." Ippolit Kirillovitch passed to his final peroration. He looked as though he was in a fever, he spoke of the blood that cried for vengeance, the blood of the father murdered by his son, with the base motive of robbery! He pointed to the tragic and glaring consistency of the facts. "And whatever you may hear from the talented and celebrated counsel for the defense," Ippolit Kirillovitch could not resist adding, "whatever eloquent and touching appeals may be made to your sensibilities, remember that at this moment you are in a temple of justice. Remember that you are the champions of our justice, the champions of our holy Russia, of her principles, her family, everything that she holds sacred! Yes, you represent Russia here at this moment, and your verdict will be heard not in this hall only but will reecho throughout the whole of Russia, and all Russia will hear you, as her champions and her judges, and she will be encouraged or disheartened by your verdict. Do not disappoint Russia and her expectations. Our fatal troika dashes on in her headlong flight perhaps to destruction and in all Russia for long past men have stretched out imploring hands and called a halt to its furious reckless course. And if other nations stand aside from that troika that may be, not from respect, as the poet would fain believe, but simply from horror. From horror, perhaps from disgust. And well it is that they stand aside, but maybe they will cease one day to do so and will form a firm wall confronting the hurrying apparition and will check the frenzied rush of our lawlessness, for the sake of their own safety, enlightenment and civilization. Already we have heard voices of alarm from Europe, they already begin to sound. Do not tempt them! Do not heap up their growing hatred by a sentence justifying the murder of a father by his son!" Though Ippolit Kirillovitch was genuinely moved, he wound up his speech with this rhetorical appeal--and the effect produced by him was extraordinary. When he had finished his speech, he went out hurriedly and, as I have mentioned before, almost fainted in the adjoining room. There was no applause in the court, but serious persons were pleased. The ladies were not so well satisfied, though even they were pleased with his eloquence, especially as they had no apprehensions as to the upshot of the trial and had full trust in Fetyukovitch. "He will speak at last and of course carry all before him." Every one looked at Mitya; he sat silent through the whole of the prosecutor's speech, clenching his teeth, with his hands clasped, and his head bowed. Only from time to time he raised his head and listened, especially when Grushenka was spoken of. When the prosecutor mentioned Rakitin's opinion of her, a smile of contempt and anger passed over his face and he murmured rather audibly, "The Bernards!" When Ippolit Kirillovitch described how he had questioned and tortured him at Mokroe, Mitya raised his head and listened with intense curiosity. At one point he seemed about to jump up and cry out, but controlled himself and only shrugged his shoulders disdainfully. People talked afterwards of the end of the speech, of the prosecutor's feat in examining the prisoner at Mokroe, and jeered at Ippolit Kirillovitch. "The man could not resist boasting of his cleverness," they said. The court was adjourned, but only for a short interval, a quarter of an hour or twenty minutes at most. There was a hum of conversation and exclamations in the audience. I remember some of them. "A weighty speech," a gentleman in one group observed gravely. "He brought in too much psychology," said another voice. "But it was all true, the absolute truth!" "Yes, he is first rate at it." "He summed it all up." "Yes, he summed us up, too," chimed in another voice. "Do you remember, at the beginning of his speech, making out we were all like Fyodor Pavlovitch?" "And at the end, too. But that was all rot." "And obscure too." "He was a little too much carried away." "It's unjust, it's unjust." "No, it was smartly done, anyway. He's had long to wait, but he's had his say, ha ha!" "What will the counsel for the defense say?" In another group I heard: "He had no business to make a thrust at the Petersburg man like that; 'appealing to your sensibilities'--do you remember?" "Yes, that was awkward of him." "He was in too great a hurry." "He is a nervous man." "We laugh, but what must the prisoner be feeling?" "Yes, what must it be for Mitya?" In a third group: "What lady is that, the fat one, with the lorgnette, sitting at the end?" "She is a general's wife, divorced, I know her." "That's why she has the lorgnette." "She is not good for much." "Oh, no, she is a piquante little woman." "Two places beyond her there is a little fair woman, she is prettier." "They caught him smartly at Mokroe, didn't they, eh?" "Oh, it was smart enough. We've heard it before, how often he has told the story at people's houses!" "And he couldn't resist doing it now. That's vanity." "He is a man with a grievance, he he!" "Yes, and quick to take offense. And there was too much rhetoric, such long sentences." "Yes, he tries to alarm us, he kept trying to alarm us. Do you remember about the troika? Something about 'They have Hamlets, but we have, so far, only Karamazovs!' That was cleverly said!" "That was to propitiate the liberals. He is afraid of them." "Yes, and he is afraid of the lawyer, too." "Yes, what will Fetyukovitch say?" "Whatever he says, he won't get round our peasants." "Don't you think so?" A fourth group: "What he said about the troika was good, that piece about the other nations." "And that was true what he said about other nations not standing it." "What do you mean?" "Why, in the English Parliament a Member got up last week and speaking about the Nihilists asked the Ministry whether it was not high time to intervene, to educate this barbarous people. Ippolit was thinking of him, I know he was. He was talking about that last week." "Not an easy job." "Not an easy job? Why not?" "Why, we'd shut up Kronstadt and not let them have any corn. Where would they get it?" "In America. They get it from America now." "Nonsense!" But the bell rang, all rushed to their places. Fetyukovitch mounted the tribune. Chapter X. The Speech For The Defense. An Argument That Cuts Both Ways All was hushed as the first words of the famous orator rang out. The eyes of the audience were fastened upon him. He began very simply and directly, with an air of conviction, but not the slightest trace of conceit. He made no attempt at eloquence, at pathos, or emotional phrases. He was like a man speaking in a circle of intimate and sympathetic friends. His voice was a fine one, sonorous and sympathetic, and there was something genuine and simple in the very sound of it. But every one realized at once that the speaker might suddenly rise to genuine pathos and "pierce the heart with untold power." His language was perhaps more irregular than Ippolit Kirillovitch's, but he spoke without long phrases, and indeed, with more precision. One thing did not please the ladies: he kept bending forward, especially at the beginning of his speech, not exactly bowing, but as though he were about to dart at his listeners, bending his long spine in half, as though there were a spring in the middle that enabled him to bend almost at right angles. At the beginning of his speech he spoke rather disconnectedly, without system, one may say, dealing with facts separately, though, at the end, these facts formed a whole. His speech might be divided into two parts, the first consisting of criticism in refutation of the charge, sometimes malicious and sarcastic. But in the second half he suddenly changed his tone, and even his manner, and at once rose to pathos. The audience seemed on the look-out for it, and quivered with enthusiasm. He went straight to the point, and began by saying that although he practiced in Petersburg, he had more than once visited provincial towns to defend prisoners, of whose innocence he had a conviction or at least a preconceived idea. "That is what has happened to me in the present case," he explained. "From the very first accounts in the newspapers I was struck by something which strongly prepossessed me in the prisoner's favor. What interested me most was a fact which often occurs in legal practice, but rarely, I think, in such an extreme and peculiar form as in the present case. I ought to formulate that peculiarity only at the end of my speech, but I will do so at the very beginning, for it is my weakness to go to work directly, not keeping my effects in reserve and economizing my material. That may be imprudent on my part, but at least it's sincere. What I have in my mind is this: there is an overwhelming chain of evidence against the prisoner, and at the same time not one fact that will stand criticism, if it is examined separately. As I followed the case more closely in the papers my idea was more and more confirmed, and I suddenly received from the prisoner's relatives a request to undertake his defense. I at once hurried here, and here I became completely convinced. It was to break down this terrible chain of facts, and to show that each piece of evidence taken separately was unproved and fantastic, that I undertook the case." So Fetyukovitch began. "Gentlemen of the jury," he suddenly protested, "I am new to this district. I have no preconceived ideas. The prisoner, a man of turbulent and unbridled temper, has not insulted me. But he has insulted perhaps hundreds of persons in this town, and so prejudiced many people against him beforehand. Of course I recognize that the moral sentiment of local society is justly excited against him. The prisoner is of turbulent and violent temper. Yet he was received in society here; he was even welcome in the family of my talented friend, the prosecutor." (N.B. At these words there were two or three laughs in the audience, quickly suppressed, but noticed by all. All of us knew that the prosecutor received Mitya against his will, solely because he had somehow interested his wife--a lady of the highest virtue and moral worth, but fanciful, capricious, and fond of opposing her husband, especially in trifles. Mitya's visits, however, had not been frequent.) "Nevertheless I venture to suggest," Fetyukovitch continued, "that in spite of his independent mind and just character, my opponent may have formed a mistaken prejudice against my unfortunate client. Oh, that is so natural; the unfortunate man has only too well deserved such prejudice. Outraged morality, and still more outraged taste, is often relentless. We have, in the talented prosecutor's speech, heard a stern analysis of the prisoner's character and conduct, and his severe critical attitude to the case was evident. And, what's more, he went into psychological subtleties into which he could not have entered, if he had the least conscious and malicious prejudice against the prisoner. But there are things which are even worse, even more fatal in such cases, than the most malicious and consciously unfair attitude. It is worse if we are carried away by the artistic instinct, by the desire to create, so to speak, a romance, especially if God has endowed us with psychological insight. Before I started on my way here, I was warned in Petersburg, and was myself aware, that I should find here a talented opponent whose psychological insight and subtlety had gained him peculiar renown in legal circles of recent years. But profound as psychology is, it's a knife that cuts both ways." (Laughter among the public.) "You will, of course, forgive me my comparison; I can't boast of eloquence. But I will take as an example any point in the prosecutor's speech. "The prisoner, running away in the garden in the dark, climbed over the fence, was seized by the servant, and knocked him down with a brass pestle. Then he jumped back into the garden and spent five minutes over the man, trying to discover whether he had killed him or not. And the prosecutor refuses to believe the prisoner's statement that he ran to old Grigory out of pity. 'No,' he says, 'such sensibility is impossible at such a moment, that's unnatural; he ran to find out whether the only witness of his crime was dead or alive, and so showed that he had committed the murder, since he would not have run back for any other reason.' "Here you have psychology; but let us take the same method and apply it to the case the other way round, and our result will be no less probable. The murderer, we are told, leapt down to find out, as a precaution, whether the witness was alive or not, yet he had left in his murdered father's study, as the prosecutor himself argues, an amazing piece of evidence in the shape of a torn envelope, with an inscription that there had been three thousand roubles in it. 'If he had carried that envelope away with him, no one in the world would have known of that envelope and of the notes in it, and that the money had been stolen by the prisoner.' Those are the prosecutor's own words. So on one side you see a complete absence of precaution, a man who has lost his head and run away in a fright, leaving that clew on the floor, and two minutes later, when he has killed another man, we are entitled to assume the most heartless and calculating foresight in him. But even admitting this was so, it is psychological subtlety, I suppose, that discerns that under certain circumstances I become as bloodthirsty and keen-sighted as a Caucasian eagle, while at the next I am as timid and blind as a mole. But if I am so bloodthirsty and cruelly calculating that when I kill a man I only run back to find out whether he is alive to witness against me, why should I spend five minutes looking after my victim at the risk of encountering other witnesses? Why soak my handkerchief, wiping the blood off his head so that it may be evidence against me later? If he were so cold-hearted and calculating, why not hit the servant on the head again and again with the same pestle so as to kill him outright and relieve himself of all anxiety about the witness? "Again, though he ran to see whether the witness was alive, he left another witness on the path, that brass pestle which he had taken from the two women, and which they could always recognize afterwards as theirs, and prove that he had taken it from them. And it is not as though he had forgotten it on the path, dropped it through carelessness or haste, no, he had flung away his weapon, for it was found fifteen paces from where Grigory lay. Why did he do so? Just because he was grieved at having killed a man, an old servant; and he flung away the pestle with a curse, as a murderous weapon. That's how it must have been, what other reason could he have had for throwing it so far? And if he was capable of feeling grief and pity at having killed a man, it shows that he was innocent of his father's murder. Had he murdered him, he would never have run to another victim out of pity; then he would have felt differently; his thoughts would have been centered on self-preservation. He would have had none to spare for pity, that is beyond doubt. On the contrary, he would have broken his skull instead of spending five minutes looking after him. There was room for pity and good-feeling just because his conscience had been clear till then. Here we have a different psychology. I have purposely resorted to this method, gentlemen of the jury, to show that you can prove anything by it. It all depends on who makes use of it. Psychology lures even most serious people into romancing, and quite unconsciously. I am speaking of the abuse of psychology, gentlemen." Sounds of approval and laughter, at the expense of the prosecutor, were again audible in the court. I will not repeat the speech in detail; I will only quote some passages from it, some leading points. Chapter XI. There Was No Money. There Was No Robbery There was one point that struck every one in Fetyukovitch's speech. He flatly denied the existence of the fatal three thousand roubles, and consequently, the possibility of their having been stolen. "Gentlemen of the jury," he began. "Every new and unprejudiced observer must be struck by a characteristic peculiarity in the present case, namely, the charge of robbery, and the complete impossibility of proving that there was anything to be stolen. We are told that money was stolen--three thousand roubles--but whether those roubles ever existed, nobody knows. Consider, how have we heard of that sum, and who has seen the notes? The only person who saw them, and stated that they had been put in the envelope, was the servant, Smerdyakov. He had spoken of it to the prisoner and his brother, Ivan Fyodorovitch, before the catastrophe. Madame Svyetlov, too, had been told of it. But not one of these three persons had actually seen the notes, no one but Smerdyakov had seen them. "Here the question arises, if it's true that they did exist, and that Smerdyakov had seen them, when did he see them for the last time? What if his master had taken the notes from under his bed and put them back in his cash-box without telling him? Note, that according to Smerdyakov's story the notes were kept under the mattress; the prisoner must have pulled them out, and yet the bed was absolutely unrumpled; that is carefully recorded in the protocol. How could the prisoner have found the notes without disturbing the bed? How could he have helped soiling with his blood- stained hands the fine and spotless linen with which the bed had been purposely made? "But I shall be asked: What about the envelope on the floor? Yes, it's worth saying a word or two about that envelope. I was somewhat surprised just now to hear the highly talented prosecutor declare of himself--of himself, observe--that but for that envelope, but for its being left on the floor, no one in the world would have known of the existence of that envelope and the notes in it, and therefore of the prisoner's having stolen it. And so that torn scrap of paper is, by the prosecutor's own admission, the sole proof on which the charge of robbery rests, 'otherwise no one would have known of the robbery, nor perhaps even of the money.' But is the mere fact that that scrap of paper was lying on the floor a proof that there was money in it, and that that money had been stolen? Yet, it will be objected, Smerdyakov had seen the money in the envelope. But when, when had he seen it for the last time, I ask you that? I talked to Smerdyakov, and he told me that he had seen the notes two days before the catastrophe. Then why not imagine that old Fyodor Pavlovitch, locked up alone in impatient and hysterical expectation of the object of his adoration, may have whiled away the time by breaking open the envelope and taking out the notes. 'What's the use of the envelope?' he may have asked himself. 'She won't believe the notes are there, but when I show her the thirty rainbow-colored notes in one roll, it will make more impression, you may be sure, it will make her mouth water.' And so he tears open the envelope, takes out the money, and flings the envelope on the floor, conscious of being the owner and untroubled by any fears of leaving evidence. "Listen, gentlemen, could anything be more likely than this theory and such an action? Why is it out of the question? But if anything of the sort could have taken place, the charge of robbery falls to the ground; if there was no money, there was no theft of it. If the envelope on the floor may be taken as evidence that there had been money in it, why may I not maintain the opposite, that the envelope was on the floor because the money had been taken from it by its owner? "But I shall be asked what became of the money if Fyodor Pavlovitch took it out of the envelope since it was not found when the police searched the house? In the first place, part of the money was found in the cash-box, and secondly, he might have taken it out that morning or the evening before to make some other use of it, to give or send it away; he may have changed his idea, his plan of action completely, without thinking it necessary to announce the fact to Smerdyakov beforehand. And if there is the barest possibility of such an explanation, how can the prisoner be so positively accused of having committed murder for the sake of robbery, and of having actually carried out that robbery? This is encroaching on the domain of romance. If it is maintained that something has been stolen, the thing must be produced, or at least its existence must be proved beyond doubt. Yet no one had ever seen these notes. "Not long ago in Petersburg a young man of eighteen, hardly more than a boy, who carried on a small business as a costermonger, went in broad daylight into a moneychanger's shop with an ax, and with extraordinary, typical audacity killed the master of the shop and carried off fifteen hundred roubles. Five hours later he was arrested, and, except fifteen roubles he had already managed to spend, the whole sum was found on him. Moreover, the shopman, on his return to the shop after the murder, informed the police not only of the exact sum stolen, but even of the notes and gold coins of which that sum was made up, and those very notes and coins were found on the criminal. This was followed by a full and genuine confession on the part of the murderer. That's what I call evidence, gentlemen of the jury! In that case I know, I see, I touch the money, and cannot deny its existence. Is it the same in the present case? And yet it is a question of life and death. "Yes, I shall be told, but he was carousing that night, squandering money; he was shown to have had fifteen hundred roubles--where did he get the money? But the very fact that only fifteen hundred could be found, and the other half of the sum could nowhere be discovered, shows that that money was not the same, and had never been in any envelope. By strict calculation of time it was proved at the preliminary inquiry that the prisoner ran straight from those women servants to Perhotin's without going home, and that he had been nowhere. So he had been all the time in company and therefore could not have divided the three thousand in half and hidden half in the town. It's just this consideration that has led the prosecutor to assume that the money is hidden in some crevice at Mokroe. Why not in the dungeons of the castle of Udolpho, gentlemen? Isn't this supposition really too fantastic and too romantic? And observe, if that supposition breaks down, the whole charge of robbery is scattered to the winds, for in that case what could have become of the other fifteen hundred roubles? By what miracle could they have disappeared, since it's proved the prisoner went nowhere else? And we are ready to ruin a man's life with such tales! "I shall be told that he could not explain where he got the fifteen hundred that he had, and every one knew that he was without money before that night. Who knew it, pray? The prisoner has made a clear and unflinching statement of the source of that money, and if you will have it so, gentlemen of the jury, nothing can be more probable than that statement, and more consistent with the temper and spirit of the prisoner. The prosecutor is charmed with his own romance. A man of weak will, who had brought himself to take the three thousand so insultingly offered by his betrothed, could not, we are told, have set aside half and sewn it up, but would, even if he had done so, have unpicked it every two days and taken out a hundred, and so would have spent it all in a month. All this, you will remember, was put forward in a tone that brooked no contradiction. But what if the thing happened quite differently? What if you've been weaving a romance, and about quite a different kind of man? That's just it, you have invented quite a different man! "I shall be told, perhaps, there are witnesses that he spent on one day all that three thousand given him by his betrothed a month before the catastrophe, so he could not have divided the sum in half. But who are these witnesses? The value of their evidence has been shown in court already. Besides, in another man's hand a crust always seems larger, and no one of these witnesses counted that money; they all judged simply at sight. And the witness Maximov has testified that the prisoner had twenty thousand in his hand. You see, gentlemen of the jury, psychology is a two- edged weapon. Let me turn the other edge now and see what comes of it. "A month before the catastrophe the prisoner was entrusted by Katerina Ivanovna with three thousand roubles to send off by post. But the question is: is it true that they were entrusted to him in such an insulting and degrading way as was proclaimed just now? The first statement made by the young lady on the subject was different, perfectly different. In the second statement we heard only cries of resentment and revenge, cries of long-concealed hatred. And the very fact that the witness gave her first evidence incorrectly, gives us a right to conclude that her second piece of evidence may have been incorrect also. The prosecutor will not, dare not (his own words) touch on that story. So be it. I will not touch on it either, but will only venture to observe that if a lofty and high- principled person, such as that highly respected young lady unquestionably is, if such a person, I say, allows herself suddenly in court to contradict her first statement, with the obvious motive of ruining the prisoner, it is clear that this evidence has been given not impartially, not coolly. Have not we the right to assume that a revengeful woman might have exaggerated much? Yes, she may well have exaggerated, in particular, the insult and humiliation of her offering him the money. No, it was offered in such a way that it was possible to take it, especially for a man so easy-going as the prisoner, above all, as he expected to receive shortly from his father the three thousand roubles that he reckoned was owing to him. It was unreflecting of him, but it was just his irresponsible want of reflection that made him so confident that his father would give him the money, that he would get it, and so could always dispatch the money entrusted to him and repay the debt. "But the prosecutor refuses to allow that he could the same day have set aside half the money and sewn it up in a little bag. That's not his character, he tells us, he couldn't have had such feelings. But yet he talked himself of the broad Karamazov nature; he cried out about the two extremes which a Karamazov can contemplate at once. Karamazov is just such a two-sided nature, fluctuating between two extremes, that even when moved by the most violent craving for riotous gayety, he can pull himself up, if something strikes him on the other side. And on the other side is love--that new love which had flamed up in his heart, and for that love he needed money; oh, far more than for carousing with his mistress. If she were to say to him, 'I am yours, I won't have Fyodor Pavlovitch,' then he must have money to take her away. That was more important than carousing. Could a Karamazov fail to understand it? That anxiety was just what he was suffering from--what is there improbable in his laying aside that money and concealing it in case of emergency? "But time passed, and Fyodor Pavlovitch did not give the prisoner the expected three thousand; on the contrary, the latter heard that he meant to use this sum to seduce the woman he, the prisoner, loved. 'If Fyodor Pavlovitch doesn't give the money,' he thought, 'I shall be put in the position of a thief before Katerina Ivanovna.' And then the idea presented itself to him that he would go to Katerina Ivanovna, lay before her the fifteen hundred roubles he still carried round his neck, and say, 'I am a scoundrel, but not a thief.' So here we have already a twofold reason why he should guard that sum of money as the apple of his eye, why he shouldn't unpick the little bag, and spend it a hundred at a time. Why should you deny the prisoner a sense of honor? Yes, he has a sense of honor, granted that it's misplaced, granted it's often mistaken, yet it exists and amounts to a passion, and he has proved that. "But now the affair becomes even more complex; his jealous torments reach a climax, and those same two questions torture his fevered brain more and more: 'If I repay Katerina Ivanovna, where can I find the means to go off with Grushenka?' If he behaved wildly, drank, and made disturbances in the taverns in the course of that month, it was perhaps because he was wretched and strained beyond his powers of endurance. These two questions became so acute that they drove him at last to despair. He sent his younger brother to beg for the last time for the three thousand roubles, but without waiting for a reply, burst in himself and ended by beating the old man in the presence of witnesses. After that he had no prospect of getting it from any one; his father would not give it him after that beating. "The same evening he struck himself on the breast, just on the upper part of the breast where the little bag was, and swore to his brother that he had the means of not being a scoundrel, but that still he would remain a scoundrel, for he foresaw that he would not use that means, that he wouldn't have the character, that he wouldn't have the will-power to do it. Why, why does the prosecutor refuse to believe the evidence of Alexey Karamazov, given so genuinely and sincerely, so spontaneously and convincingly? And why, on the contrary, does he force me to believe in money hidden in a crevice, in the dungeons of the castle of Udolpho? "The same evening, after his talk with his brother, the prisoner wrote that fatal letter, and that letter is the chief, the most stupendous proof of the prisoner having committed robbery! 'I shall beg from every one, and if I don't get it I shall murder my father and shall take the envelope with the pink ribbon on it from under his mattress as soon as Ivan has gone.' A full program of the murder, we are told, so it must have been he. 'It has all been done as he wrote,' cries the prosecutor. "But in the first place, it's the letter of a drunken man and written in great irritation; secondly, he writes of the envelope from what he has heard from Smerdyakov again, for he has not seen the envelope himself; and thirdly, he wrote it indeed, but how can you prove that he did it? Did the prisoner take the envelope from under the pillow, did he find the money, did that money exist indeed? And was it to get money that the prisoner ran off, if you remember? He ran off post-haste not to steal, but to find out where she was, the woman who had crushed him. He was not running to carry out a program, to carry out what he had written, that is, not for an act of premeditated robbery, but he ran suddenly, spontaneously, in a jealous fury. Yes! I shall be told, but when he got there and murdered him he seized the money, too. But did he murder him after all? The charge of robbery I repudiate with indignation. A man cannot be accused of robbery, if it's impossible to state accurately what he has stolen; that's an axiom. But did he murder him without robbery, did he murder him at all? Is that proved? Isn't that, too, a romance?" Chapter XII. And There Was No Murder Either "Allow me, gentlemen of the jury, to remind you that a man's life is at stake and that you must be careful. We have heard the prosecutor himself admit that until to-day he hesitated to accuse the prisoner of a full and conscious premeditation of the crime; he hesitated till he saw that fatal drunken letter which was produced in court to-day. 'All was done as written.' But, I repeat again, he was running to her, to seek her, solely to find out where she was. That's a fact that can't be disputed. Had she been at home, he would not have run away, but would have remained at her side, and so would not have done what he promised in the letter. He ran unexpectedly and accidentally, and by that time very likely he did not even remember his drunken letter. 'He snatched up the pestle,' they say, and you will remember how a whole edifice of psychology was built on that pestle--why he was bound to look at that pestle as a weapon, to snatch it up, and so on, and so on. A very commonplace idea occurs to me at this point: What if that pestle had not been in sight, had not been lying on the shelf from which it was snatched by the prisoner, but had been put away in a cupboard? It would not have caught the prisoner's eye, and he would have run away without a weapon, with empty hands, and then he would certainly not have killed any one. How then can I look upon the pestle as a proof of premeditation? "Yes, but he talked in the taverns of murdering his father, and two days before, on the evening when he wrote his drunken letter, he was quiet and only quarreled with a shopman in the tavern, because a Karamazov could not help quarreling, forsooth! But my answer to that is, that, if he was planning such a murder in accordance with his letter, he certainly would not have quarreled even with a shopman, and probably would not have gone into the tavern at all, because a person plotting such a crime seeks quiet and retirement, seeks to efface himself, to avoid being seen and heard, and that not from calculation, but from instinct. Gentlemen of the jury, the psychological method is a two-edged weapon, and we, too, can use it. As for all this shouting in taverns throughout the month, don't we often hear children, or drunkards coming out of taverns shout, 'I'll kill you'? but they don't murder any one. And that fatal letter--isn't that simply drunken irritability, too? Isn't that simply the shout of the brawler outside the tavern, 'I'll kill you! I'll kill the lot of you!' Why not, why could it not be that? What reason have we to call that letter 'fatal' rather than absurd? Because his father has been found murdered, because a witness saw the prisoner running out of the garden with a weapon in his hand, and was knocked down by him: therefore, we are told, everything was done as he had planned in writing, and the letter was not 'absurd,' but 'fatal.' "Now, thank God! we've come to the real point: 'since he was in the garden, he must have murdered him.' In those few words: 'since he _was_, then he _must_' lies the whole case for the prosecution. He was there, so he must have. And what if there is no _must_ about it, even if he was there? Oh, I admit that the chain of evidence--the coincidences--are really suggestive. But examine all these facts separately, regardless of their connection. Why, for instance, does the prosecution refuse to admit the truth of the prisoner's statement that he ran away from his father's window? Remember the sarcasms in which the prosecutor indulged at the expense of the respectful and 'pious' sentiments which suddenly came over the murderer. But what if there were something of the sort, a feeling of religious awe, if not of filial respect? 'My mother must have been praying for me at that moment,' were the prisoner's words at the preliminary inquiry, and so he ran away as soon as he convinced himself that Madame Svyetlov was not in his father's house. 'But he could not convince himself by looking through the window,' the prosecutor objects. But why couldn't he? Why? The window opened at the signals given by the prisoner. Some word might have been uttered by Fyodor Pavlovitch, some exclamation which showed the prisoner that she was not there. Why should we assume everything as we imagine it, as we make up our minds to imagine it? A thousand things may happen in reality which elude the subtlest imagination. " 'Yes, but Grigory saw the door open and so the prisoner certainly was in the house, therefore he killed him.' Now about that door, gentlemen of the jury.... Observe that we have only the statement of one witness as to that door, and he was at the time in such a condition, that-- But supposing the door was open; supposing the prisoner has lied in denying it, from an instinct of self-defense, natural in his position; supposing he did go into the house--well, what then? How does it follow that because he was there he committed the murder? He might have dashed in, run through the rooms; might have pushed his father away; might have struck him; but as soon as he had made sure Madame Svyetlov was not there, he may have run away rejoicing that she was not there and that he had not killed his father. And it was perhaps just because he had escaped from the temptation to kill his father, because he had a clear conscience and was rejoicing at not having killed him, that he was capable of a pure feeling, the feeling of pity and compassion, and leapt off the fence a minute later to the assistance of Grigory after he had, in his excitement, knocked him down. "With terrible eloquence the prosecutor has described to us the dreadful state of the prisoner's mind at Mokroe when love again lay before him calling him to new life, while love was impossible for him because he had his father's bloodstained corpse behind him and beyond that corpse--retribution. And yet the prosecutor allowed him love, which he explained, according to his method, talking about his drunken condition, about a criminal being taken to execution, about it being still far off, and so on and so on. But again I ask, Mr. Prosecutor, have you not invented a new personality? Is the prisoner so coarse and heartless as to be able to think at that moment of love and of dodges to escape punishment, if his hands were really stained with his father's blood? No, no, no! As soon as it was made plain to him that she loved him and called him to her side, promising him new happiness, oh! then, I protest he must have felt the impulse to suicide doubled, trebled, and must have killed himself, if he had his father's murder on his conscience. Oh, no! he would not have forgotten where his pistols lay! I know the prisoner: the savage, stony heartlessness ascribed to him by the prosecutor is inconsistent with his character. He would have killed himself, that's certain. He did not kill himself just because 'his mother's prayers had saved him,' and he was innocent of his father's blood. He was troubled, he was grieving that night at Mokroe only about old Grigory and praying to God that the old man would recover, that his blow had not been fatal, and that he would not have to suffer for it. Why not accept such an interpretation of the facts? What trustworthy proof have we that the prisoner is lying? "But we shall be told at once again, 'There is his father's corpse! If he ran away without murdering him, who did murder him?' Here, I repeat, you have the whole logic of the prosecution. Who murdered him, if not he? There's no one to put in his place. "Gentlemen of the jury, is that really so? Is it positively, actually true that there is no one else at all? We've heard the prosecutor count on his fingers all the persons who were in that house that night. They were five in number; three of them, I agree, could not have been responsible--the murdered man himself, old Grigory, and his wife. There are left then the prisoner and Smerdyakov, and the prosecutor dramatically exclaims that the prisoner pointed to Smerdyakov because he had no one else to fix on, that had there been a sixth person, even a phantom of a sixth person, he would have abandoned the charge against Smerdyakov at once in shame and have accused that other. But, gentlemen of the jury, why may I not draw the very opposite conclusion? There are two persons--the prisoner and Smerdyakov. Why can I not say that you accuse my client, simply because you have no one else to accuse? And you have no one else only because you have determined to exclude Smerdyakov from all suspicion. "It's true, indeed, Smerdyakov is accused only by the prisoner, his two brothers, and Madame Svyetlov. But there are others who accuse him: there are vague rumors of a question, of a suspicion, an obscure report, a feeling of expectation. Finally, we have the evidence of a combination of facts very suggestive, though, I admit, inconclusive. In the first place we have precisely on the day of the catastrophe that fit, for the genuineness of which the prosecutor, for some reason, has felt obliged to make a careful defense. Then Smerdyakov's sudden suicide on the eve of the trial. Then the equally startling evidence given in court to-day by the elder of the prisoner's brothers, who had believed in his guilt, but has to-day produced a bundle of notes and proclaimed Smerdyakov as the murderer. Oh, I fully share the court's and the prosecutor's conviction that Ivan Karamazov is suffering from brain fever, that his statement may really be a desperate effort, planned in delirium, to save his brother by throwing the guilt on the dead man. But again Smerdyakov's name is pronounced, again there is a suggestion of mystery. There is something unexplained, incomplete. And perhaps it may one day be explained. But we won't go into that now. Of that later. "The court has resolved to go on with the trial, but, meantime, I might make a few remarks about the character-sketch of Smerdyakov drawn with subtlety and talent by the prosecutor. But while I admire his talent I cannot agree with him. I have visited Smerdyakov, I have seen him and talked to him, and he made a very different impression on me. He was weak in health, it is true; but in character, in spirit, he was by no means the weak man the prosecutor has made him out to be. I found in him no trace of the timidity on which the prosecutor so insisted. There was no simplicity about him, either. I found in him, on the contrary, an extreme mistrustfulness concealed under a mask of _naivete_, and an intelligence of considerable range. The prosecutor was too simple in taking him for weak-minded. He made a very definite impression on me: I left him with the conviction that he was a distinctly spiteful creature, excessively ambitious, vindictive, and intensely envious. I made some inquiries: he resented his parentage, was ashamed of it, and would clench his teeth when he remembered that he was the son of 'stinking Lizaveta.' He was disrespectful to the servant Grigory and his wife, who had cared for him in his childhood. He cursed and jeered at Russia. He dreamed of going to France and becoming a Frenchman. He used often to say that he hadn't the means to do so. I fancy he loved no one but himself and had a strangely high opinion of himself. His conception of culture was limited to good clothes, clean shirt-fronts and polished boots. Believing himself to be the illegitimate son of Fyodor Pavlovitch (there is evidence of this), he might well have resented his position, compared with that of his master's legitimate sons. They had everything, he nothing. They had all the rights, they had the inheritance, while he was only the cook. He told me himself that he had helped Fyodor Pavlovitch to put the notes in the envelope. The destination of that sum--a sum which would have made his career--must have been hateful to him. Moreover, he saw three thousand roubles in new rainbow-colored notes. (I asked him about that on purpose.) Oh, beware of showing an ambitious and envious man a large sum of money at once! And it was the first time he had seen so much money in the hands of one man. The sight of the rainbow-colored notes may have made a morbid impression on his imagination, but with no immediate results. "The talented prosecutor, with extraordinary subtlety, sketched for us all the arguments for and against the hypothesis of Smerdyakov's guilt, and asked us in particular what motive he had in feigning a fit. But he may not have been feigning at all, the fit may have happened quite naturally, but it may have passed off quite naturally, and the sick man may have recovered, not completely perhaps, but still regaining consciousness, as happens with epileptics. "The prosecutor asks at what moment could Smerdyakov have committed the murder. But it is very easy to point out that moment. He might have waked up from deep sleep (for he was only asleep--an epileptic fit is always followed by a deep sleep) at that moment when the old Grigory shouted at the top of his voice 'Parricide!' That shout in the dark and stillness may have waked Smerdyakov whose sleep may have been less sound at the moment: he might naturally have waked up an hour before. "Getting out of bed, he goes almost unconsciously and with no definite motive towards the sound to see what's the matter. His head is still clouded with his attack, his faculties are half asleep; but, once in the garden, he walks to the lighted windows and he hears terrible news from his master, who would be, of course, glad to see him. His mind sets to work at once. He hears all the details from his frightened master, and gradually in his disordered brain there shapes itself an idea--terrible, but seductive and irresistibly logical. To kill the old man, take the three thousand, and throw all the blame on to his young master. A terrible lust of money, of booty, might seize upon him as he realized his security from detection. Oh! these sudden and irresistible impulses come so often when there is a favorable opportunity, and especially with murderers who have had no idea of committing a murder beforehand. And Smerdyakov may have gone in and carried out his plan. With what weapon? Why, with any stone picked up in the garden. But what for, with what object? Why, the three thousand which means a career for him. Oh, I am not contradicting myself--the money may have existed. And perhaps Smerdyakov alone knew where to find it, where his master kept it. And the covering of the money--the torn envelope on the floor? "Just now, when the prosecutor was explaining his subtle theory that only an inexperienced thief like Karamazov would have left the envelope on the floor, and not one like Smerdyakov, who would have avoided leaving a piece of evidence against himself, I thought as I listened that I was hearing something very familiar, and, would you believe it, I have heard that very argument, that very conjecture, of how Karamazov would have behaved, precisely two days before, from Smerdyakov himself. What's more, it struck me at the time. I fancied that there was an artificial simplicity about him; that he was in a hurry to suggest this idea to me that I might fancy it was my own. He insinuated it, as it were. Did he not insinuate the same idea at the inquiry and suggest it to the talented prosecutor? "I shall be asked, 'What about the old woman, Grigory's wife? She heard the sick man moaning close by, all night.' Yes, she heard it, but that evidence is extremely unreliable. I knew a lady who complained bitterly that she had been kept awake all night by a dog in the yard. Yet the poor beast, it appeared, had only yelped once or twice in the night. And that's natural. If any one is asleep and hears a groan he wakes up, annoyed at being waked, but instantly falls asleep again. Two hours later, again a groan, he wakes up and falls asleep again; and the same thing again two hours later--three times altogether in the night. Next morning the sleeper wakes up and complains that some one has been groaning all night and keeping him awake. And it is bound to seem so to him: the intervals of two hours of sleep he does not remember, he only remembers the moments of waking, so he feels he has been waked up all night. "But why, why, asks the prosecutor, did not Smerdyakov confess in his last letter? Why did his conscience prompt him to one step and not to both? But, excuse me, conscience implies penitence, and the suicide may not have felt penitence, but only despair. Despair and penitence are two very different things. Despair may be vindictive and irreconcilable, and the suicide, laying his hands on himself, may well have felt redoubled hatred for those whom he had envied all his life. "Gentlemen of the jury, beware of a miscarriage of justice! What is there unlikely in all I have put before you just now? Find the error in my reasoning; find the impossibility, the absurdity. And if there is but a shade of possibility, but a shade of probability in my propositions, do not condemn him. And is there only a shade? I swear by all that is sacred, I fully believe in the explanation of the murder I have just put forward. What troubles me and makes me indignant is that of all the mass of facts heaped up by the prosecution against the prisoner, there is not a single one certain and irrefutable. And yet the unhappy man is to be ruined by the accumulation of these facts. Yes, the accumulated effect is awful: the blood, the blood dripping from his fingers, the bloodstained shirt, the dark night resounding with the shout 'Parricide!' and the old man falling with a broken head. And then the mass of phrases, statements, gestures, shouts! Oh! this has so much influence, it can so bias the mind; but, gentlemen of the jury, can it bias your minds? Remember, you have been given absolute power to bind and to loose, but the greater the power, the more terrible its responsibility. "I do not draw back one iota from what I have said just now, but suppose for one moment I agreed with the prosecution that my luckless client had stained his hands with his father's blood. This is only hypothesis, I repeat; I never for one instant doubt of his innocence. But, so be it, I assume that my client is guilty of parricide. Even so, hear what I have to say. I have it in my heart to say something more to you, for I feel that there must be a great conflict in your hearts and minds.... Forgive my referring to your hearts and minds, gentlemen of the jury, but I want to be truthful and sincere to the end. Let us all be sincere!" At this point the speech was interrupted by rather loud applause. The last words, indeed, were pronounced with a note of such sincerity that every one felt that he really might have something to say, and that what he was about to say would be of the greatest consequence. But the President, hearing the applause, in a loud voice threatened to clear the court if such an incident were repeated. Every sound was hushed and Fetyukovitch began in a voice full of feeling quite unlike the tone he had used hitherto. Chapter XIII. A Corrupter Of Thought "It's not only the accumulation of facts that threatens my client with ruin, gentlemen of the jury," he began, "what is really damning for my client is one fact--the dead body of his father. Had it been an ordinary case of murder you would have rejected the charge in view of the triviality, the incompleteness, and the fantastic character of the evidence, if you examine each part of it separately; or, at least, you would have hesitated to ruin a man's life simply from the prejudice against him which he has, alas! only too well deserved. But it's not an ordinary case of murder, it's a case of parricide. That impresses men's minds, and to such a degree that the very triviality and incompleteness of the evidence becomes less trivial and less incomplete even to an unprejudiced mind. How can such a prisoner be acquitted? What if he committed the murder and gets off unpunished? That is what every one, almost involuntarily, instinctively, feels at heart. "Yes, it's a fearful thing to shed a father's blood--the father who has begotten me, loved me, not spared his life for me, grieved over my illnesses from childhood up, troubled all his life for my happiness, and has lived in my joys, in my successes. To murder such a father--that's inconceivable. Gentlemen of the jury, what is a father--a real father? What is the meaning of that great word? What is the great idea in that name? We have just indicated in part what a true father is and what he ought to be. In the case in which we are now so deeply occupied and over which our hearts are aching--in the present case, the father, Fyodor Pavlovitch Karamazov, did not correspond to that conception of a father to which we have just referred. That's the misfortune. And indeed some fathers are a misfortune. Let us examine this misfortune rather more closely: we must shrink from nothing, gentlemen of the jury, considering the importance of the decision you have to make. It's our particular duty not to shrink from any idea, like children or frightened women, as the talented prosecutor happily expresses it. "But in the course of his heated speech my esteemed opponent (and he was my opponent before I opened my lips) exclaimed several times, 'Oh, I will not yield the defense of the prisoner to the lawyer who has come down from Petersburg. I accuse, but I defend also!' He exclaimed that several times, but forgot to mention that if this terrible prisoner was for twenty-three years so grateful for a mere pound of nuts given him by the only man who had been kind to him, as a child in his father's house, might not such a man well have remembered for twenty-three years how he ran in his father's back-yard, 'without boots on his feet and with his little trousers hanging by one button'--to use the expression of the kind-hearted doctor, Herzenstube? "Oh, gentlemen of the jury, why need we look more closely at this misfortune, why repeat what we all know already? What did my client meet with when he arrived here, at his father's house, and why depict my client as a heartless egoist and monster? He is uncontrolled, he is wild and unruly--we are trying him now for that--but who is responsible for his life? Who is responsible for his having received such an unseemly bringing up, in spite of his excellent disposition and his grateful and sensitive heart? Did any one train him to be reasonable? Was he enlightened by study? Did any one love him ever so little in his childhood? My client was left to the care of Providence like a beast of the field. He thirsted perhaps to see his father after long years of separation. A thousand times perhaps he may, recalling his childhood, have driven away the loathsome phantoms that haunted his childish dreams and with all his heart he may have longed to embrace and to forgive his father! And what awaited him? He was met by cynical taunts, suspicions and wrangling about money. He heard nothing but revolting talk and vicious precepts uttered daily over the brandy, and at last he saw his father seducing his mistress from him with his own money. Oh, gentlemen of the jury, that was cruel and revolting! And that old man was always complaining of the disrespect and cruelty of his son. He slandered him in society, injured him, calumniated him, bought up his unpaid debts to get him thrown into prison. "Gentlemen of the jury, people like my client, who are fierce, unruly, and uncontrolled on the surface, are sometimes, most frequently indeed, exceedingly tender-hearted, only they don't express it. Don't laugh, don't laugh at my idea! The talented prosecutor laughed mercilessly just now at my client for loving Schiller--loving the sublime and beautiful! I should not have laughed at that in his place. Yes, such natures--oh, let me speak in defense of such natures, so often and so cruelly misunderstood--these natures often thirst for tenderness, goodness, and justice, as it were, in contrast to themselves, their unruliness, their ferocity--they thirst for it unconsciously. Passionate and fierce on the surface, they are painfully capable of loving woman, for instance, and with a spiritual and elevated love. Again do not laugh at me, this is very often the case in such natures. But they cannot hide their passions--sometimes very coarse--and that is conspicuous and is noticed, but the inner man is unseen. Their passions are quickly exhausted; but, by the side of a noble and lofty creature that seemingly coarse and rough man seeks a new life, seeks to correct himself, to be better, to become noble and honorable, 'sublime and beautiful,' however much the expression has been ridiculed. "I said just now that I would not venture to touch upon my client's engagement. But I may say half a word. What we heard just now was not evidence, but only the scream of a frenzied and revengeful woman, and it was not for her--oh, not for her!--to reproach him with treachery, for she has betrayed him! If she had had but a little time for reflection she would not have given such evidence. Oh, do not believe her! No, my client is not a monster, as she called him! "The Lover of Mankind on the eve of His Crucifixion said: 'I am the Good Shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for his sheep, so that not one of them might be lost.' Let not a man's soul be lost through us! "I asked just now what does 'father' mean, and exclaimed that it was a great word, a precious name. But one must use words honestly, gentlemen, and I venture to call things by their right names: such a father as old Karamazov cannot be called a father and does not deserve to be. Filial love for an unworthy father is an absurdity, an impossibility. Love cannot be created from nothing: only God can create something from nothing. " 'Fathers, provoke not your children to wrath,' the apostle writes, from a heart glowing with love. It's not for the sake of my client that I quote these sacred words, I mention them for all fathers. Who has authorized me to preach to fathers? No one. But as a man and a citizen I make my appeal--_vivos voco!_ We are not long on earth, we do many evil deeds and say many evil words. So let us all catch a favorable moment when we are all together to say a good word to each other. That's what I am doing: while I am in this place I take advantage of my opportunity. Not for nothing is this tribune given us by the highest authority--all Russia hears us! I am not speaking only for the fathers here present, I cry aloud to all fathers: 'Fathers, provoke not your children to wrath.' Yes, let us first fulfill Christ's injunction ourselves and only then venture to expect it of our children. Otherwise we are not fathers, but enemies of our children, and they are not our children, but our enemies, and we have made them our enemies ourselves. 'What measure ye mete it shall be measured unto you again'--it's not I who say that, it's the Gospel precept, measure to others according as they measure to you. How can we blame children if they measure us according to our measure? "Not long ago a servant girl in Finland was suspected of having secretly given birth to a child. She was watched, and a box of which no one knew anything was found in the corner of the loft, behind some bricks. It was opened and inside was found the body of a new-born child which she had killed. In the same box were found the skeletons of two other babies which, according to her own confession, she had killed at the moment of their birth. "Gentlemen of the jury, was she a mother to her children? She gave birth to them, indeed; but was she a mother to them? Would any one venture to give her the sacred name of mother? Let us be bold, gentlemen, let us be audacious even: it's our duty to be so at this moment and not to be afraid of certain words and ideas like the Moscow women in Ostrovsky's play, who are scared at the sound of certain words. No, let us prove that the progress of the last few years has touched even us, and let us say plainly, the father is not merely he who begets the child, but he who begets it and does his duty by it. "Oh, of course, there is the other meaning, there is the other interpretation of the word 'father,' which insists that any father, even though he be a monster, even though he be the enemy of his children, still remains my father simply because he begot me. But this is, so to say, the mystical meaning which I cannot comprehend with my intellect, but can only accept by faith, or, better to say, _on faith_, like many other things which I do not understand, but which religion bids me believe. But in that case let it be kept outside the sphere of actual life. In the sphere of actual life, which has, indeed, its own rights, but also lays upon us great duties and obligations, in that sphere, if we want to be humane--Christian, in fact--we must, or ought to, act only upon convictions justified by reason and experience, which have been passed through the crucible of analysis; in a word, we must act rationally, and not as though in dream and delirium, that we may not do harm, that we may not ill-treat and ruin a man. Then it will be real Christian work, not only mystic, but rational and philanthropic...." There was violent applause at this passage from many parts of the court, but Fetyukovitch waved his hands as though imploring them to let him finish without interruption. The court relapsed into silence at once. The orator went on. "Do you suppose, gentlemen, that our children as they grow up and begin to reason can avoid such questions? No, they cannot, and we will not impose on them an impossible restriction. The sight of an unworthy father involuntarily suggests tormenting questions to a young creature, especially when he compares him with the excellent fathers of his companions. The conventional answer to this question is: 'He begot you, and you are his flesh and blood, and therefore you are bound to love him.' The youth involuntarily reflects: 'But did he love me when he begot me?' he asks, wondering more and more. 'Was it for my sake he begot me? He did not know me, not even my sex, at that moment, at the moment of passion, perhaps, inflamed by wine, and he has only transmitted to me a propensity to drunkenness--that's all he's done for me.... Why am I bound to love him simply for begetting me when he has cared nothing for me all my life after?' "Oh, perhaps those questions strike you as coarse and cruel, but do not expect an impossible restraint from a young mind. 'Drive nature out of the door and it will fly in at the window,' and, above all, let us not be afraid of words, but decide the question according to the dictates of reason and humanity and not of mystic ideas. How shall it be decided? Why, like this. Let the son stand before his father and ask him, 'Father, tell me, why must I love you? Father, show me that I must love you,' and if that father is able to answer him and show him good reason, we have a real, normal, parental relation, not resting on mystical prejudice, but on a rational, responsible and strictly humanitarian basis. But if he does not, there's an end to the family tie. He is not a father to him, and the son has a right to look upon him as a stranger, and even an enemy. Our tribune, gentlemen of the jury, ought to be a school of true and sound ideas." (Here the orator was interrupted by irrepressible and almost frantic applause. Of course, it was not the whole audience, but a good half of it applauded. The fathers and mothers present applauded. Shrieks and exclamations were heard from the gallery, where the ladies were sitting. Handkerchiefs were waved. The President began ringing his bell with all his might. He was obviously irritated by the behavior of the audience, but did not venture to clear the court as he had threatened. Even persons of high position, old men with stars on their breasts, sitting on specially reserved seats behind the judges, applauded the orator and waved their handkerchiefs. So that when the noise died down, the President confined himself to repeating his stern threat to clear the court, and Fetyukovitch, excited and triumphant, continued his speech.) "Gentlemen of the jury, you remember that awful night of which so much has been said to-day, when the son got over the fence and stood face to face with the enemy and persecutor who had begotten him. I insist most emphatically it was not for money he ran to his father's house: the charge of robbery is an absurdity, as I proved before. And it was not to murder him he broke into the house, oh, no! If he had had that design he would, at least, have taken the precaution of arming himself beforehand. The brass pestle he caught up instinctively without knowing why he did it. Granted that he deceived his father by tapping at the window, granted that he made his way in--I've said already that I do not for a moment believe that legend, but let it be so, let us suppose it for a moment. Gentlemen, I swear to you by all that's holy, if it had not been his father, but an ordinary enemy, he would, after running through the rooms and satisfying himself that the woman was not there, have made off, post-haste, without doing any harm to his rival. He would have struck him, pushed him away perhaps, nothing more, for he had no thought and no time to spare for that. What he wanted to know was where she was. But his father, his father! The mere sight of the father who had hated him from his childhood, had been his enemy, his persecutor, and now his unnatural rival, was enough! A feeling of hatred came over him involuntarily, irresistibly, clouding his reason. It all surged up in one moment! It was an impulse of madness and insanity, but also an impulse of nature, irresistibly and unconsciously (like everything in nature) avenging the violation of its eternal laws. "But the prisoner even then did not murder him--I maintain that, I cry that aloud!--no, he only brandished the pestle in a burst of indignant disgust, not meaning to kill him, not knowing that he would kill him. Had he not had this fatal pestle in his hand, he would have only knocked his father down perhaps, but would not have killed him. As he ran away, he did not know whether he had killed the old man. Such a murder is not a murder. Such a murder is not a parricide. No, the murder of such a father cannot be called parricide. Such a murder can only be reckoned parricide by prejudice. "But I appeal to you again and again from the depths of my soul; did this murder actually take place? Gentlemen of the jury, if we convict and punish him, he will say to himself: 'These people have done nothing for my bringing up, for my education, nothing to improve my lot, nothing to make me better, nothing to make me a man. These people have not given me to eat and to drink, have not visited me in prison and nakedness, and here they have sent me to penal servitude. I am quits, I owe them nothing now, and owe no one anything for ever. They are wicked and I will be wicked. They are cruel and I will be cruel.' That is what he will say, gentlemen of the jury. And I swear, by finding him guilty you will only make it easier for him: you will ease his conscience, he will curse the blood he has shed and will not regret it. At the same time you will destroy in him the possibility of becoming a new man, for he will remain in his wickedness and blindness all his life. "But do you want to punish him fearfully, terribly, with the most awful punishment that could be imagined, and at the same time to save him and regenerate his soul? If so, overwhelm him with your mercy! You will see, you will hear how he will tremble and be horror-struck. 'How can I endure this mercy? How can I endure so much love? Am I worthy of it?' That's what he will exclaim. "Oh, I know, I know that heart, that wild but grateful heart, gentlemen of the jury! It will bow before your mercy; it thirsts for a great and loving action, it will melt and mount upwards. There are souls which, in their limitation, blame the whole world. But subdue such a soul with mercy, show it love, and it will curse its past, for there are many good impulses in it. Such a heart will expand and see that God is merciful and that men are good and just. He will be horror-stricken; he will be crushed by remorse and the vast obligation laid upon him henceforth. And he will not say then, 'I am quits,' but will say, 'I am guilty in the sight of all men and am more unworthy than all.' With tears of penitence and poignant, tender anguish, he will exclaim: 'Others are better than I, they wanted to save me, not to ruin me!' Oh, this act of mercy is so easy for you, for in the absence of anything like real evidence it will be too awful for you to pronounce: 'Yes, he is guilty.' "Better acquit ten guilty men than punish one innocent man! Do you hear, do you hear that majestic voice from the past century of our glorious history? It is not for an insignificant person like me to remind you that the Russian court does not exist for the punishment only, but also for the salvation of the criminal! Let other nations think of retribution and the letter of the law, we will cling to the spirit and the meaning--the salvation and the reformation of the lost. If this is true, if Russia and her justice are such, she may go forward with good cheer! Do not try to scare us with your frenzied troikas from which all the nations stand aside in disgust. Not a runaway troika, but the stately chariot of Russia will move calmly and majestically to its goal. In your hands is the fate of my client, in your hands is the fate of Russian justice. You will defend it, you will save it, you will prove that there are men to watch over it, that it is in good hands!" Chapter XIV. The Peasants Stand Firm This was how Fetyukovitch concluded his speech, and the enthusiasm of the audience burst like an irresistible storm. It was out of the question to stop it: the women wept, many of the men wept too, even two important personages shed tears. The President submitted, and even postponed ringing his bell. The suppression of such an enthusiasm would be the suppression of something sacred, as the ladies cried afterwards. The orator himself was genuinely touched. And it was at this moment that Ippolit Kirillovitch got up to make certain objections. People looked at him with hatred. "What? What's the meaning of it? He positively dares to make objections," the ladies babbled. But if the whole world of ladies, including his wife, had protested he could not have been stopped at that moment. He was pale, he was shaking with emotion, his first phrases were even unintelligible, he gasped for breath, could hardly speak clearly, lost the thread. But he soon recovered himself. Of this new speech of his I will quote only a few sentences. "... I am reproached with having woven a romance. But what is this defense if not one romance on the top of another? All that was lacking was poetry. Fyodor Pavlovitch, while waiting for his mistress, tears open the envelope and throws it on the floor. We are even told what he said while engaged in this strange act. Is not this a flight of fancy? And what proof have we that he had taken out the money? Who heard what he said? The weak-minded idiot, Smerdyakov, transformed into a Byronic hero, avenging society for his illegitimate birth--isn't this a romance in the Byronic style? And the son who breaks into his father's house and murders him without murdering him is not even a romance--this is a sphinx setting us a riddle which he cannot solve himself. If he murdered him, he murdered him, and what's the meaning of his murdering him without having murdered him--who can make head or tail of this? "Then we are admonished that our tribune is a tribune of true and sound ideas and from this tribune of 'sound ideas' is heard a solemn declaration that to call the murder of a father 'parricide' is nothing but a prejudice! But if parricide is a prejudice, and if every child is to ask his father why he is to love him, what will become of us? What will become of the foundations of society? What will become of the family? Parricide, it appears, is only a bogy of Moscow merchants' wives. The most precious, the most sacred guarantees for the destiny and future of Russian justice are presented to us in a perverted and frivolous form, simply to attain an object--to obtain the justification of something which cannot be justified. 'Oh, crush him by mercy,' cries the counsel for the defense; but that's all the criminal wants, and to-morrow it will be seen how much he is crushed. And is not the counsel for the defense too modest in asking only for the acquittal of the prisoner? Why not found a charity in the honor of the parricide to commemorate his exploit among future generations? Religion and the Gospel are corrected--that's all mysticism, we are told, and ours is the only true Christianity which has been subjected to the analysis of reason and common sense. And so they set up before us a false semblance of Christ! 'What measure ye mete so it shall be meted unto you again,' cried the counsel for the defense, and instantly deduces that Christ teaches us to measure as it is measured to us--and this from the tribune of truth and sound sense! We peep into the Gospel only on the eve of making speeches, in order to dazzle the audience by our acquaintance with what is, anyway, a rather original composition, which may be of use to produce a certain effect--all to serve the purpose! But what Christ commands us is something very different: He bids us beware of doing this, because the wicked world does this, but we ought to forgive and to turn the other cheek, and not to measure to our persecutors as they measure to us. This is what our God has taught us and not that to forbid children to murder their fathers is a prejudice. And we will not from the tribune of truth and good sense correct the Gospel of our Lord, Whom the counsel for the defense deigns to call only 'the crucified lover of humanity,' in opposition to all orthodox Russia, which calls to Him, 'For Thou art our God!' " At this the President intervened and checked the over-zealous speaker, begging him not to exaggerate, not to overstep the bounds, and so on, as presidents always do in such cases. The audience, too, was uneasy. The public was restless: there were even exclamations of indignation. Fetyukovitch did not so much as reply; he only mounted the tribune to lay his hand on his heart and, with an offended voice, utter a few words full of dignity. He only touched again, lightly and ironically, on "romancing" and "psychology," and in an appropriate place quoted, "Jupiter, you are angry, therefore you are wrong," which provoked a burst of approving laughter in the audience, for Ippolit Kirillovitch was by no means like Jupiter. Then, _a propos_ of the accusation that he was teaching the young generation to murder their fathers, Fetyukovitch observed, with great dignity, that he would not even answer. As for the prosecutor's charge of uttering unorthodox opinions, Fetyukovitch hinted that it was a personal insinuation and that he had expected in this court to be secure from accusations "damaging to my reputation as a citizen and a loyal subject." But at these words the President pulled him up, too, and Fetyukovitch concluded his speech with a bow, amid a hum of approbation in the court. And Ippolit Kirillovitch was, in the opinion of our ladies, "crushed for good." Then the prisoner was allowed to speak. Mitya stood up, but said very little. He was fearfully exhausted, physically and mentally. The look of strength and independence with which he had entered in the morning had almost disappeared. He seemed as though he had passed through an experience that day, which had taught him for the rest of his life something very important he had not understood till then. His voice was weak, he did not shout as before. In his words there was a new note of humility, defeat and submission. "What am I to say, gentlemen of the jury? The hour of judgment has come for me, I feel the hand of God upon me! The end has come to an erring man! But, before God, I repeat to you, I am innocent of my father's blood! For the last time I repeat, it wasn't I killed him! I was erring, but I loved what is good. Every instant I strove to reform, but I lived like a wild beast. I thank the prosecutor, he told me many things about myself that I did not know; but it's not true that I killed my father, the prosecutor is mistaken. I thank my counsel, too. I cried listening to him; but it's not true that I killed my father, and he needn't have supposed it. And don't believe the doctors. I am perfectly sane, only my heart is heavy. If you spare me, if you let me go, I will pray for you. I will be a better man. I give you my word before God I will! And if you will condemn me, I'll break my sword over my head myself and kiss the pieces. But spare me, do not rob me of my God! I know myself, I shall rebel! My heart is heavy, gentlemen ... spare me!" He almost fell back in his place: his voice broke: he could hardly articulate the last phrase. Then the judges proceeded to put the questions and began to ask both sides to formulate their conclusions. But I will not describe the details. At last the jury rose to retire for consultation. The President was very tired, and so his last charge to the jury was rather feeble. "Be impartial, don't be influenced by the eloquence of the defense, but yet weigh the arguments. Remember that there is a great responsibility laid upon you," and so on and so on. The jury withdrew and the court adjourned. People could get up, move about, exchange their accumulated impressions, refresh themselves at the buffet. It was very late, almost one o'clock in the night, but nobody went away: the strain was so great that no one could think of repose. All waited with sinking hearts; though that is, perhaps, too much to say, for the ladies were only in a state of hysterical impatience and their hearts were untroubled. An acquittal, they thought, was inevitable. They all prepared themselves for a dramatic moment of general enthusiasm. I must own there were many among the men, too, who were convinced that an acquittal was inevitable. Some were pleased, others frowned, while some were simply dejected, not wanting him to be acquitted. Fetyukovitch himself was confident of his success. He was surrounded by people congratulating him and fawning upon him. "There are," he said to one group, as I was told afterwards, "there are invisible threads binding the counsel for the defense with the jury. One feels during one's speech if they are being formed. I was aware of them. They exist. Our cause is won. Set your mind at rest." "What will our peasants say now?" said one stout, cross-looking, pock- marked gentleman, a landowner of the neighborhood, approaching a group of gentlemen engaged in conversation. "But they are not all peasants. There are four government clerks among them." "Yes, there are clerks," said a member of the district council, joining the group. "And do you know that Nazaryev, the merchant with the medal, a juryman?" "What of him?" "He is a man with brains." "But he never speaks." "He is no great talker, but so much the better. There's no need for the Petersburg man to teach him: he could teach all Petersburg himself. He's the father of twelve children. Think of that!" "Upon my word, you don't suppose they won't acquit him?" one of our young officials exclaimed in another group. "They'll acquit him for certain," said a resolute voice. "It would be shameful, disgraceful, not to acquit him!" cried the official. "Suppose he did murder him--there are fathers and fathers! And, besides, he was in such a frenzy.... He really may have done nothing but swing the pestle in the air, and so knocked the old man down. But it was a pity they dragged the valet in. That was simply an absurd theory! If I'd been in Fetyukovitch's place, I should simply have said straight out: 'He murdered him; but he is not guilty, hang it all!' " "That's what he did, only without saying, 'Hang it all!' " "No, Mihail Semyonovitch, he almost said that, too," put in a third voice. "Why, gentlemen, in Lent an actress was acquitted in our town who had cut the throat of her lover's lawful wife." "Oh, but she did not finish cutting it." "That makes no difference. She began cutting it." "What did you think of what he said about children? Splendid, wasn't it?" "Splendid!" "And about mysticism, too!" "Oh, drop mysticism, do!" cried some one else; "think of Ippolit and his fate from this day forth. His wife will scratch his eyes out to-morrow for Mitya's sake." "Is she here?" "What an idea! If she'd been here she'd have scratched them out in court. She is at home with toothache. He he he!" "He he he!" In a third group: "I dare say they will acquit Mitenka, after all." "I should not be surprised if he turns the 'Metropolis' upside down to- morrow. He will be drinking for ten days!" "Oh, the devil!" "The devil's bound to have a hand in it. Where should he be if not here?" "Well, gentlemen, I admit it was eloquent. But still it's not the thing to break your father's head with a pestle! Or what are we coming to?" "The chariot! Do you remember the chariot?" "Yes; he turned a cart into a chariot!" "And to-morrow he will turn a chariot into a cart, just to suit his purpose." "What cunning chaps there are nowadays! Is there any justice to be had in Russia?" But the bell rang. The jury deliberated for exactly an hour, neither more nor less. A profound silence reigned in the court as soon as the public had taken their seats. I remember how the jurymen walked into the court. At last! I won't repeat the questions in order, and, indeed, I have forgotten them. I remember only the answer to the President's first and chief question: "Did the prisoner commit the murder for the sake of robbery and with premeditation?" (I don't remember the exact words.) There was a complete hush. The foreman of the jury, the youngest of the clerks, pronounced, in a clear, loud voice, amidst the deathlike stillness of the court: "Yes, guilty!" And the same answer was repeated to every question: "Yes, guilty!" and without the slightest extenuating comment. This no one had expected; almost every one had reckoned upon a recommendation to mercy, at least. The deathlike silence in the court was not broken--all seemed petrified: those who desired his conviction as well as those who had been eager for his acquittal. But that was only for the first instant, and it was followed by a fearful hubbub. Many of the men in the audience were pleased. Some were rubbing their hands with no attempt to conceal their joy. Those who disagreed with the verdict seemed crushed, shrugged their shoulders, whispered, but still seemed unable to realize this. But how shall I describe the state the ladies were in? I thought they would create a riot. At first they could scarcely believe their ears. Then suddenly the whole court rang with exclamations: "What's the meaning of it? What next?" They leapt up from their places. They seemed to fancy that it might be at once reconsidered and reversed. At that instant Mitya suddenly stood up and cried in a heartrending voice, stretching his hands out before him: "I swear by God and the dreadful Day of Judgment I am not guilty of my father's blood! Katya, I forgive you! Brothers, friends, have pity on the other woman!" He could not go on, and broke into a terrible sobbing wail that was heard all over the court in a strange, unnatural voice unlike his own. From the farthest corner at the back of the gallery came a piercing shriek--it was Grushenka. She had succeeded in begging admittance to the court again before the beginning of the lawyers' speeches. Mitya was taken away. The passing of the sentence was deferred till next day. The whole court was in a hubbub but I did not wait to hear. I only remember a few exclamations I heard on the steps as I went out. "He'll have a twenty years' trip to the mines!" "Not less." "Well, our peasants have stood firm." "And have done for our Mitya."

Book XII

https://web.archive.org/web/20201219142226/https://www.cliffsnotes.com/literature/b/the-brothers-karamazov/summary-and-analysis/part-4-book-xii

The day of Dmitri's trial arrives, and the courtroom is filled with curious visitors from distant parts of the land; the trial has aroused much interest. Besides the gruesome details of parricide that will be discussed, Dmitri is being defended by the celebrated criminal lawyer Fetyukovitch, who has come from Moscow to undertake the defense. And, it is noted, the jury is made up mostly of peasants. Can such country people understand the subtleties of the much-discussed case? Dmitri enters the courtroom exquisitely dressed in a new frock coat. The judge then reads the indictment against him and asks for his plea. Dmitri responds, "I plead guilty to drunkenness and dissipation . . . to idleness and debauchery . . . but I am not guilty of the death of that old man." Most of the people in the courtroom, however, even those who are partial to Dmitri, believe that the case against him is a strong one, for much of the evidence and nearly all of the witnesses' statements seem to indicate Dmitri's guilt. Fetyukovitch is an exceptionally skilled trial lawyer. He has grasped all the various aspects of the case, and as Grigory, Rakitin, Captain Snegiryov, the innkeeper from Mokroe, and others are called to testify, he skillfully discredits the testimony of each of them, pointing out inconsistencies in their statements and creating doubts about the integrity of their motives. Later, when three medical experts are called to testify about Dmitri's mental state, each doctor suggests a different cause for Dmitri's behavior. Thus, with the medical evidence so contradictory, there is no firm support for either the prosecution or the defense. There is a minor exception, however; the local doctor, Herzenstube, tells several interesting stories about Dmitri's childhood and creates some new sympathy among the listeners. Alyosha proves to be an asset for his brother because he is well known for his integrity. During his testimony, he is able to recall an incident with Dmitri, one that happened just before the murder. It proves that Dmitri did have a large sum of money on him and that he did not murder Fyodor for the 3,000 rubles. This fact impresses most people and convinces them that Dmitri has not stolen old Karamazov's secret fund. Following Alyosha in the witness stand is Katerina, who tells of Dmitri's saving her father from ruin and then refraining from blackmailing and thereby seducing her. Her story is heard with mixed interest, but Dmitri feels that she need not have told the tale because it is a severe blow to her integrity. Now it is publicly known how thoroughly she has humiliated herself for Dmitri. Grushenka is able to add little to Dmitri's defense except for her passionate outcries that he is innocent. Ivan has not yet testified. His testimony has been postponed because of his illness, but suddenly he appears at the trial. At first he is unable to speak sense. He can give no evidence. Then, as he is about to leave, he turns and shows the court the 3,000 rubles that Smerdyakov gave him. He reveals that Smerdyakov is the murderer and that he allowed the servant to perform the act. He becomes so excited that he says that he has a witness for everything he has said -- a devil who visits him at night. Hysterically, he asserts the truth of his testimony but is finally dragged from the courtroom, screaming incoherently. The trial has one more surprise before it recesses. Katerina reverses her statements and shows the court the letter that Dmitri wrote, stating that he might be forced to kill his father. She defends Ivan because she knows that he is suffering from mental illness. Grushenka then accuses Katerina of being a serpent, and an uproar follows. When order is finally restored, the lawyers give their concluding speeches. Once more, Kirillovitch, the prosecutor, describes the murder and analyzes the members of the Karamazov family, emphasizing Dmitri's passionate and undisciplined personality and reviewing in detail Dmitri's activities and statements during the days preceding the murder. He insists that Dmitri is exactly the sort of man whose violent disposition would drive him to seek a solution to all his problems through crime. Kirillovitch then dismisses Ivan's theory that Smerdyakov is the murderer by pointing out that the servant did not have any of the qualities of a murderer's personality; he had no motive and, further, was incapacitated on the night of the crime. Dmitri, on the other hand, did have a motive -- his hatred for his father -- and he had a great need for money. All this, plus the letter he wrote to Katerina, says the prosecutor, is conclusive proof that the crime was premeditated and was, in fact, committed by Dmitri Karamazov. He concludes by making a stirring appeal to the jury to uphold the sacred principles of justice and the moral foundation on which Russian civilization is built by punishing this most horrible of crimes -- the murder of a father by his son. Fetyukovitch begins his defense by emphasizing that all evidence against Dmitri is circumstantial. No fact withstands objective criticism if examined separately. He also points out that there is no real proof that a robbery took place; the belief that Fyodor kept 3,000 rubles, he says, is based on hearsay, and there is no reason to disbelieve Dmitri's explanation of where the money he spent at Mokroe came from. He also reminds the jury that the letter Dmitri wrote to Katerina was the result of extreme drunkenness and despair and cannot be equated with premeditated murder. Then, after reviewing all the evidence, he makes this final and important point: Fyodor's murder was not that of parricide. The man was never a father to Dmitri, nor was he a father to any of his sons. It is true that Fyodor's sensuousness resulted in Dmitri's birth, but Fyodor was a father in that respect only. After Dmitri was born, Fyodor continually mistreated the boy and from then on neglected all his parental duties. In fact, he abandoned the boy. All his life Dmitri endured mistreatment, and now, if he is convicted, the jury will destroy his only chance to reform and to make a decent life for himself. The lawyer asks for mercy so that Dmitri can be redeemed. He reminds the jury that the end of Russian justice is not to punish. Rather, it is pronounced so that a criminal can be helped toward salvation and regeneration. The audience is overcome with sympathy and enthusiasm and breaks into applause. The jury retires. The general consensus is that Dmitri will surely be acquitted, but such is not the case. When the verdict is read, Dmitri is found guilty on every count.

Recorded in detail in this book is Dmitri's trial. Here is massive evidence of Dostoevsky's long interest in the proceedings of the Russian courts and of the psychology practiced by lawyers. Dmitri's attorney, Fetyukovitch, for example, is able to undermine and cleverly discredit the testimony of every witness. He is particularly masterful as he points out that Grigory, unused to drinking, had been imbibing on the night of the murder and could have seen "the gates of heaven open up." Likewise, with all witnesses, Fetyukovitch discovers and enlarges a loophole in their statements so that truth becomes extremely tenuous. The trial, which up to a certain point has been shaped by the incisive intelligence of Dmitri's lawyer, takes on a new turn as Ivan comes forward to give his testimony. He desires to tell all he knows and to confess his own part in the murder, but he rages incoherently and finally suffers a nervous collapse. This, in turn, forces Katerina to admit evidence that ultimately convicts Dmitri. The confused young girl, in her attempt to save Ivan from disgrace, produces the letter written by Dmitri announcing his plan to murder his father, if necessary, to pay back the money he owes. More than any other factor, this letter condemns Dmitri. The final section of Book XII covers the long speeches of the prosecutor and the defense attorney in which each summarizes the arguments of the trial and offers his interpretation. Actually, nothing new is revealed in these speeches. They serve chiefly to illustrate the nature of the legal minds emerging in Russia during this period.

novelguide

all_chapterized_books/110-chapters/24.txt

finished_summaries/novelguide/Tess of the d'Urbervilles/section_3_part_9.txt

Tess of the d'Urbervilles.chapter xxiv

chapter xxiv

{"name": "Chapter XXIV", "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20210213065711/https://www.novelguide.com/tess-of-the-durbervilles/summaries/phase3-chapter16-24", "summary": "One late summer afternoon, while they milk the cows in the field, Angel can stand his anxiety surrounding Tess no more and jumps up and takes her in his arms. For a moment, she accepts his embrace with delight but then pulls away. To her amazement, he confesses his love for her. They return to work as if nothing happened.", "analysis": ". As the title of the section, \"Phase the Third: The Rally,\" implies, Tess indeed rallies and leaves depression behind, for a while at least. However, she resists happiness as if she feels she doesn't deserve it. At Talbothays Dairy, surrounded by cows and milk, and singing dairymen, the life force is strong and \"the invincible instinct toward self-delight\" invades her being. She is intoxicated by the lush fertile landscape which Hardy goes to great lengths to describe. Indeed, the pastoral setting metaphorically represents Eden, containing Eve in the form of Tess and Angel as Adam. Although she never expected it, she finds happiness and falls in love with Angel Clare although, in her self-deprecating manner, she thinks the other young women are more deserving. Despite her attempt \"to live a repressed life. she little divined the strength of her own vitality\". The young woman fits perfectly into the Dairy. It's as if she belongs there and in a sense she does, since her noble family has roots in this soil. The green fertile landscape has a calming effect on her troubled soul and belies the sadness she finds within. The summer weather mimics the burgeoning relationship between Tess and Clare. Clare has mentioned that a country girl, instead of a lady, would suit him much better for a wife because he plans on immigrating and starting a farm. As the days grow hotter so too does their passion, until one particularly hot August afternoon, Clare loses control, embraces Tess and tells her he loves her. But, although she shares his feelings, she has learned from the past and puts the brakes on, so to speak. On the surface, Tess and Clare seems well suited to each other. He has gone against his father's wishes by choosing his own career as a gentleman farmer. Similarly, Tess has left her parents, whose advice she doesn't respect, and set out on her own, something extremely rare for women during this era. But as the novel progresses, Clare will change; he is not what he appears. In addition, like the garlic-tinged butter, their relationship is tainted because Clare doesn't know the truth about Tess. From the beginning, he thinks of her as a virgin: \"what a fresh and virginal daughter of Nature that milkmaid is\" and, ironically, he even calls her \"maidy\". In this regard, Tess is like Clare; not what she seems. No doubt Hardy will continue his literary hypothesis--that despite her virtue, Tess is a helpless victim and that fate controls her life. Hardy contrasts the fair-haired heavenly Angel with the dark-haired devilish Alec d'Urberville. While Alec forces himself on Tess, Clare is caring and careful and subsequently feels ashamed of his passionate behavior after embracing her. Unlike Alec, he courts Tess and treats her as if it were she who was the Angel. Tess on the other hand stands in comparison with the other dairymaids: nervous Izz, red-haired Retty and plump Marian who pale in beauty, delicacy and intelligence when compared to Tess. All four girls love Angel, but he focuses solely on Tess"}

Amid the oozing fatness and warm ferments of the Froom Vale, at a season when the rush of juices could almost be heard below the hiss of fertilization, it was impossible that the most fanciful love should not grow passionate. The ready bosoms existing there were impregnated by their surroundings. July passed over their heads, and the Thermidorean weather which came in its wake seemed an effort on the part of Nature to match the state of hearts at Talbothays Dairy. The air of the place, so fresh in the spring and early summer, was stagnant and enervating now. Its heavy scents weighed upon them, and at mid-day the landscape seemed lying in a swoon. Ethiopic scorchings browned the upper slopes of the pastures, but there was still bright green herbage here where the watercourses purled. And as Clare was oppressed by the outward heats, so was he burdened inwardly by waxing fervour of passion for the soft and silent Tess. The rains having passed, the uplands were dry. The wheels of the dairyman's spring-cart, as he sped home from market, licked up the pulverized surface of the highway, and were followed by white ribands of dust, as if they had set a thin powder-train on fire. The cows jumped wildly over the five-barred barton-gate, maddened by the gad-fly; Dairyman Crick kept his shirt-sleeves permanently rolled up from Monday to Saturday; open windows had no effect in ventilation without open doors, and in the dairy-garden the blackbirds and thrushes crept about under the currant-bushes, rather in the manner of quadrupeds than of winged creatures. The flies in the kitchen were lazy, teasing, and familiar, crawling about in the unwonted places, on the floors, into drawers, and over the backs of the milkmaids' hands. Conversations were concerning sunstroke; while butter-making, and still more butter-keeping, was a despair. They milked entirely in the meads for coolness and convenience, without driving in the cows. During the day the animals obsequiously followed the shadow of the smallest tree as it moved round the stem with the diurnal roll; and when the milkers came they could hardly stand still for the flies. On one of these afternoons four or five unmilked cows chanced to stand apart from the general herd, behind the corner of a hedge, among them being Dumpling and Old Pretty, who loved Tess's hands above those of any other maid. When she rose from her stool under a finished cow, Angel Clare, who had been observing her for some time, asked her if she would take the aforesaid creatures next. She silently assented, and with her stool at arm's length, and the pail against her knee, went round to where they stood. Soon the sound of Old Pretty's milk fizzing into the pail came through the hedge, and then Angel felt inclined to go round the corner also, to finish off a hard-yielding milcher who had strayed there, he being now as capable of this as the dairyman himself. All the men, and some of the women, when milking, dug their foreheads into the cows and gazed into the pail. But a few--mainly the younger ones--rested their heads sideways. This was Tess Durbeyfield's habit, her temple pressing the milcher's flank, her eyes fixed on the far end of the meadow with the quiet of one lost in meditation. She was milking Old Pretty thus, and the sun chancing to be on the milking-side, it shone flat upon her pink-gowned form and her white curtain-bonnet, and upon her profile, rendering it keen as a cameo cut from the dun background of the cow. She did not know that Clare had followed her round, and that he sat under his cow watching her. The stillness of her head and features was remarkable: she might have been in a trance, her eyes open, yet unseeing. Nothing in the picture moved but Old Pretty's tail and Tess's pink hands, the latter so gently as to be a rhythmic pulsation only, as if they were obeying a reflex stimulus, like a beating heart. How very lovable her face was to him. Yet there was nothing ethereal about it; all was real vitality, real warmth, real incarnation. And it was in her mouth that this culminated. Eyes almost as deep and speaking he had seen before, and cheeks perhaps as fair; brows as arched, a chin and throat almost as shapely; her mouth he had seen nothing to equal on the face of the earth. To a young man with the least fire in him that little upward lift in the middle of her red top lip was distracting, infatuating, maddening. He had never before seen a woman's lips and teeth which forced upon his mind with such persistent iteration the old Elizabethan simile of roses filled with snow. Perfect, he, as a lover, might have called them off-hand. But no--they were not perfect. And it was the touch of the imperfect upon the would-be perfect that gave the sweetness, because it was that which gave the humanity. Clare had studied the curves of those lips so many times that he could reproduce them mentally with ease: and now, as they again confronted him, clothed with colour and life, they sent an _aura_ over his flesh, a breeze through his nerves, which well nigh produced a qualm; and actually produced, by some mysterious physiological process, a prosaic sneeze. She then became conscious that he was observing her; but she would not show it by any change of position, though the curious dream-like fixity disappeared, and a close eye might easily have discerned that the rosiness of her face deepened, and then faded till only a tinge of it was left. The influence that had passed into Clare like an excitation from the sky did not die down. Resolutions, reticences, prudences, fears, fell back like a defeated battalion. He jumped up from his seat, and, leaving his pail to be kicked over if the milcher had such a mind, went quickly towards the desire of his eyes, and, kneeling down beside her, clasped her in his arms. Tess was taken completely by surprise, and she yielded to his embrace with unreflecting inevitableness. Having seen that it was really her lover who had advanced, and no one else, her lips parted, and she sank upon him in her momentary joy, with something very like an ecstatic cry. He had been on the point of kissing that too tempting mouth, but he checked himself, for tender conscience' sake. "Forgive me, Tess dear!" he whispered. "I ought to have asked. I--did not know what I was doing. I do not mean it as a liberty. I am devoted to you, Tessy, dearest, in all sincerity!" Old Pretty by this time had looked round, puzzled; and seeing two people crouching under her where, by immemorial custom, there should have been only one, lifted her hind leg crossly. "She is angry--she doesn't know what we mean--she'll kick over the milk!" exclaimed Tess, gently striving to free herself, her eyes concerned with the quadruped's actions, her heart more deeply concerned with herself and Clare. She slipped up from her seat, and they stood together, his arm still encircling her. Tess's eyes, fixed on distance, began to fill. "Why do you cry, my darling?" he said. "O--I don't know!" she murmured. As she saw and felt more clearly the position she was in she became agitated and tried to withdraw. "Well, I have betrayed my feeling, Tess, at last," said he, with a curious sigh of desperation, signifying unconsciously that his heart had outrun his judgement. "That I--love you dearly and truly I need not say. But I--it shall go no further now--it distresses you--I am as surprised as you are. You will not think I have presumed upon your defencelessness--been too quick and unreflecting, will you?" "N'--I can't tell." He had allowed her to free herself; and in a minute or two the milking of each was resumed. Nobody had beheld the gravitation of the two into one; and when the dairyman came round by that screened nook a few minutes later, there was not a sign to reveal that the markedly sundered pair were more to each other than mere acquaintance. Yet in the interval since Crick's last view of them something had occurred which changed the pivot of the universe for their two natures; something which, had he known its quality, the dairyman would have despised, as a practical man; yet which was based upon a more stubborn and resistless tendency than a whole heap of so-called practicalities. A veil had been whisked aside; the tract of each one's outlook was to have a new horizon thenceforward--for a short time or for a long. END OF PHASE THE THIRD Phase the Fourth: The Consequence

Chapter XXIV

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One late summer afternoon, while they milk the cows in the field, Angel can stand his anxiety surrounding Tess no more and jumps up and takes her in his arms. For a moment, she accepts his embrace with delight but then pulls away. To her amazement, he confesses his love for her. They return to work as if nothing happened.

. As the title of the section, "Phase the Third: The Rally," implies, Tess indeed rallies and leaves depression behind, for a while at least. However, she resists happiness as if she feels she doesn't deserve it. At Talbothays Dairy, surrounded by cows and milk, and singing dairymen, the life force is strong and "the invincible instinct toward self-delight" invades her being. She is intoxicated by the lush fertile landscape which Hardy goes to great lengths to describe. Indeed, the pastoral setting metaphorically represents Eden, containing Eve in the form of Tess and Angel as Adam. Although she never expected it, she finds happiness and falls in love with Angel Clare although, in her self-deprecating manner, she thinks the other young women are more deserving. Despite her attempt "to live a repressed life. she little divined the strength of her own vitality". The young woman fits perfectly into the Dairy. It's as if she belongs there and in a sense she does, since her noble family has roots in this soil. The green fertile landscape has a calming effect on her troubled soul and belies the sadness she finds within. The summer weather mimics the burgeoning relationship between Tess and Clare. Clare has mentioned that a country girl, instead of a lady, would suit him much better for a wife because he plans on immigrating and starting a farm. As the days grow hotter so too does their passion, until one particularly hot August afternoon, Clare loses control, embraces Tess and tells her he loves her. But, although she shares his feelings, she has learned from the past and puts the brakes on, so to speak. On the surface, Tess and Clare seems well suited to each other. He has gone against his father's wishes by choosing his own career as a gentleman farmer. Similarly, Tess has left her parents, whose advice she doesn't respect, and set out on her own, something extremely rare for women during this era. But as the novel progresses, Clare will change; he is not what he appears. In addition, like the garlic-tinged butter, their relationship is tainted because Clare doesn't know the truth about Tess. From the beginning, he thinks of her as a virgin: "what a fresh and virginal daughter of Nature that milkmaid is" and, ironically, he even calls her "maidy". In this regard, Tess is like Clare; not what she seems. No doubt Hardy will continue his literary hypothesis--that despite her virtue, Tess is a helpless victim and that fate controls her life. Hardy contrasts the fair-haired heavenly Angel with the dark-haired devilish Alec d'Urberville. While Alec forces himself on Tess, Clare is caring and careful and subsequently feels ashamed of his passionate behavior after embracing her. Unlike Alec, he courts Tess and treats her as if it were she who was the Angel. Tess on the other hand stands in comparison with the other dairymaids: nervous Izz, red-haired Retty and plump Marian who pale in beauty, delicacy and intelligence when compared to Tess. All four girls love Angel, but he focuses solely on Tess

gradesaver

all_chapterized_books/23042-chapters/4.txt

finished_summaries/gradesaver/The Tempest/section_1_part_2.txt

The Tempest.act 2.scene 2

act 2, scene 2

{"name": "act ii, Scene 2", "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20210309152602/https://www.gradesaver.com/the-tempest/study-guide/summary-act-ii", "summary": "Caliban curses Prospero, as another storm approaches the island; he takes the storm as a sign that Prospero is up to mischief, and hides at the approach of what he fears is one of Prospero's punishing spirits. Trinculo, Alonso's court jester, finds Caliban lying still on the ground and covered with a cloak, and figures him to be a \"dead Indian\"; but, the storm continues to approach, so he also hides himself, using Caliban's cloak as a shelter, and flattening himself on the ground beside Caliban's prostrate form. Alonso's drunken butler, Stephano, enters, drunk and singing, and stumbles upon the strange sight of the two men under the cloak; he figures, in his drunken stupor, that Trinculo and Caliban make a four-legged monster. Caliban,in his delirium, thinks that Stephano is one of Prospero's minions, sent to torment him; Stephano thinks a drink of wine will cure Caliban of what ails him, and bit by bit, gets Caliban drunk as well. It takes Stephano a while to recognize his old friend, Trinculo, whom Caliban seems to be ignoring. Because of Stephano's generosity with his \"celestial liquor,\" Caliban takes him to be some sort of benevolent god; much to Trinculo's disbelief, Caliban actually offers his service to Stephano, forsaking the \"tyrant\" Prospero. Stephano accepts the offer.", "analysis": "Act 2 begins with a speech by Gonzalo that sounds similar to Claudius' speech to Hamlet in Act 1 of that play. Gonzalo tries to console the king over the loss of his son, saying that his \"hint of woe is common,\" and speaking about all the people who share his \"theme of woe\". In Hamlet, Claudius bandies about similar language when soothing Hamlet, mentioning the \"common theme\" of paternal death, and begging him to cast off the \"woe\" that burdens him. The tone of these two speeches, also, is similar; both, though directed toward one person, are made before a larger audience of listeners, and so are somewhat formal, impersonal, and diplomatic in language and form, in order to sound proper and impress their point on those who are not being directly addressed. However, Alonso responds badly to Gonzalo's good-hearted and carefully-worded attempt to cheer him up; \"he receives comfort like cold porridge\" is the simile that Sebastian uses to describe the King's reaction, and the comparison highlights King Alonso's sober, aloof, and disconsolate personality. In the first scene of Sebastian and Antonio first display a mischievous skill with language which they use to mock Gonzalo, then the nobleman Adrian. Sebastian teases the somewhat long-winded but good-hearted councilor by saying that Gonzalo is \"winding up the watch of his wit, by and by, it will strike\" when he begins another entreaty to the king. When Gonzalo opens his mouth again, he is answered with Sebastian saying \"one,\" as if Gonzalo had struck the hour, like a clock. Then, they change the subject of their puns to money; \"what a spendthrift is he of his tongue,\" says Antonio, speaking of Gonzalo as if he were a character more akin to the very garrulous, somewhat foolish Polonius from Hamlet Gonzalo and Polonius hold the same position, of head councilor to the king, but is not the same wastrel of words that Polonius proved to be; he makes a few remarks in this act that are beside the point, like his statements about their garments being \"fresh,\" but nothing that sounds so foolish as Polonius' \"brevity is the soul of wit\" speech in Act 2 of Hamlet. Antonio and Sebastian detach themselves from their party through their mocking wit. Adrian and Gonzalo try, in a levelheaded way, to both take stock of their situation, and hearten their party; they note the \"subtle, tender, and delicate temperance\" of the island, and report that \"here is everything advantageous to life\". Gonzalo becomes optimistic, making statements about how \"lush and lusty the grass looks\"; Antonio and Sebastian's replies to Gonzalo's benign remarks are distinctly negative, contradicting Gonzalo with claims that \"the ground indeed is tawny,\" and that \"he lies\" in his positive assessments. In this act, notice how Sebastian and Antonio are thoroughly characterized as heedless, careless, harsh, and arrogant through their disregard for their fellows, their predicament, and through their constant bickering and insulting remarks. All of their character flaws that are exposed in this act are important in the later action, foreshadowing their backstabbing tendencies and their eventual comeuppance. Several allusions to The Aeneid are sprinkled throughout the play, Antonio and Sebastian's debate about the \"widow Dido\" and the uniqueness of Carthage among the most prominent of these. Although the Carthage/ Tunis debate is elusive, and perhaps nonsensical, Gonzalo is correct that \"Tunis, sir, was Carthage,\" because Tunis became the political and commercial center of North Africa after Carthage,as it is described in The Aeneid, was destroyed. The Tempest inhabits, roughly, the same geographic realm as Virgil's work; Alonso's ship, before the shipwreck, was following the same route that Aeneas took from Carthage to Naples. The Aeneid raises issues about royal authority and political legitimacy that are also present in Shakespeare's work; and the allusions are, at the least, noteworthy because of the associations present during Shakespeare's time between the strong, intelligent, and powerful Queen Dido, and the equally strong, intelligent, and powerful Queen Elizabeth. Note the contrast in tone between Alonso's lament in lines 104-111 of scene 2, and Franscisco's answer to the king; Alonso's statement is somewhat crude in its metaphors, describing how the \"stomach of sense\" is being force-fed by having to listen to his friends' long-winded chatter. Francisco answers this complaint with elevated rhetoric, about how he saw Alonso's son \"beat the surges under him\" and \"trod the water, whose enmity he flung aside\"; Francisco's formalized description is more elegantly worded and image-laden than Alonso's, and the difference in language signifies a possible difference in knowledge and communicative abilities in the two characters. As in Act 1, there are a number of allusions to proverbs in this act as well, one of which appears in line 136. Rub the sore\" is a phrase Gonzalo uses to tell Sebastian that his attempts to console the king do no more than aggravate the loss; and this phrase was a popular one during Shakespeare's time, and is much easier to understand than some of the more obscure and outmoded allusions that Shakespeare includes in his work. Once Antonio and Sebastian begin to conspire in scene 1, parallels with Macbeth begin to surface. My strong imagination sees a crown dropping upon thy head,\" Antonio says to his brother, creating an image similar to the one that the three witches describe for Macbeth in Act 1, scene 3 of Macbeth. The presence of a conspiracy against the throne and a plot of murder creates another similarity; and Sebastian reacts to his brother's ambitious vision as Macbeth reacts to the witches-- that is, with thoughts of murder. Before Sebastian is convinced to follow his brother's plan, he exclaims that he is \"standing water\"; the statement is a metaphor, but the words are somewhat vague in their connotation. What Sebastian means with this comparison is that he is waiting to be moved in some direction, and will remain still, or \"standing,\" until he finds his purpose and motivation. The phrase could be alluding to another proverbial saying, but exactly which saying is being referred to is unclear. Act 2 returns to the themes of political legitimacy, source of power, and usurpation that arose in the first act. While Prospero firmly believed that the only legitimate power was the power that came from one's knowledge and hard work, Antonio believes that the power he usurped from his brother is legitimate, because he deserved it more and had the skill to wrestle it away. Look how well my garments sit upon me, much feater than before,\" Antonio brags to Sebastian; Antonio's lack of remorse over his crime, and his arrogant claim that his power is just because he uses it better, foreshadow a confrontation with his brother Prospero, and an eventual fall from this ill-gained power. However, Ariel's involvement in this conspiracy shows it to be part of Prospero's plan; Ariel makes all but Antonio and Sebastian go to sleep, and then causes conspiratorial seriousness to settle on them as well. The situation is created as part of Prospero's project, to reinforce his idea of his brothers as villains, and act as Prospero \"foresees through his art\" that they will. His project dies\" if Antonio and Sebastian's deviant plot is not made; and here, Prospero again shows himself to be a manipulator of the play's events, influencing the course of the play from within. There is great dramatic irony in this situation, and in the fact that Prospero causes his brothers to do the very things that he condemns them for. The most important literary elements in the second scene are probably those that are used to refer to Caliban. Upon finding Caliban lying on the ground, Trinculo calls him a \"dead Indian\"; indeed, in Elizabethan times, natives were brought back to England from foreign lands, and their captors could earn a great deal of money exhibiting them in London. Trinculo's speech is significant because he describes Caliban as a \"fish,\" and a \"strange beast,\" showing his Western contempt and lack of understanding of a person with a different skin color than his own. Stephano assumes that Caliban is a \"mooncalf,\" or a monstrosity, the term alluding to a folk tale of the time. Although Caliban asserted his natural authority over the island in Act 1, Prospero's usurpation of Caliban's power is negated by Caliban's portrayal as a savage seeking a new master. Caliban proves Prospero's view of him, as a natural servant, to be true, when Caliban immediately adopts Stephano as his new master upon Stephano's sudden appearance. Caliban, as a native, is seen as a \"monster,\" not only by Prospero, but by Trinculo and Stephano also; their contempt for dark-skinned Caliban is analogous to Europeans' view of \"natives\" in the West Indies and other colonies, and Shakespeare's treatment of Caliban provides some interesting social commentary on colonization. In fact, when this play appeared in the First Folio of Shakespeare's work, shortly after Shakespeare's death in the early 17th century, Caliban's character description marks him as \"a savage and deformed slave,\" despite glimpses of his noble character in the play. As a representation of a man apart from Western society, Caliban is seen as a contemptuous character because of prejudices of Shakespeare's time; these Elizabethan-period social prejudices also belong to many of the characters in the play, and are the prime determinant of the negative view that Prospero, Stephano, and Trinculo have of Caliban in the play. Other colonization-related themes are raised by Gonzalo's description of his Utopia, from lines 145 to 162 in scene 1. Gonzalo's speech recalls many of Thomas More's ideas from his book Utopia, and summons up the spirit of Renaissance political idealism with his ideas about reform. These topics were particularly relevant at the time of the play, because of New World colonization, and Europeans finally had the chance to start new governments and societies that reflected these idealistic tenets. But, Gonzalo's imagining is also self-contradictory and impractical, as Antonio and Sebastian are quick to notice; and perhaps this is Shakespeare's statement about the naivete of Utopian thought in general"}

SCENE II. _Another part of the island._ _Enter CALIBAN with a burden of wood. A noise of thunder heard._ _Cal._ All the infections that the sun sucks up From bogs, fens, flats, on Prosper fall, and make him By inch-meal a disease! His spirits hear me, And yet I needs must curse. But they'll nor pinch, Fright me with urchin-shows, pitch me i' the mire, 5 Nor lead me, like a firebrand, in the dark Out of my way, unless he bid 'em: but For every trifle are they set upon me; Sometime like apes, that mow and chatter at me, And after bite me; then like hedgehogs, which 10 Lie tumbling in my barefoot way, and mount Their pricks at my footfall; sometime am I All wound with adders, who with cloven tongues Do hiss me into madness. _Enter TRINCULO._ Lo, now, lo! Here comes a spirit of his, and to torment me 15 For bringing wood in slowly. I'll fall flat; Perchance he will not mind me. _Trin._ Here's neither bush nor shrub, to bear off any weather at all, and another storm brewing; I hear it sing i' the wind: yond same black cloud, yond huge one, looks 20 like a foul bombard that would shed his liquor. If it should thunder as it did before, I know not where to hide my head: yond same cloud cannot choose but fall by pailfuls. What have we here? a man or a fish? dead or alive? A fish: he smells like a fish; a very ancient and fish-like smell; a kind 25 of not of the newest Poor-John. A strange fish! Were I in England now, as once I was, and had but this fish painted, not a holiday fool there but would give a piece of silver: there would this monster make a man; any strange beast there makes a man: when they will not give a doit to 30 relieve a lame beggar, they will lay out ten to see a dead Indian. Legged like a man! and his fins like arms! Warm o' my troth! I do now let loose my opinion; hold it no longer: this is no fish, but an islander, that hath lately suffered by a thunderbolt. [_Thunder._] Alas, the storm is come 35 again! my best way is to creep under his gaberdine; there is no other shelter hereabout: misery acquaints a man with strange bed-fellows. I will here shroud till the dregs of the storm be past. _Enter STEPHANO, singing: a bottle in his hand._ _Ste._ I shall no more to sea, to sea, 40 Here shall I die a-shore,-- This is a very scurvy tune to sing at a man's funeral: well, here's my comfort. [_Drinks._ [_Sings._ The master, the swabber, the boatswain, and I, The gunner, and his mate, 45 Loved Mall, Meg, and Marian, and Margery, But none of us cared for Kate; For she had a tongue with a tang, Would cry to a sailor, Go hang! She loved not the savour of tar nor of pitch; 50 Yet a tailor might scratch her where'er she did itch. Then, to sea, boys, and let her go hang! This is a scurvy tune too: but here's my comfort. [_Drinks._ _Cal._ Do not torment me:--O! _Ste._ What's the matter? Have we devils here? Do 55 you put tricks upon 's with savages and men of Ind, ha? I have not scaped drowning, to be afeard now of your four legs; for it hath been said, As proper a man as ever went on four legs cannot make him give ground; and it shall be said so again, while Stephano breathes at's nostrils. 60 _Cal._ The spirit torments me:--O! _Ste._ This is some monster of the isle with four legs, who hath got, as I take it, an ague. Where the devil should he learn our language? I will give him some relief, if it be but for that. If I can recover him, and keep him tame, and 65 get to Naples with him, he's a present for any emperor that ever trod on neat's-leather. _Cal._ Do not torment me, prithee; I'll bring my wood home faster. _Ste._ He's in his fit now, and does not talk after the 70 wisest. He shall taste of my bottle: if he have never drunk wine afore, it will go near to remove his fit. If I can recover him, and keep him tame, I will not take too much for him; he shall pay for him that hath him, and that soundly. _Cal._ Thou dost me yet but little hurt; thou wilt anon, I 75 know it by thy trembling: now Prosper works upon thee. _Ste._ Come on your ways; open your mouth; here is that which will give language to you, cat: open your mouth; this will shake your shaking, I can tell you, and that soundly: you cannot tell who's your friend: open your chaps again. 80 _Trin._ I should know that voice: it should be--but he is drowned; and these are devils:--O defend me! _Ste._ Four legs and two voices,--a most delicate monster! His forward voice, now, is to speak well of his friend; his backward voice is to utter foul speeches and to detract. 85 If all the wine in my bottle will recover him, I will help his ague. Come:--Amen! I will pour some in thy other mouth. _Trin._ Stephano! _Ste._ Doth thy other mouth call me? Mercy, mercy! 90 This is a devil, and no monster: I will leave him; I have no long spoon. _Trin._ Stephano! If thou beest Stephano, touch me, and speak to me; for I am Trinculo,--be not afeard,--thy good friend Trinculo. 95 _Ste._ If thou beest Trinculo, come forth: I'll pull thee by the lesser legs: if any be Trinculo's legs, these are they. Thou art very Trinculo indeed! How earnest thou to be the siege of this moon-calf? can he vent Trinculos? _Trin._ I took him to be killed with a thunder-stroke. 100 But art thou not drowned, Stephano? I hope, now, thou art not drowned. Is the storm overblown? I hid me under the dead moon-calf's gaberdine for fear of the storm. And art thou living, Stephano? O Stephano, two Neapolitans scaped! 105 _Ste._ Prithee, do not turn me about; my stomach is not constant. _Cal._ [_aside_] These be fine things, an if they be not sprites. That's a brave god, and bears celestial liquor: I will kneel to him. 110 _Ste._ How didst thou 'scape? How camest thou hither? swear, by this bottle, how thou camest hither. I escaped upon a butt of sack, which the sailors heaved o'erboard, by this bottle! which I made of the bark of a tree with mine own hands, since I was cast ashore. 115 _Cal._ I'll swear, upon that bottle, to be thy true subject; for the liquor is not earthly. _Ste._ Here; swear, then, how thou escapedst. _Trin._ Swum ashore, man, like a duck: I can swim like a duck, I'll be sworn. 120 _Ste._ Here, kiss the book. Though thou canst swim like a duck, thou art made like a goose. _Trin._ O Stephano, hast any more of this? _Ste._ The whole butt, man: my cellar is in a rock by the sea-side, where my wine is hid. How now, moon-calf! 125 how does thine ague? _Cal._ Hast thou not dropp'd from heaven? _Ste._ Out o' the moon, I do assure thee: I was the man i' the moon when time was. _Cal._ I have seen thee in her, and I do adore thee: 130 My mistress show'd me thee, and thy dog, and thy bush. _Ste._ Come, swear to that; kiss the book: I will furnish it anon with new contents: swear. _Trin._ By this good light, this is a very shallow monster! I afeard of him! A very weak monster! The 135 man i' the moon! A most poor credulous monster! Well drawn, monster, in good sooth! _Cal._ I'll show thee every fertile inch o' th' island; And I will kiss thy foot: I prithee, be my god. _Trin._ By this light, a most perfidious and drunken 140 monster! when's god's asleep, he'll rob his bottle. _Cal._ I'll kiss thy foot; I'll swear myself thy subject. _Ste._ Come on, then; down, and swear. _Trin._ I shall laugh myself to death at this puppy-headed monster. A most scurvy monster! I could find in 145 my heart to beat him,-- _Ste._ Come, kiss. _Trin._ But that the poor monster's in drink: an abominable monster! _Cal._ I'll show thee the best springs; I'll pluck thee berries; 150 I'll fish for thee, and get thee wood enough. A plague upon the tyrant that I serve! I'll bear him no more sticks, but follow thee, Thou wondrous man. _Trin._ A most ridiculous monster, to make a wonder 155 of a poor drunkard! _Cal._ I prithee, let me bring thee where crabs grow; And I with my long nails will dig thee pig-nuts; Show thee a jay's nest, and instruct thee how To snare the nimble marmoset; I'll bring thee 160 To clustering filberts, and sometimes I'll get thee Young scamels from the rock. Wilt thou go with me? _Ste._ I prithee now, lead the way, without any more talking. Trinculo, the king and all our company else being drowned, we will inherit here: here; bear my bottle: fellow 165 Trinculo, we'll fill him by and by again. _Cal. sings drunkenly._] Farewell, master; farewell, farewell! _Trin._ A howling monster; a drunken monster! _Cal._ No more dams I'll make for fish; Nor fetch in firing 170 At requiring; Nor scrape trencher, nor wash dish: 'Ban, 'Ban, Cacaliban Has a new master:--get a new man. Freedom, hey-day! hey-day, freedom! freedom, hey-day, 175 freedom! _Ste._ O brave monster! Lead the way. [_Exeunt._ Notes: II, 2. 4: _nor_] F1 F2. _not_ F3 F4. 15: _and_] _now_ Pope. _sent_ Edd. conj. (so Dryden). 21: _foul_] _full_ Upton conj. 35: [Thunder] Capell. 38: _dregs_] _drench_ Collier MS. 40: SCENE III. Pope. [a bottle in his hand] Capell.] 46: _and Marian_] _Mirian_ Pope. 56: _savages_] _salvages_ Ff. 60: _at's nostrils_] Edd. _at 'nostrils_ F1. _at nostrils_ F2 F3 F4. _at his nostrils_ Pope. 78: _you, cat_] _you Cat_ Ff. _a cat_ Hanmer. _your cat_ Edd. conj. 84: _well_] F1 om. F2 F3 F4. 115, 116: Steevens prints as verse, _I'll ... thy True ... earthly._ 118: _swear, then, how thou escapedst_] _swear then: how escapedst thou?_ Pope. 119: _Swum_] _Swom_ Ff. 131: _and thy dog, and thy bush_] _thy dog and bush_ Steevens. 133: _new_] F1. _the new_ F2 F3 F4. 135: _weak_] F1. _shallow_ F2 F3 F4. 138: _island_] F1. _isle_ F2 F3 F4. 150-154, 157-162, printed as verse by Pope (after Dryden). 162: _scamels_] _shamois_ Theobald. _seamalls, stannels_ id. conj. 163: Ste.] F1. Cal. F2 F3 F4. 165: Before _here; bear my bottle_ Capell inserts [To Cal.]. See note (XII). 172: _trencher_] Pope (after Dryden). _trenchering_ Ff. 175: _hey-day_] Rowe. _high-day_ Ff.

act ii, Scene 2

https://web.archive.org/web/20210309152602/https://www.gradesaver.com/the-tempest/study-guide/summary-act-ii

Caliban curses Prospero, as another storm approaches the island; he takes the storm as a sign that Prospero is up to mischief, and hides at the approach of what he fears is one of Prospero's punishing spirits. Trinculo, Alonso's court jester, finds Caliban lying still on the ground and covered with a cloak, and figures him to be a "dead Indian"; but, the storm continues to approach, so he also hides himself, using Caliban's cloak as a shelter, and flattening himself on the ground beside Caliban's prostrate form. Alonso's drunken butler, Stephano, enters, drunk and singing, and stumbles upon the strange sight of the two men under the cloak; he figures, in his drunken stupor, that Trinculo and Caliban make a four-legged monster. Caliban,in his delirium, thinks that Stephano is one of Prospero's minions, sent to torment him; Stephano thinks a drink of wine will cure Caliban of what ails him, and bit by bit, gets Caliban drunk as well. It takes Stephano a while to recognize his old friend, Trinculo, whom Caliban seems to be ignoring. Because of Stephano's generosity with his "celestial liquor," Caliban takes him to be some sort of benevolent god; much to Trinculo's disbelief, Caliban actually offers his service to Stephano, forsaking the "tyrant" Prospero. Stephano accepts the offer.

Act 2 begins with a speech by Gonzalo that sounds similar to Claudius' speech to Hamlet in Act 1 of that play. Gonzalo tries to console the king over the loss of his son, saying that his "hint of woe is common," and speaking about all the people who share his "theme of woe". In Hamlet, Claudius bandies about similar language when soothing Hamlet, mentioning the "common theme" of paternal death, and begging him to cast off the "woe" that burdens him. The tone of these two speeches, also, is similar; both, though directed toward one person, are made before a larger audience of listeners, and so are somewhat formal, impersonal, and diplomatic in language and form, in order to sound proper and impress their point on those who are not being directly addressed. However, Alonso responds badly to Gonzalo's good-hearted and carefully-worded attempt to cheer him up; "he receives comfort like cold porridge" is the simile that Sebastian uses to describe the King's reaction, and the comparison highlights King Alonso's sober, aloof, and disconsolate personality. In the first scene of Sebastian and Antonio first display a mischievous skill with language which they use to mock Gonzalo, then the nobleman Adrian. Sebastian teases the somewhat long-winded but good-hearted councilor by saying that Gonzalo is "winding up the watch of his wit, by and by, it will strike" when he begins another entreaty to the king. When Gonzalo opens his mouth again, he is answered with Sebastian saying "one," as if Gonzalo had struck the hour, like a clock. Then, they change the subject of their puns to money; "what a spendthrift is he of his tongue," says Antonio, speaking of Gonzalo as if he were a character more akin to the very garrulous, somewhat foolish Polonius from Hamlet Gonzalo and Polonius hold the same position, of head councilor to the king, but is not the same wastrel of words that Polonius proved to be; he makes a few remarks in this act that are beside the point, like his statements about their garments being "fresh," but nothing that sounds so foolish as Polonius' "brevity is the soul of wit" speech in Act 2 of Hamlet. Antonio and Sebastian detach themselves from their party through their mocking wit. Adrian and Gonzalo try, in a levelheaded way, to both take stock of their situation, and hearten their party; they note the "subtle, tender, and delicate temperance" of the island, and report that "here is everything advantageous to life". Gonzalo becomes optimistic, making statements about how "lush and lusty the grass looks"; Antonio and Sebastian's replies to Gonzalo's benign remarks are distinctly negative, contradicting Gonzalo with claims that "the ground indeed is tawny," and that "he lies" in his positive assessments. In this act, notice how Sebastian and Antonio are thoroughly characterized as heedless, careless, harsh, and arrogant through their disregard for their fellows, their predicament, and through their constant bickering and insulting remarks. All of their character flaws that are exposed in this act are important in the later action, foreshadowing their backstabbing tendencies and their eventual comeuppance. Several allusions to The Aeneid are sprinkled throughout the play, Antonio and Sebastian's debate about the "widow Dido" and the uniqueness of Carthage among the most prominent of these. Although the Carthage/ Tunis debate is elusive, and perhaps nonsensical, Gonzalo is correct that "Tunis, sir, was Carthage," because Tunis became the political and commercial center of North Africa after Carthage,as it is described in The Aeneid, was destroyed. The Tempest inhabits, roughly, the same geographic realm as Virgil's work; Alonso's ship, before the shipwreck, was following the same route that Aeneas took from Carthage to Naples. The Aeneid raises issues about royal authority and political legitimacy that are also present in Shakespeare's work; and the allusions are, at the least, noteworthy because of the associations present during Shakespeare's time between the strong, intelligent, and powerful Queen Dido, and the equally strong, intelligent, and powerful Queen Elizabeth. Note the contrast in tone between Alonso's lament in lines 104-111 of scene 2, and Franscisco's answer to the king; Alonso's statement is somewhat crude in its metaphors, describing how the "stomach of sense" is being force-fed by having to listen to his friends' long-winded chatter. Francisco answers this complaint with elevated rhetoric, about how he saw Alonso's son "beat the surges under him" and "trod the water, whose enmity he flung aside"; Francisco's formalized description is more elegantly worded and image-laden than Alonso's, and the difference in language signifies a possible difference in knowledge and communicative abilities in the two characters. As in Act 1, there are a number of allusions to proverbs in this act as well, one of which appears in line 136. Rub the sore" is a phrase Gonzalo uses to tell Sebastian that his attempts to console the king do no more than aggravate the loss; and this phrase was a popular one during Shakespeare's time, and is much easier to understand than some of the more obscure and outmoded allusions that Shakespeare includes in his work. Once Antonio and Sebastian begin to conspire in scene 1, parallels with Macbeth begin to surface. My strong imagination sees a crown dropping upon thy head," Antonio says to his brother, creating an image similar to the one that the three witches describe for Macbeth in Act 1, scene 3 of Macbeth. The presence of a conspiracy against the throne and a plot of murder creates another similarity; and Sebastian reacts to his brother's ambitious vision as Macbeth reacts to the witches-- that is, with thoughts of murder. Before Sebastian is convinced to follow his brother's plan, he exclaims that he is "standing water"; the statement is a metaphor, but the words are somewhat vague in their connotation. What Sebastian means with this comparison is that he is waiting to be moved in some direction, and will remain still, or "standing," until he finds his purpose and motivation. The phrase could be alluding to another proverbial saying, but exactly which saying is being referred to is unclear. Act 2 returns to the themes of political legitimacy, source of power, and usurpation that arose in the first act. While Prospero firmly believed that the only legitimate power was the power that came from one's knowledge and hard work, Antonio believes that the power he usurped from his brother is legitimate, because he deserved it more and had the skill to wrestle it away. Look how well my garments sit upon me, much feater than before," Antonio brags to Sebastian; Antonio's lack of remorse over his crime, and his arrogant claim that his power is just because he uses it better, foreshadow a confrontation with his brother Prospero, and an eventual fall from this ill-gained power. However, Ariel's involvement in this conspiracy shows it to be part of Prospero's plan; Ariel makes all but Antonio and Sebastian go to sleep, and then causes conspiratorial seriousness to settle on them as well. The situation is created as part of Prospero's project, to reinforce his idea of his brothers as villains, and act as Prospero "foresees through his art" that they will. His project dies" if Antonio and Sebastian's deviant plot is not made; and here, Prospero again shows himself to be a manipulator of the play's events, influencing the course of the play from within. There is great dramatic irony in this situation, and in the fact that Prospero causes his brothers to do the very things that he condemns them for. The most important literary elements in the second scene are probably those that are used to refer to Caliban. Upon finding Caliban lying on the ground, Trinculo calls him a "dead Indian"; indeed, in Elizabethan times, natives were brought back to England from foreign lands, and their captors could earn a great deal of money exhibiting them in London. Trinculo's speech is significant because he describes Caliban as a "fish," and a "strange beast," showing his Western contempt and lack of understanding of a person with a different skin color than his own. Stephano assumes that Caliban is a "mooncalf," or a monstrosity, the term alluding to a folk tale of the time. Although Caliban asserted his natural authority over the island in Act 1, Prospero's usurpation of Caliban's power is negated by Caliban's portrayal as a savage seeking a new master. Caliban proves Prospero's view of him, as a natural servant, to be true, when Caliban immediately adopts Stephano as his new master upon Stephano's sudden appearance. Caliban, as a native, is seen as a "monster," not only by Prospero, but by Trinculo and Stephano also; their contempt for dark-skinned Caliban is analogous to Europeans' view of "natives" in the West Indies and other colonies, and Shakespeare's treatment of Caliban provides some interesting social commentary on colonization. In fact, when this play appeared in the First Folio of Shakespeare's work, shortly after Shakespeare's death in the early 17th century, Caliban's character description marks him as "a savage and deformed slave," despite glimpses of his noble character in the play. As a representation of a man apart from Western society, Caliban is seen as a contemptuous character because of prejudices of Shakespeare's time; these Elizabethan-period social prejudices also belong to many of the characters in the play, and are the prime determinant of the negative view that Prospero, Stephano, and Trinculo have of Caliban in the play. Other colonization-related themes are raised by Gonzalo's description of his Utopia, from lines 145 to 162 in scene 1. Gonzalo's speech recalls many of Thomas More's ideas from his book Utopia, and summons up the spirit of Renaissance political idealism with his ideas about reform. These topics were particularly relevant at the time of the play, because of New World colonization, and Europeans finally had the chance to start new governments and societies that reflected these idealistic tenets. But, Gonzalo's imagining is also self-contradictory and impractical, as Antonio and Sebastian are quick to notice; and perhaps this is Shakespeare's statement about the naivete of Utopian thought in general

sparknotes

all_chapterized_books/28054-chapters/15.txt

finished_summaries/sparknotes/The Brothers Karamazov/section_3_part_2.txt

The Brothers Karamazov.book 3.chapter 2

book 3, chapter 2

{"name": "book 3, Chapter 2", "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20210305110438/https://www.sparknotes.com/lit/brothersk/section4/", "summary": "Stinking Lizaveta The girl whom Grigory sees giving birth is Lizaveta, often called \"stinking Lizaveta. Lizaveta is extremely slow-witted and cannot talk. The people of the town are appalled that someone has seduced this helpless young girl, and they agree that the only man vile enough to do so is Fyodor Pavlovich. Grigory and his wife adopt the baby, and Fyodor Pavlovich names him Smerdyakov", "analysis": ""}

Chapter II. Lizaveta There was one circumstance which struck Grigory particularly, and confirmed a very unpleasant and revolting suspicion. This Lizaveta was a dwarfish creature, "not five foot within a wee bit," as many of the pious old women said pathetically about her, after her death. Her broad, healthy, red face had a look of blank idiocy and the fixed stare in her eyes was unpleasant, in spite of their meek expression. She wandered about, summer and winter alike, barefooted, wearing nothing but a hempen smock. Her coarse, almost black hair curled like lamb's wool, and formed a sort of huge cap on her head. It was always crusted with mud, and had leaves, bits of stick, and shavings clinging to it, as she always slept on the ground and in the dirt. Her father, a homeless, sickly drunkard, called Ilya, had lost everything and lived many years as a workman with some well-to-do tradespeople. Her mother had long been dead. Spiteful and diseased, Ilya used to beat Lizaveta inhumanly whenever she returned to him. But she rarely did so, for every one in the town was ready to look after her as being an idiot, and so specially dear to God. Ilya's employers, and many others in the town, especially of the tradespeople, tried to clothe her better, and always rigged her out with high boots and sheepskin coat for the winter. But, although she allowed them to dress her up without resisting, she usually went away, preferably to the cathedral porch, and taking off all that had been given her--kerchief, sheepskin, skirt or boots--she left them there and walked away barefoot in her smock as before. It happened on one occasion that a new governor of the province, making a tour of inspection in our town, saw Lizaveta, and was wounded in his tenderest susceptibilities. And though he was told she was an idiot, he pronounced that for a young woman of twenty to wander about in nothing but a smock was a breach of the proprieties, and must not occur again. But the governor went his way, and Lizaveta was left as she was. At last her father died, which made her even more acceptable in the eyes of the religious persons of the town, as an orphan. In fact, every one seemed to like her; even the boys did not tease her, and the boys of our town, especially the schoolboys, are a mischievous set. She would walk into strange houses, and no one drove her away. Every one was kind to her and gave her something. If she were given a copper, she would take it, and at once drop it in the alms-jug of the church or prison. If she were given a roll or bun in the market, she would hand it to the first child she met. Sometimes she would stop one of the richest ladies in the town and give it to her, and the lady would be pleased to take it. She herself never tasted anything but black bread and water. If she went into an expensive shop, where there were costly goods or money lying about, no one kept watch on her, for they knew that if she saw thousands of roubles overlooked by them, she would not have touched a farthing. She scarcely ever went to church. She slept either in the church porch or climbed over a hurdle (there are many hurdles instead of fences to this day in our town) into a kitchen garden. She used at least once a week to turn up "at home," that is at the house of her father's former employers, and in the winter went there every night, and slept either in the passage or the cowhouse. People were amazed that she could stand such a life, but she was accustomed to it, and, although she was so tiny, she was of a robust constitution. Some of the townspeople declared that she did all this only from pride, but that is hardly credible. She could hardly speak, and only from time to time uttered an inarticulate grunt. How could she have been proud? It happened one clear, warm, moonlight night in September (many years ago) five or six drunken revelers were returning from the club at a very late hour, according to our provincial notions. They passed through the "back- way," which led between the back gardens of the houses, with hurdles on either side. This way leads out on to the bridge over the long, stinking pool which we were accustomed to call a river. Among the nettles and burdocks under the hurdle our revelers saw Lizaveta asleep. They stopped to look at her, laughing, and began jesting with unbridled licentiousness. It occurred to one young gentleman to make the whimsical inquiry whether any one could possibly look upon such an animal as a woman, and so forth.... They all pronounced with lofty repugnance that it was impossible. But Fyodor Pavlovitch, who was among them, sprang forward and declared that it was by no means impossible, and that, indeed, there was a certain piquancy about it, and so on.... It is true that at that time he was overdoing his part as a buffoon. He liked to put himself forward and entertain the company, ostensibly on equal terms, of course, though in reality he was on a servile footing with them. It was just at the time when he had received the news of his first wife's death in Petersburg, and, with crape upon his hat, was drinking and behaving so shamelessly that even the most reckless among us were shocked at the sight of him. The revelers, of course, laughed at this unexpected opinion; and one of them even began challenging him to act upon it. The others repelled the idea even more emphatically, although still with the utmost hilarity, and at last they went on their way. Later on, Fyodor Pavlovitch swore that he had gone with them, and perhaps it was so, no one knows for certain, and no one ever knew. But five or six months later, all the town was talking, with intense and sincere indignation, of Lizaveta's condition, and trying to find out who was the miscreant who had wronged her. Then suddenly a terrible rumor was all over the town that this miscreant was no other than Fyodor Pavlovitch. Who set the rumor going? Of that drunken band five had left the town and the only one still among us was an elderly and much respected civil councilor, the father of grown-up daughters, who could hardly have spread the tale, even if there had been any foundation for it. But rumor pointed straight at Fyodor Pavlovitch, and persisted in pointing at him. Of course this was no great grievance to him: he would not have troubled to contradict a set of tradespeople. In those days he was proud, and did not condescend to talk except in his own circle of the officials and nobles, whom he entertained so well. At the time, Grigory stood up for his master vigorously. He provoked quarrels and altercations in defense of him and succeeded in bringing some people round to his side. "It's the wench's own fault," he asserted, and the culprit was Karp, a dangerous convict, who had escaped from prison and whose name was well known to us, as he had hidden in our town. This conjecture sounded plausible, for it was remembered that Karp had been in the neighborhood just at that time in the autumn, and had robbed three people. But this affair and all the talk about it did not estrange popular sympathy from the poor idiot. She was better looked after than ever. A well-to-do merchant's widow named Kondratyev arranged to take her into her house at the end of April, meaning not to let her go out until after the confinement. They kept a constant watch over her, but in spite of their vigilance she escaped on the very last day, and made her way into Fyodor Pavlovitch's garden. How, in her condition, she managed to climb over the high, strong fence remained a mystery. Some maintained that she must have been lifted over by somebody; others hinted at something more uncanny. The most likely explanation is that it happened naturally--that Lizaveta, accustomed to clambering over hurdles to sleep in gardens, had somehow managed to climb this fence, in spite of her condition, and had leapt down, injuring herself. Grigory rushed to Marfa and sent her to Lizaveta, while he ran to fetch an old midwife who lived close by. They saved the baby, but Lizaveta died at dawn. Grigory took the baby, brought it home, and making his wife sit down, put it on her lap. "A child of God--an orphan is akin to all," he said, "and to us above others. Our little lost one has sent us this, who has come from the devil's son and a holy innocent. Nurse him and weep no more." So Marfa brought up the child. He was christened Pavel, to which people were not slow in adding Fyodorovitch (son of Fyodor). Fyodor Pavlovitch did not object to any of this, and thought it amusing, though he persisted vigorously in denying his responsibility. The townspeople were pleased at his adopting the foundling. Later on, Fyodor Pavlovitch invented a surname for the child, calling him Smerdyakov, after his mother's nickname. So this Smerdyakov became Fyodor Pavlovitch's second servant, and was living in the lodge with Grigory and Marfa at the time our story begins. He was employed as cook. I ought to say something of this Smerdyakov, but I am ashamed of keeping my readers' attention so long occupied with these common menials, and I will go back to my story, hoping to say more of Smerdyakov in the course of it.

book 3, Chapter 2

https://web.archive.org/web/20210305110438/https://www.sparknotes.com/lit/brothersk/section4/

Stinking Lizaveta The girl whom Grigory sees giving birth is Lizaveta, often called "stinking Lizaveta. Lizaveta is extremely slow-witted and cannot talk. The people of the town are appalled that someone has seduced this helpless young girl, and they agree that the only man vile enough to do so is Fyodor Pavlovich. Grigory and his wife adopt the baby, and Fyodor Pavlovich names him Smerdyakov

shmoop

all_chapterized_books/161-chapters/14.txt

finished_summaries/shmoop/Sense and Sensibility/section_13_part_0.txt

Sense and Sensibility.chapter 14

chapter 14

{"name": "Chapter 14", "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20210421140324/https://www.shmoop.com/study-guides/literature/sense-and-sensibility/summary/chapter-14", "summary": "Mrs. Jennings continues to be irritatingly curious about Colonel Brandon's sudden disappearance to London. She keeps talking and talking about what could have happened to him - she thinks it's money matters relating to his estate at Delaford. Meanwhile, Elinor is positive that Willoughby and Marianne are engaged, but hasn't heard anything about it from either of them. She wonders if it could have to do with the fact that Willoughby's not rich - he has some money, but not enough to support his lifestyle. Everything about their relationship makes it seem as though Willoughby cares for Marianne - particularly his loving behavior to her and to all of them. He loves Barton Cottage as though it's his own home. One evening about a week later, he shows his devotion to their home by vehemently opposing Mrs. Dashwood's plans to revamp the cottage in the spring. Willoughby fervently asserts that the cottage is practically perfect in every way - he even says that if he could rebuild his own house, he would copy Barton Cottage exactly, in the hopes that he could be as happy there as he is in the Dashwood home. Mrs. Dashwood reassures him that she'll make no changes, and he makes the family promise that they won't change, either. Willoughby promises to come to dinner at the cottage the next evening.", "analysis": ""}

The sudden termination of Colonel Brandon's visit at the park, with his steadiness in concealing its cause, filled the mind, and raised the wonder of Mrs. Jennings for two or three days; she was a great wonderer, as every one must be who takes a very lively interest in all the comings and goings of all their acquaintance. She wondered, with little intermission what could be the reason of it; was sure there must be some bad news, and thought over every kind of distress that could have befallen him, with a fixed determination that he should not escape them all. "Something very melancholy must be the matter, I am sure," said she. "I could see it in his face. Poor man! I am afraid his circumstances may be bad. The estate at Delaford was never reckoned more than two thousand a year, and his brother left everything sadly involved. I do think he must have been sent for about money matters, for what else can it be? I wonder whether it is so. I would give anything to know the truth of it. Perhaps it is about Miss Williams and, by the bye, I dare say it is, because he looked so conscious when I mentioned her. May be she is ill in town; nothing in the world more likely, for I have a notion she is always rather sickly. I would lay any wager it is about Miss Williams. It is not so very likely he should be distressed in his circumstances NOW, for he is a very prudent man, and to be sure must have cleared the estate by this time. I wonder what it can be! May be his sister is worse at Avignon, and has sent for him over. His setting off in such a hurry seems very like it. Well, I wish him out of all his trouble with all my heart, and a good wife into the bargain." So wondered, so talked Mrs. Jennings. Her opinion varying with every fresh conjecture, and all seeming equally probable as they arose. Elinor, though she felt really interested in the welfare of Colonel Brandon, could not bestow all the wonder on his going so suddenly away, which Mrs. Jennings was desirous of her feeling; for besides that the circumstance did not in her opinion justify such lasting amazement or variety of speculation, her wonder was otherwise disposed of. It was engrossed by the extraordinary silence of her sister and Willoughby on the subject, which they must know to be peculiarly interesting to them all. As this silence continued, every day made it appear more strange and more incompatible with the disposition of both. Why they should not openly acknowledge to her mother and herself, what their constant behaviour to each other declared to have taken place, Elinor could not imagine. She could easily conceive that marriage might not be immediately in their power; for though Willoughby was independent, there was no reason to believe him rich. His estate had been rated by Sir John at about six or seven hundred a year; but he lived at an expense to which that income could hardly be equal, and he had himself often complained of his poverty. But for this strange kind of secrecy maintained by them relative to their engagement, which in fact concealed nothing at all, she could not account; and it was so wholly contradictory to their general opinions and practice, that a doubt sometimes entered her mind of their being really engaged, and this doubt was enough to prevent her making any inquiry of Marianne. Nothing could be more expressive of attachment to them all, than Willoughby's behaviour. To Marianne it had all the distinguishing tenderness which a lover's heart could give, and to the rest of the family it was the affectionate attention of a son and a brother. The cottage seemed to be considered and loved by him as his home; many more of his hours were spent there than at Allenham; and if no general engagement collected them at the park, the exercise which called him out in the morning was almost certain of ending there, where the rest of the day was spent by himself at the side of Marianne, and by his favourite pointer at her feet. One evening in particular, about a week after Colonel Brandon left the country, his heart seemed more than usually open to every feeling of attachment to the objects around him; and on Mrs. Dashwood's happening to mention her design of improving the cottage in the spring, he warmly opposed every alteration of a place which affection had established as perfect with him. "What!" he exclaimed--"Improve this dear cottage! No. THAT I will never consent to. Not a stone must be added to its walls, not an inch to its size, if my feelings are regarded." "Do not be alarmed," said Miss Dashwood, "nothing of the kind will be done; for my mother will never have money enough to attempt it." "I am heartily glad of it," he cried. "May she always be poor, if she can employ her riches no better." "Thank you, Willoughby. But you may be assured that I would not sacrifice one sentiment of local attachment of yours, or of any one whom I loved, for all the improvements in the world. Depend upon it that whatever unemployed sum may remain, when I make up my accounts in the spring, I would even rather lay it uselessly by than dispose of it in a manner so painful to you. But are you really so attached to this place as to see no defect in it?" "I am," said he. "To me it is faultless. Nay, more, I consider it as the only form of building in which happiness is attainable, and were I rich enough I would instantly pull Combe down, and build it up again in the exact plan of this cottage." "With dark narrow stairs and a kitchen that smokes, I suppose," said Elinor. "Yes," cried he in the same eager tone, "with all and every thing belonging to it;--in no one convenience or INconvenience about it, should the least variation be perceptible. Then, and then only, under such a roof, I might perhaps be as happy at Combe as I have been at Barton." "I flatter myself," replied Elinor, "that even under the disadvantage of better rooms and a broader staircase, you will hereafter find your own house as faultless as you now do this." "There certainly are circumstances," said Willoughby, "which might greatly endear it to me; but this place will always have one claim of my affection, which no other can possibly share." Mrs. Dashwood looked with pleasure at Marianne, whose fine eyes were fixed so expressively on Willoughby, as plainly denoted how well she understood him. "How often did I wish," added he, "when I was at Allenham this time twelvemonth, that Barton cottage were inhabited! I never passed within view of it without admiring its situation, and grieving that no one should live in it. How little did I then think that the very first news I should hear from Mrs. Smith, when I next came into the country, would be that Barton cottage was taken: and I felt an immediate satisfaction and interest in the event, which nothing but a kind of prescience of what happiness I should experience from it, can account for. Must it not have been so, Marianne?" speaking to her in a lowered voice. Then continuing his former tone, he said, "And yet this house you would spoil, Mrs. Dashwood? You would rob it of its simplicity by imaginary improvement! and this dear parlour in which our acquaintance first began, and in which so many happy hours have been since spent by us together, you would degrade to the condition of a common entrance, and every body would be eager to pass through the room which has hitherto contained within itself more real accommodation and comfort than any other apartment of the handsomest dimensions in the world could possibly afford." Mrs. Dashwood again assured him that no alteration of the kind should be attempted. "You are a good woman," he warmly replied. "Your promise makes me easy. Extend it a little farther, and it will make me happy. Tell me that not only your house will remain the same, but that I shall ever find you and yours as unchanged as your dwelling; and that you will always consider me with the kindness which has made everything belonging to you so dear to me." The promise was readily given, and Willoughby's behaviour during the whole of the evening declared at once his affection and happiness. "Shall we see you tomorrow to dinner?" said Mrs. Dashwood, when he was leaving them. "I do not ask you to come in the morning, for we must walk to the park, to call on Lady Middleton." He engaged to be with them by four o'clock.

Chapter 14

https://web.archive.org/web/20210421140324/https://www.shmoop.com/study-guides/literature/sense-and-sensibility/summary/chapter-14

Mrs. Jennings continues to be irritatingly curious about Colonel Brandon's sudden disappearance to London. She keeps talking and talking about what could have happened to him - she thinks it's money matters relating to his estate at Delaford. Meanwhile, Elinor is positive that Willoughby and Marianne are engaged, but hasn't heard anything about it from either of them. She wonders if it could have to do with the fact that Willoughby's not rich - he has some money, but not enough to support his lifestyle. Everything about their relationship makes it seem as though Willoughby cares for Marianne - particularly his loving behavior to her and to all of them. He loves Barton Cottage as though it's his own home. One evening about a week later, he shows his devotion to their home by vehemently opposing Mrs. Dashwood's plans to revamp the cottage in the spring. Willoughby fervently asserts that the cottage is practically perfect in every way - he even says that if he could rebuild his own house, he would copy Barton Cottage exactly, in the hopes that he could be as happy there as he is in the Dashwood home. Mrs. Dashwood reassures him that she'll make no changes, and he makes the family promise that they won't change, either. Willoughby promises to come to dinner at the cottage the next evening.

gradesaver

all_chapterized_books/1232-chapters/10.txt

finished_summaries/gradesaver/The Prince/section_3_part_1.txt

The Prince.chapter x

chapter x

{"name": "Chapter X", "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20210417004655/https://www.gradesaver.com/the-prince/study-guide/summary-section-4-chapters-x-xi", "summary": "Chapter X is entitled \"How to Measure the Strength of Any Prince's State. Here Machiavelli adopts a decidedly militaristic tone. Princes, he writes, are better off when they can assemble an army and stand up against attackers; once again, Cesare Borgia is cited as a perfect example. Machiavelli addresses the majority of this chapter to the other class of princes: \"those who can't take the field against their foes, but have to hide behind their walls and defend themselves there. What should these more vulnerable princes do. They should keep their cities well-fortified; they should ignore the rural areas and focus their defense efforts on the urban centers; and they should be careful not to earn the people's hatred. A prudent prince is able to keep his subjects loyal to him and in good spirits during a siege. The burden during a siege is often on the besieger; he can almost never afford to wage a siege and do nothing else for a year. Defense, therefore, can consist of slowing the attacker down, wearing him out. Machiavelli cites the cities in Germany as examples of good fortification. These cities have moats, walls, artillery, public warehouses of food, drink, and fuel, and large supplies of raw materials in reserve to keep workers busy and economies going during a siege", "analysis": "Leo was a Medici, and Machiavelli's compliment of him is obviously half-hearted; it seems to barely disguise Machiavelli's contempt for the Church. It is not for nothing that Machiavelli is so often dubbed a \"secular\" humanist: his focus on the free will of princes, the ways in which their own characters and decisions dictate the success or failure of their reigns, implicitly rejects any notion of divine rule. But The Prince was written for a Medici, in part as a way of currying favor with the family, and Machiavelli therefore had to be sure to refer to Pope Leo only in glowing terms. And yet, when one compares his praise of the pope to his praise of other political leaders, the former pales in comparison. The \"countless other talents\" are not enumerated, and there is more emphasis on the greatness of \"predecessors\" than on that of the Pope himself. It is also intriguing that Machiavelli should follow a chapter explicitly devoted to fortifying cities and other such military matters with one on ecclesiastical states - which, he notes, find such strength in religion that they hardly need to be unified or defended by force. \"These are the only princes,\" Machiavelli notes, \"who have states that they do not defend and subjects that they do not govern; the states, though undefended, are never taken from them, and the subjects, though ungoverned, neither protest, not try to break away, nor could revolt if they had a mind to.\" Machiavelli continues with a dismissal of such states, though admittedly \"happy and safe governments,\" as undeserving of his interest: \"But since they are ruled by a heavenly providence to which human reason cannot reach, I shall say nothing of them. Instituted as they are by God, and sustained by him, it would be a rash and imprudent man who ventured to discuss them.\" Machiavelli is drawing a clear distinction between that which men can control and that which they cannot - a topic that he delves into at greater length later in The Prince. For now, there is much to be considered in his assertion that the subjects of an ecclesiastical state could not \"revolt if they had a mind to.\" Why not? On the one hand, Machiavelli implicitly accepts the Church as a purveyor of divinity; these states are indeed \"instituted\" by God, and are thus beyond analysis. On the other hand, his earlier examination of various popes' political maneuvers and the machinations at play within the Church belies such an uncritical view. There also remains the following question: does Machiavelli distance himself from the Church as a subject of analysis and critique because it is divine and therefore beyond fault, or because he is uninterested in it? The focus of so much of The Prince - and a prevalent theme throughout the Renaissance - is reason. Machiavelli continually refers to the \"prudent\" prince; he outlines the choices that face a prince, and addresses decisions as if he were speaking of medicine - even going so far as to compare pre-emptive war to a doctor treating a malady before it has time to grow and worsen. Power, for Machiavelli, can be attained purely through the faculties of the mind. Yes, armies are necessary, friends in high places can help, and luck plays a role, but it takes reason to determine what kind of army to use, to know when and when not to rely on friends, to know who to trust, and to know how to harness the vicissitudes of fortune. When Machiavelli writes that \"human reason\" cannot reach a certain state or kingdom, he therefore may be delivering a not-so-veiled insult not to religion itself, but to the state. These hints are buttressed by Machiavelli's other writings. In his famous Discorsi, for example, Machiavelli lambasts the Church's role in politics, bemoaning its decadence and writing, \"And certainly, if the Christian religion had from the beginning been maintained according to the principles of its founder, the Christian states and republics would be much more united and happy than in fact they are.\" At the same time, Machiavelli does argue that religion deserves an importance place in society. To his mind, however, the Church abuses its status, and is guilty moreover of what is to him a cardinal sin: keeping Italy divided and stalling her unification."}

It is necessary to consider another point in examining the character of these principalities: that is, whether a prince has such power that, in case of need, he can support himself with his own resources, or whether he has always need of the assistance of others. And to make this quite clear I say that I consider those who are able to support themselves by their own resources who can, either by abundance of men or money, raise a sufficient army to join battle against any one who comes to attack them; and I consider those always to have need of others who cannot show themselves against the enemy in the field, but are forced to defend themselves by sheltering behind walls. The first case has been discussed, but we will speak of it again should it recur. In the second case one can say nothing except to encourage such princes to provision and fortify their towns, and not on any account to defend the country. And whoever shall fortify his town well, and shall have managed the other concerns of his subjects in the way stated above, and to be often repeated, will never be attacked without great caution, for men are always adverse to enterprises where difficulties can be seen, and it will be seen not to be an easy thing to attack one who has his town well fortified, and is not hated by his people. The cities of Germany are absolutely free, they own but little country around them, and they yield obedience to the emperor when it suits them, nor do they fear this or any other power they may have near them, because they are fortified in such a way that every one thinks the taking of them by assault would be tedious and difficult, seeing they have proper ditches and walls, they have sufficient artillery, and they always keep in public depots enough for one year's eating, drinking, and firing. And beyond this, to keep the people quiet and without loss to the state, they always have the means of giving work to the community in those labours that are the life and strength of the city, and on the pursuit of which the people are supported; they also hold military exercises in repute, and moreover have many ordinances to uphold them. Therefore, a prince who has a strong city, and had not made himself odious, will not be attacked, or if any one should attack he will only be driven off with disgrace; again, because that the affairs of this world are so changeable, it is almost impossible to keep an army a whole year in the field without being interfered with. And whoever should reply: If the people have property outside the city, and see it burnt, they will not remain patient, and the long siege and self-interest will make them forget their prince; to this I answer that a powerful and courageous prince will overcome all such difficulties by giving at one time hope to his subjects that the evil will not be for long, at another time fear of the cruelty of the enemy, then preserving himself adroitly from those subjects who seem to him to be too bold. Further, the enemy would naturally on his arrival at once burn and ruin the country at the time when the spirits of the people are still hot and ready for the defence; and, therefore, so much the less ought the prince to hesitate; because after a time, when spirits have cooled, the damage is already done, the ills are incurred, and there is no longer any remedy; and therefore they are so much the more ready to unite with their prince, he appearing to be under obligations to them now that their houses have been burnt and their possessions ruined in his defence. For it is the nature of men to be bound by the benefits they confer as much as by those they receive. Therefore, if everything is well considered, it will not be difficult for a wise prince to keep the minds of his citizens steadfast from first to last, when he does not fail to support and defend them.

Chapter X

https://web.archive.org/web/20210417004655/https://www.gradesaver.com/the-prince/study-guide/summary-section-4-chapters-x-xi

Chapter X is entitled "How to Measure the Strength of Any Prince's State. Here Machiavelli adopts a decidedly militaristic tone. Princes, he writes, are better off when they can assemble an army and stand up against attackers; once again, Cesare Borgia is cited as a perfect example. Machiavelli addresses the majority of this chapter to the other class of princes: "those who can't take the field against their foes, but have to hide behind their walls and defend themselves there. What should these more vulnerable princes do. They should keep their cities well-fortified; they should ignore the rural areas and focus their defense efforts on the urban centers; and they should be careful not to earn the people's hatred. A prudent prince is able to keep his subjects loyal to him and in good spirits during a siege. The burden during a siege is often on the besieger; he can almost never afford to wage a siege and do nothing else for a year. Defense, therefore, can consist of slowing the attacker down, wearing him out. Machiavelli cites the cities in Germany as examples of good fortification. These cities have moats, walls, artillery, public warehouses of food, drink, and fuel, and large supplies of raw materials in reserve to keep workers busy and economies going during a siege

Leo was a Medici, and Machiavelli's compliment of him is obviously half-hearted; it seems to barely disguise Machiavelli's contempt for the Church. It is not for nothing that Machiavelli is so often dubbed a "secular" humanist: his focus on the free will of princes, the ways in which their own characters and decisions dictate the success or failure of their reigns, implicitly rejects any notion of divine rule. But The Prince was written for a Medici, in part as a way of currying favor with the family, and Machiavelli therefore had to be sure to refer to Pope Leo only in glowing terms. And yet, when one compares his praise of the pope to his praise of other political leaders, the former pales in comparison. The "countless other talents" are not enumerated, and there is more emphasis on the greatness of "predecessors" than on that of the Pope himself. It is also intriguing that Machiavelli should follow a chapter explicitly devoted to fortifying cities and other such military matters with one on ecclesiastical states - which, he notes, find such strength in religion that they hardly need to be unified or defended by force. "These are the only princes," Machiavelli notes, "who have states that they do not defend and subjects that they do not govern; the states, though undefended, are never taken from them, and the subjects, though ungoverned, neither protest, not try to break away, nor could revolt if they had a mind to." Machiavelli continues with a dismissal of such states, though admittedly "happy and safe governments," as undeserving of his interest: "But since they are ruled by a heavenly providence to which human reason cannot reach, I shall say nothing of them. Instituted as they are by God, and sustained by him, it would be a rash and imprudent man who ventured to discuss them." Machiavelli is drawing a clear distinction between that which men can control and that which they cannot - a topic that he delves into at greater length later in The Prince. For now, there is much to be considered in his assertion that the subjects of an ecclesiastical state could not "revolt if they had a mind to." Why not? On the one hand, Machiavelli implicitly accepts the Church as a purveyor of divinity; these states are indeed "instituted" by God, and are thus beyond analysis. On the other hand, his earlier examination of various popes' political maneuvers and the machinations at play within the Church belies such an uncritical view. There also remains the following question: does Machiavelli distance himself from the Church as a subject of analysis and critique because it is divine and therefore beyond fault, or because he is uninterested in it? The focus of so much of The Prince - and a prevalent theme throughout the Renaissance - is reason. Machiavelli continually refers to the "prudent" prince; he outlines the choices that face a prince, and addresses decisions as if he were speaking of medicine - even going so far as to compare pre-emptive war to a doctor treating a malady before it has time to grow and worsen. Power, for Machiavelli, can be attained purely through the faculties of the mind. Yes, armies are necessary, friends in high places can help, and luck plays a role, but it takes reason to determine what kind of army to use, to know when and when not to rely on friends, to know who to trust, and to know how to harness the vicissitudes of fortune. When Machiavelli writes that "human reason" cannot reach a certain state or kingdom, he therefore may be delivering a not-so-veiled insult not to religion itself, but to the state. These hints are buttressed by Machiavelli's other writings. In his famous Discorsi, for example, Machiavelli lambasts the Church's role in politics, bemoaning its decadence and writing, "And certainly, if the Christian religion had from the beginning been maintained according to the principles of its founder, the Christian states and republics would be much more united and happy than in fact they are." At the same time, Machiavelli does argue that religion deserves an importance place in society. To his mind, however, the Church abuses its status, and is guilty moreover of what is to him a cardinal sin: keeping Italy divided and stalling her unification.

cliffnotes

all_chapterized_books/110-chapters/chapters_12_to_15.txt

finished_summaries/cliffnotes/Tess of the d'Urbervilles/section_3_part_0.txt

Tess of the d'Urbervilles.chapters 12-15

chapters 12-15

{"name": "Chapters 12-15", "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20201219151046/https://www.cliffsnotes.com/literature/t/tess-of-the-durbervilles/summary-and-analysis/phase-the-second-maiden-no-more-chapters-1215", "summary": "In October, four months after her arrival in Trantridge, Tess leaves the d'Urberville estate to return home. Alec pursues her, offers her a ride home, and she accepts. He admits to his mistake and begs Tess' forgiveness, but to no avail. She leaves Alec in the road near her home, walking the remainder of the way. Along the way, she encounters a sign painter whose signs preach against vice and sin. Tess' mother is the first to encounter Tess when she enters the family home, and the two talk about Tess' experiences. Here, Tess asks her mother, \"Why didn't you tell me there was danger in men-folk?\" Joan still believes that her daughter might have a chance to marry Alec d'Urberville and become a real lady, but she is too simple or ignorant to understand Tess' dilemma. Joan's response is to, \"make the best of it, I suppose. @'Tis nater, after all, and what do please God!\" Tess has visits from her village friends, but these visits are not enough to erase her impending depression. Even church affords no comfort to her as the churchgoers whisper and gossip about her. After suffering the fall and winter at home, Tess is next seen the following August working as a field laborer harvesting corn. We see for the first time that Tess has a baby and stops to breastfeed him during the lunch break the harvesting crew takes. Later that night, the infant falls ill. All sense that the child will die sometime in the next few days. Tess, realizing that her baby has not been baptized, gathers her siblings and baptizes the infant herself. During the ceremony, we learn that the child's name is \"Sorrow\" after the phrase in Genesis 3:16, \"in sorrow thou shalt bring forth children.\" Sorrow is buried in a nearly forgotten part of the church graveyard, where the \"unbaptized infants, notorious drunkards, suicides, and others of the conjecturally damned are laid.\" The fall turns to winter and winter turns to spring. In May, Tess, now 20, sets out again, on her second excursion, to find work in a nearby town, at Talbothays Dairy. She wants solitude and time away from home where \"she might be happy in some nook which had no memories.\" Her journey takes her to a beautiful valley called Blackmoor on the river Froom/Frome where a new phase of her life begins.", "analysis": "Religion is a major theme in much of Hardy's writings. He is critical of the shallowness that man uses to perpetuate social norms or justify poor treatment of his fellow man. When Tess encounters the artisan, or sign painter, the conversation that ensues is telling of Hardy's views on man and religion. The artisan paints small signs of biblical verses to remind readers of the presence of organized religion. Hardy says, \"Some people might have cried 'Alas, poor Theology!' at the hideous defacement -- the last grotesque phase of a creed which had served mankind well in its time.\" Tess questions the painter further by asking, \"uppose your sin was not of your own seeking?\" The artisan, who has no real answer -- Hardy's suggestion that modern religion doesn't have any real answers -- says, \"I cannot split hairs on that burning query.\" Tess' reception in church offers Hardy another opportunity to voice his criticisms of modern religion. The church is supposed to be a comfort and to forgive Tess' sins, but the churchgoers, who whisper and gossip behind Tess' back, are not forgiving in their judgment of her. In addition, Tess must baptize Sorrow herself because her father will not allow the local parson into the house, afraid that he will find out the family's secrets. Still, it seems to be the hypocrisy of religious fervor and expression that incites Hardy's ire. The scene in which Tess baptizes her dying child is, arguably, the most beautiful and poignant in the novel. Tess becomes more than a mere woman/child in the key scene of Sorrow's baptism in Chapter 14. Hardy elevates Tess to heroine status as she takes the baptism of Sorrow into her own hands. She becomes \"a divine personage with whom they had nothing in common.\" The scene begins when Tess realizes her infant's death is imminent: \"Her darling was about to die, and no salvation.\" Being a resourceful young lady, Tess has a revelation -- she will perform the baptism herself -- and gathers her brothers and sisters to begin the ceremony, based upon what she remembers from baptisms she witnessed while attending church, \"Tess then stood erect with the infant on her arm beside the basin, the next sister held the Prayer-Book open before her, as the clerk at church held it before the parson; and thus the girl set about baptizing her child.\" Hardy describes Tess as a \"child's child\" who barely had the title of \"mother.\" Yet in the ritual, Tess becomes more than either mother, woman, or child. She becomes, in effect, a divine person, \"her high enthusiasm having a transfiguring effect upon the face which had been her undoing, showing it as a thing of immaculate beauty, with a touch of dignity which was almost regal.\" Tess performs the baptism: \"The ecstasy of faith almost apotheosized her; it set upon her face a glowing irradiation, and brought a red spot into the middle of each cheek; while the miniature candle-flame inverted in her eye pupils shone like a diamond.\" The effect of this change strikes awe in Tess' siblings whom she has summoned to witness the baptism. \"The children gazed up at her with more and more reverence, and no longer had a will for questioning. She did not look like Sissy to them now, but as a being large, towering and awful.\" In this passage, Hardy does two things: First he avers the worth of the sincere application of faith. Second, he elevates Tess to a higher status, and in so doing, emphasizes her goodness and reveals her inner strength and independence. She may be a woman plagued by fate and unhappy circumstance, but she is a heroic character. Hardy uses this scene to comment on the application of sincere expressions of faith and the application of faith as it is transmuted through the principles of social convention. Remember, social convention enabled Alec to rape Tess without consequence to himself. Social convention also shades what is and isn't permissible expressions of faith. Tess, for example, asks the parson to admit that Tess' baptism of the infant is the same as if the parson himself had conducted the ceremony. In answering, \"he man and the ecclesiastic fought within him, and the victory fell to the man,\" and thus he tells Tess that it was. Relieved, Tess then asks for confirmation that Sorrow can then receive a proper Christian burial. At this point, the parson hesitates. Tess presses her point, further challenging him on church doctrine that the unbaptized are not accorded a proper Christian burial, and he objects based on church doctrine, \"I would willingly do so if only we two are concerned. But I must not -- for certain reasons.\" Hardy is showing us the heavy handedness of the church, not found in any biblical text, on the burial of the dead. Tess finally tells him, \"Then I don't like you . . . and I'll never come to your church again.\" The parson has no answer and gives in to Tess' demands. Glossary Marble term a post that marks the boundary, often in the shape of a pillar topped with a head and torso. teave work or struggle. \"Clogged like a dripping pan\" reference to a pan, used for roasting, in which the drippings of fat have been allowed to congeal. \"dust to ashes\" from Job 42:6. Hontish haughty. Robert South English divine and minister . \"old double chant 'Langdon'\" a chant in the Anglican Church double the normal length, in this case named after the English composer, Robert Langdon . Heliolatries religions in which the sun is worshipped. \"a stranger in a strange land\" in Exodus 2:22, Moses in Egypt refers to himself as a stranger in a strange land. quadrille a square dance of French origin, consisting of several figures, performed by four couples. \"Tuscan saint\" a reference to the images typical of Florentine art during the Renaissance. Aholah and Aholibah two sisters who were prostitutes: Ezekiel predicts that not only they but their children will be punished . Stopt-diapason note suggests Tess' voice, which, like an organ with stops, or tuned sets of pipes, is characterized by a full range of harmonious sound. \"sin, the world and the devil\" a reference to \"the world, the flesh, and the devil,\" traditional temptations to sin mentioned in The Book of Common Prayer . Gnomic texts gnomic means wise and pithy; full of aphorisms; here, a reference to texts that express general truths in a wise manner. \"Jeremy Taylor's thought\" reference to The Rule and Exercises of Holy Dying by Jeremy Taylor, a seventeenth-century Anglican divine. Babylon ancient city noted for wealth, luxury, and wickedness. stile a vertical piece in a panel or frame, as of a door or window. texes texts. Conjecturally being inferred, theorized, or predicted from incomplete or uncertain evidence. Deal box a fir or pine board of any of several sizes; fir or pinewood."}

The basket was heavy and the bundle was large, but she lugged them along like a person who did not find her especial burden in material things. Occasionally she stopped to rest in a mechanical way by some gate or post; and then, giving the baggage another hitch upon her full round arm, went steadily on again. It was a Sunday morning in late October, about four months after Tess Durbeyfield's arrival at Trantridge, and some few weeks subsequent to the night ride in The Chase. The time was not long past daybreak, and the yellow luminosity upon the horizon behind her back lighted the ridge towards which her face was set--the barrier of the vale wherein she had of late been a stranger--which she would have to climb over to reach her birthplace. The ascent was gradual on this side, and the soil and scenery differed much from those within Blakemore Vale. Even the character and accent of the two peoples had shades of difference, despite the amalgamating effects of a roundabout railway; so that, though less than twenty miles from the place of her sojourn at Trantridge, her native village had seemed a far-away spot. The field-folk shut in there traded northward and westward, travelled, courted, and married northward and westward, thought northward and westward; those on this side mainly directed their energies and attention to the east and south. The incline was the same down which d'Urberville had driven her so wildly on that day in June. Tess went up the remainder of its length without stopping, and on reaching the edge of the escarpment gazed over the familiar green world beyond, now half-veiled in mist. It was always beautiful from here; it was terribly beautiful to Tess to-day, for since her eyes last fell upon it she had learnt that the serpent hisses where the sweet birds sing, and her views of life had been totally changed for her by the lesson. Verily another girl than the simple one she had been at home was she who, bowed by thought, stood still here, and turned to look behind her. She could not bear to look forward into the Vale. Ascending by the long white road that Tess herself had just laboured up, she saw a two-wheeled vehicle, beside which walked a man, who held up his hand to attract her attention. She obeyed the signal to wait for him with unspeculative repose, and in a few minutes man and horse stopped beside her. "Why did you slip away by stealth like this?" said d'Urberville, with upbraiding breathlessness; "on a Sunday morning, too, when people were all in bed! I only discovered it by accident, and I have been driving like the deuce to overtake you. Just look at the mare. Why go off like this? You know that nobody wished to hinder your going. And how unnecessary it has been for you to toil along on foot, and encumber yourself with this heavy load! I have followed like a madman, simply to drive you the rest of the distance, if you won't come back." "I shan't come back," said she. "I thought you wouldn't--I said so! Well, then, put up your basket, and let me help you on." She listlessly placed her basket and bundle within the dog-cart, and stepped up, and they sat side by side. She had no fear of him now, and in the cause of her confidence her sorrow lay. D'Urberville mechanically lit a cigar, and the journey was continued with broken unemotional conversation on the commonplace objects by the wayside. He had quite forgotten his struggle to kiss her when, in the early summer, they had driven in the opposite direction along the same road. But she had not, and she sat now, like a puppet, replying to his remarks in monosyllables. After some miles they came in view of the clump of trees beyond which the village of Marlott stood. It was only then that her still face showed the least emotion, a tear or two beginning to trickle down. "What are you crying for?" he coldly asked. "I was only thinking that I was born over there," murmured Tess. "Well--we must all be born somewhere." "I wish I had never been born--there or anywhere else!" "Pooh! Well, if you didn't wish to come to Trantridge why did you come?" She did not reply. "You didn't come for love of me, that I'll swear." "'Tis quite true. If I had gone for love o' you, if I had ever sincerely loved you, if I loved you still, I should not so loathe and hate myself for my weakness as I do now! ... My eyes were dazed by you for a little, and that was all." He shrugged his shoulders. She resumed-- "I didn't understand your meaning till it was too late." "That's what every woman says." "How can you dare to use such words!" she cried, turning impetuously upon him, her eyes flashing as the latent spirit (of which he was to see more some day) awoke in her. "My God! I could knock you out of the gig! Did it never strike your mind that what every woman says some women may feel?" "Very well," he said, laughing; "I am sorry to wound you. I did wrong--I admit it." He dropped into some little bitterness as he continued: "Only you needn't be so everlastingly flinging it in my face. I am ready to pay to the uttermost farthing. You know you need not work in the fields or the dairies again. You know you may clothe yourself with the best, instead of in the bald plain way you have lately affected, as if you couldn't get a ribbon more than you earn." Her lip lifted slightly, though there was little scorn, as a rule, in her large and impulsive nature. "I have said I will not take anything more from you, and I will not--I cannot! I SHOULD be your creature to go on doing that, and I won't!" "One would think you were a princess from your manner, in addition to a true and original d'Urberville--ha! ha! Well, Tess, dear, I can say no more. I suppose I am a bad fellow--a damn bad fellow. I was born bad, and I have lived bad, and I shall die bad in all probability. But, upon my lost soul, I won't be bad towards you again, Tess. And if certain circumstances should arise--you understand--in which you are in the least need, the least difficulty, send me one line, and you shall have by return whatever you require. I may not be at Trantridge--I am going to London for a time--I can't stand the old woman. But all letters will be forwarded." She said that she did not wish him to drive her further, and they stopped just under the clump of trees. D'Urberville alighted, and lifted her down bodily in his arms, afterwards placing her articles on the ground beside her. She bowed to him slightly, her eye just lingering in his; and then she turned to take the parcels for departure. Alec d'Urberville removed his cigar, bent towards her, and said-- "You are not going to turn away like that, dear! Come!" "If you wish," she answered indifferently. "See how you've mastered me!" She thereupon turned round and lifted her face to his, and remained like a marble term while he imprinted a kiss upon her cheek--half perfunctorily, half as if zest had not yet quite died out. Her eyes vaguely rested upon the remotest trees in the lane while the kiss was given, as though she were nearly unconscious of what he did. "Now the other side, for old acquaintance' sake." She turned her head in the same passive way, as one might turn at the request of a sketcher or hairdresser, and he kissed the other side, his lips touching cheeks that were damp and smoothly chill as the skin of the mushrooms in the fields around. "You don't give me your mouth and kiss me back. You never willingly do that--you'll never love me, I fear." "I have said so, often. It is true. I have never really and truly loved you, and I think I never can." She added mournfully, "Perhaps, of all things, a lie on this thing would do the most good to me now; but I have honour enough left, little as 'tis, not to tell that lie. If I did love you, I may have the best o' causes for letting you know it. But I don't." He emitted a laboured breath, as if the scene were getting rather oppressive to his heart, or to his conscience, or to his gentility. "Well, you are absurdly melancholy, Tess. I have no reason for flattering you now, and I can say plainly that you need not be so sad. You can hold your own for beauty against any woman of these parts, gentle or simple; I say it to you as a practical man and well-wisher. If you are wise you will show it to the world more than you do before it fades... And yet, Tess, will you come back to me! Upon my soul, I don't like to let you go like this!" "Never, never! I made up my mind as soon as I saw--what I ought to have seen sooner; and I won't come." "Then good morning, my four months' cousin--good-bye!" He leapt up lightly, arranged the reins, and was gone between the tall red-berried hedges. Tess did not look after him, but slowly wound along the crooked lane. It was still early, and though the sun's lower limb was just free of the hill, his rays, ungenial and peering, addressed the eye rather than the touch as yet. There was not a human soul near. Sad October and her sadder self seemed the only two existences haunting that lane. As she walked, however, some footsteps approached behind her, the footsteps of a man; and owing to the briskness of his advance he was close at her heels and had said "Good morning" before she had been long aware of his propinquity. He appeared to be an artisan of some sort, and carried a tin pot of red paint in his hand. He asked in a business-like manner if he should take her basket, which she permitted him to do, walking beside him. "It is early to be astir this Sabbath morn!" he said cheerfully. "Yes," said Tess. "When most people are at rest from their week's work." She also assented to this. "Though I do more real work to-day than all the week besides." "Do you?" "All the week I work for the glory of man, and on Sunday for the glory of God. That's more real than the other--hey? I have a little to do here at this stile." The man turned, as he spoke, to an opening at the roadside leading into a pasture. "If you'll wait a moment," he added, "I shall not be long." As he had her basket she could not well do otherwise; and she waited, observing him. He set down her basket and the tin pot, and stirring the paint with the brush that was in it began painting large square letters on the middle board of the three composing the stile, placing a comma after each word, as if to give pause while that word was driven well home to the reader's heart-- THY, DAMNATION, SLUMBERETH, NOT. 2 Pet. ii. 3. Against the peaceful landscape, the pale, decaying tints of the copses, the blue air of the horizon, and the lichened stile-boards, these staring vermilion words shone forth. They seemed to shout themselves out and make the atmosphere ring. Some people might have cried "Alas, poor Theology!" at the hideous defacement--the last grotesque phase of a creed which had served mankind well in its time. But the words entered Tess with accusatory horror. It was as if this man had known her recent history; yet he was a total stranger. Having finished his text he picked up her basket, and she mechanically resumed her walk beside him. "Do you believe what you paint?" she asked in low tones. "Believe that tex? Do I believe in my own existence!" "But," said she tremulously, "suppose your sin was not of your own seeking?" He shook his head. "I cannot split hairs on that burning query," he said. "I have walked hundreds of miles this past summer, painting these texes on every wall, gate, and stile the length and breadth of this district. I leave their application to the hearts of the people who read 'em." "I think they are horrible," said Tess. "Crushing! Killing!" "That's what they are meant to be!" he replied in a trade voice. "But you should read my hottest ones--them I kips for slums and seaports. They'd make ye wriggle! Not but what this is a very good tex for rural districts. ... Ah--there's a nice bit of blank wall up by that barn standing to waste. I must put one there--one that it will be good for dangerous young females like yerself to heed. Will ye wait, missy?" "No," said she; and taking her basket Tess trudged on. A little way forward she turned her head. The old gray wall began to advertise a similar fiery lettering to the first, with a strange and unwonted mien, as if distressed at duties it had never before been called upon to perform. It was with a sudden flush that she read and realized what was to be the inscription he was now halfway through-- THOU, SHALT, NOT, COMMIT-- Her cheerful friend saw her looking, stopped his brush, and shouted-- "If you want to ask for edification on these things of moment, there's a very earnest good man going to preach a charity-sermon to-day in the parish you are going to--Mr Clare of Emminster. I'm not of his persuasion now, but he's a good man, and he'll expound as well as any parson I know. 'Twas he began the work in me." But Tess did not answer; she throbbingly resumed her walk, her eyes fixed on the ground. "Pooh--I don't believe God said such things!" she murmured contemptuously when her flush had died away. A plume of smoke soared up suddenly from her father's chimney, the sight of which made her heart ache. The aspect of the interior, when she reached it, made her heart ache more. Her mother, who had just come down stairs, turned to greet her from the fireplace, where she was kindling barked-oak twigs under the breakfast kettle. The young children were still above, as was also her father, it being Sunday morning, when he felt justified in lying an additional half-hour. "Well!--my dear Tess!" exclaimed her surprised mother, jumping up and kissing the girl. "How be ye? I didn't see you till you was in upon me! Have you come home to be married?" "No, I have not come for that, mother." "Then for a holiday?" "Yes--for a holiday; for a long holiday," said Tess. "What, isn't your cousin going to do the handsome thing?" "He's not my cousin, and he's not going to marry me." Her mother eyed her narrowly. "Come, you have not told me all," she said. Then Tess went up to her mother, put her face upon Joan's neck, and told. "And yet th'st not got him to marry 'ee!" reiterated her mother. "Any woman would have done it but you, after that!" "Perhaps any woman would except me." "It would have been something like a story to come back with, if you had!" continued Mrs Durbeyfield, ready to burst into tears of vexation. "After all the talk about you and him which has reached us here, who would have expected it to end like this! Why didn't ye think of doing some good for your family instead o' thinking only of yourself? See how I've got to teave and slave, and your poor weak father with his heart clogged like a dripping-pan. I did hope for something to come out o' this! To see what a pretty pair you and he made that day when you drove away together four months ago! See what he has given us--all, as we thought, because we were his kin. But if he's not, it must have been done because of his love for 'ee. And yet you've not got him to marry!" Get Alec d'Urberville in the mind to marry her! He marry HER! On matrimony he had never once said a word. And what if he had? How a convulsive snatching at social salvation might have impelled her to answer him she could not say. But her poor foolish mother little knew her present feeling towards this man. Perhaps it was unusual in the circumstances, unlucky, unaccountable; but there it was; and this, as she had said, was what made her detest herself. She had never wholly cared for him; she did not at all care for him now. She had dreaded him, winced before him, succumbed to adroit advantages he took of her helplessness; then, temporarily blinded by his ardent manners, had been stirred to confused surrender awhile: had suddenly despised and disliked him, and had run away. That was all. Hate him she did not quite; but he was dust and ashes to her, and even for her name's sake she scarcely wished to marry him. "You ought to have been more careful if you didn't mean to get him to make you his wife!" "O mother, my mother!" cried the agonized girl, turning passionately upon her parent as if her poor heart would break. "How could I be expected to know? I was a child when I left this house four months ago. Why didn't you tell me there was danger in men-folk? Why didn't you warn me? Ladies know what to fend hands against, because they read novels that tell them of these tricks; but I never had the chance o' learning in that way, and you did not help me!" Her mother was subdued. "I thought if I spoke of his fond feelings and what they might lead to, you would be hontish wi' him and lose your chance," she murmured, wiping her eyes with her apron. "Well, we must make the best of it, I suppose. 'Tis nater, after all, and what do please God!" The event of Tess Durbeyfield's return from the manor of her bogus kinsfolk was rumoured abroad, if rumour be not too large a word for a space of a square mile. In the afternoon several young girls of Marlott, former schoolfellows and acquaintances of Tess, called to see her, arriving dressed in their best starched and ironed, as became visitors to a person who had made a transcendent conquest (as they supposed), and sat round the room looking at her with great curiosity. For the fact that it was this said thirty-first cousin, Mr d'Urberville, who had fallen in love with her, a gentleman not altogether local, whose reputation as a reckless gallant and heartbreaker was beginning to spread beyond the immediate boundaries of Trantridge, lent Tess's supposed position, by its fearsomeness, a far higher fascination that it would have exercised if unhazardous. Their interest was so deep that the younger ones whispered when her back was turned-- "How pretty she is; and how that best frock do set her off! I believe it cost an immense deal, and that it was a gift from him." Tess, who was reaching up to get the tea-things from the corner-cupboard, did not hear these commentaries. If she had heard them, she might soon have set her friends right on the matter. But her mother heard, and Joan's simple vanity, having been denied the hope of a dashing marriage, fed itself as well as it could upon the sensation of a dashing flirtation. Upon the whole she felt gratified, even though such a limited and evanescent triumph should involve her daughter's reputation; it might end in marriage yet, and in the warmth of her responsiveness to their admiration she invited her visitors to stay to tea. Their chatter, their laughter, their good-humoured innuendoes, above all, their flashes and flickerings of envy, revived Tess's spirits also; and, as the evening wore on, she caught the infection of their excitement, and grew almost gay. The marble hardness left her face, she moved with something of her old bounding step, and flushed in all her young beauty. At moments, in spite of thought, she would reply to their inquiries with a manner of superiority, as if recognizing that her experiences in the field of courtship had, indeed, been slightly enviable. But so far was she from being, in the words of Robert South, "in love with her own ruin," that the illusion was transient as lightning; cold reason came back to mock her spasmodic weakness; the ghastliness of her momentary pride would convict her, and recall her to reserved listlessness again. And the despondency of the next morning's dawn, when it was no longer Sunday, but Monday; and no best clothes; and the laughing visitors were gone, and she awoke alone in her old bed, the innocent younger children breathing softly around her. In place of the excitement of her return, and the interest it had inspired, she saw before her a long and stony highway which she had to tread, without aid, and with little sympathy. Her depression was then terrible, and she could have hidden herself in a tomb. In the course of a few weeks Tess revived sufficiently to show herself so far as was necessary to get to church one Sunday morning. She liked to hear the chanting--such as it was--and the old Psalms, and to join in the Morning Hymn. That innate love of melody, which she had inherited from her ballad-singing mother, gave the simplest music a power over her which could well-nigh drag her heart out of her bosom at times. To be as much out of observation as possible for reasons of her own, and to escape the gallantries of the young men, she set out before the chiming began, and took a back seat under the gallery, close to the lumber, where only old men and women came, and where the bier stood on end among the churchyard tools. Parishioners dropped in by twos and threes, deposited themselves in rows before her, rested three-quarters of a minute on their foreheads as if they were praying, though they were not; then sat up, and looked around. When the chants came on, one of her favourites happened to be chosen among the rest--the old double chant "Langdon"--but she did not know what it was called, though she would much have liked to know. She thought, without exactly wording the thought, how strange and god-like was a composer's power, who from the grave could lead through sequences of emotion, which he alone had felt at first, a girl like her who had never heard of his name, and never would have a clue to his personality. The people who had turned their heads turned them again as the service proceeded; and at last observing her, they whispered to each other. She knew what their whispers were about, grew sick at heart, and felt that she could come to church no more. The bedroom which she shared with some of the children formed her retreat more continually than ever. Here, under her few square yards of thatch, she watched winds, and snows, and rains, gorgeous sunsets, and successive moons at their full. So close kept she that at length almost everybody thought she had gone away. The only exercise that Tess took at this time was after dark; and it was then, when out in the woods, that she seemed least solitary. She knew how to hit to a hair's-breadth that moment of evening when the light and the darkness are so evenly balanced that the constraint of day and the suspense of night neutralize each other, leaving absolute mental liberty. It is then that the plight of being alive becomes attenuated to its least possible dimensions. She had no fear of the shadows; her sole idea seemed to be to shun mankind--or rather that cold accretion called the world, which, so terrible in the mass, is so unformidable, even pitiable, in its units. On these lonely hills and dales her quiescent glide was of a piece with the element she moved in. Her flexuous and stealthy figure became an integral part of the scene. At times her whimsical fancy would intensify natural processes around her till they seemed a part of her own story. Rather they became a part of it; for the world is only a psychological phenomenon, and what they seemed they were. The midnight airs and gusts, moaning amongst the tightly-wrapped buds and bark of the winter twigs, were formulae of bitter reproach. A wet day was the expression of irremediable grief at her weakness in the mind of some vague ethical being whom she could not class definitely as the God of her childhood, and could not comprehend as any other. But this encompassment of her own characterization, based on shreds of convention, peopled by phantoms and voices antipathetic to her, was a sorry and mistaken creation of Tess's fancy--a cloud of moral hobgoblins by which she was terrified without reason. It was they that were out of harmony with the actual world, not she. Walking among the sleeping birds in the hedges, watching the skipping rabbits on a moonlit warren, or standing under a pheasant-laden bough, she looked upon herself as a figure of Guilt intruding into the haunts of Innocence. But all the while she was making a distinction where there was no difference. Feeling herself in antagonism, she was quite in accord. She had been made to break an accepted social law, but no law known to the environment in which she fancied herself such an anomaly. It was a hazy sunrise in August. The denser nocturnal vapours, attacked by the warm beams, were dividing and shrinking into isolated fleeces within hollows and coverts, where they waited till they should be dried away to nothing. The sun, on account of the mist, had a curious sentient, personal look, demanding the masculine pronoun for its adequate expression. His present aspect, coupled with the lack of all human forms in the scene, explained the old-time heliolatries in a moment. One could feel that a saner religion had never prevailed under the sky. The luminary was a golden-haired, beaming, mild-eyed, God-like creature, gazing down in the vigour and intentness of youth upon an earth that was brimming with interest for him. His light, a little later, broke though chinks of cottage shutters, throwing stripes like red-hot pokers upon cupboards, chests of drawers, and other furniture within; and awakening harvesters who were not already astir. But of all ruddy things that morning the brightest were two broad arms of painted wood, which rose from the margin of yellow cornfield hard by Marlott village. They, with two others below, formed the revolving Maltese cross of the reaping-machine, which had been brought to the field on the previous evening to be ready for operations this day. The paint with which they were smeared, intensified in hue by the sunlight, imparted to them a look of having been dipped in liquid fire. The field had already been "opened"; that is to say, a lane a few feet wide had been hand-cut through the wheat along the whole circumference of the field for the first passage of the horses and machine. Two groups, one of men and lads, the other of women, had come down the lane just at the hour when the shadows of the eastern hedge-top struck the west hedge midway, so that the heads of the groups were enjoying sunrise while their feet were still in the dawn. They disappeared from the lane between the two stone posts which flanked the nearest field-gate. Presently there arose from within a ticking like the love-making of the grasshopper. The machine had begun, and a moving concatenation of three horses and the aforesaid long rickety machine was visible over the gate, a driver sitting upon one of the hauling horses, and an attendant on the seat of the implement. Along one side of the field the whole wain went, the arms of the mechanical reaper revolving slowly, till it passed down the hill quite out of sight. In a minute it came up on the other side of the field at the same equable pace; the glistening brass star in the forehead of the fore horse first catching the eye as it rose into view over the stubble, then the bright arms, and then the whole machine. The narrow lane of stubble encompassing the field grew wider with each circuit, and the standing corn was reduced to a smaller area as the morning wore on. Rabbits, hares, snakes, rats, mice, retreated inwards as into a fastness, unaware of the ephemeral nature of their refuge, and of the doom that awaited them later in the day when, their covert shrinking to a more and more horrible narrowness, they were huddled together, friends and foes, till the last few yards of upright wheat fell also under the teeth of the unerring reaper, and they were every one put to death by the sticks and stones of the harvesters. The reaping-machine left the fallen corn behind it in little heaps, each heap being of the quantity for a sheaf; and upon these the active binders in the rear laid their hands--mainly women, but some of them men in print shirts, and trousers supported round their waists by leather straps, rendering useless the two buttons behind, which twinkled and bristled with sunbeams at every movement of each wearer, as if they were a pair of eyes in the small of his back. But those of the other sex were the most interesting of this company of binders, by reason of the charm which is acquired by woman when she becomes part and parcel of outdoor nature, and is not merely an object set down therein as at ordinary times. A field-man is a personality afield; a field-woman is a portion of the field; she had somehow lost her own margin, imbibed the essence of her surrounding, and assimilated herself with it. The women--or rather girls, for they were mostly young--wore drawn cotton bonnets with great flapping curtains to keep off the sun, and gloves to prevent their hands being wounded by the stubble. There was one wearing a pale pink jacket, another in a cream-coloured tight-sleeved gown, another in a petticoat as red as the arms of the reaping-machine; and others, older, in the brown-rough "wropper" or over-all--the old-established and most appropriate dress of the field-woman, which the young ones were abandoning. This morning the eye returns involuntarily to the girl in the pink cotton jacket, she being the most flexuous and finely-drawn figure of them all. But her bonnet is pulled so far over her brow that none of her face is disclosed while she binds, though her complexion may be guessed from a stray twine or two of dark brown hair which extends below the curtain of her bonnet. Perhaps one reason why she seduces casual attention is that she never courts it, though the other women often gaze around them. Her binding proceeds with clock-like monotony. From the sheaf last finished she draws a handful of ears, patting their tips with her left palm to bring them even. Then, stooping low, she moves forward, gathering the corn with both hands against her knees, and pushing her left gloved hand under the bundle to meet the right on the other side, holding the corn in an embrace like that of a lover. She brings the ends of the bond together, and kneels on the sheaf while she ties it, beating back her skirts now and then when lifted by the breeze. A bit of her naked arm is visible between the buff leather of the gauntlet and the sleeve of her gown; and as the day wears on its feminine smoothness becomes scarified by the stubble and bleeds. At intervals she stands up to rest, and to retie her disarranged apron, or to pull her bonnet straight. Then one can see the oval face of a handsome young woman with deep dark eyes and long heavy clinging tresses, which seem to clasp in a beseeching way anything they fall against. The cheeks are paler, the teeth more regular, the red lips thinner than is usual in a country-bred girl. It is Tess Durbeyfield, otherwise d'Urberville, somewhat changed--the same, but not the same; at the present stage of her existence living as a stranger and an alien here, though it was no strange land that she was in. After a long seclusion she had come to a resolve to undertake outdoor work in her native village, the busiest season of the year in the agricultural world having arrived, and nothing that she could do within the house being so remunerative for the time as harvesting in the fields. The movements of the other women were more or less similar to Tess's, the whole bevy of them drawing together like dancers in a quadrille at the completion of a sheaf by each, every one placing her sheaf on end against those of the rest, till a shock, or "stitch" as it was here called, of ten or a dozen was formed. They went to breakfast, and came again, and the work proceeded as before. As the hour of eleven drew near a person watching her might have noticed that every now and then Tess's glance flitted wistfully to the brow of the hill, though she did not pause in her sheafing. On the verge of the hour the heads of a group of children, of ages ranging from six to fourteen, rose over the stubbly convexity of the hill. The face of Tess flushed slightly, but still she did not pause. The eldest of the comers, a girl who wore a triangular shawl, its corner draggling on the stubble, carried in her arms what at first sight seemed to be a doll, but proved to be an infant in long clothes. Another brought some lunch. The harvesters ceased working, took their provisions, and sat down against one of the shocks. Here they fell to, the men plying a stone jar freely, and passing round a cup. Tess Durbeyfield had been one of the last to suspend her labours. She sat down at the end of the shock, her face turned somewhat away from her companions. When she had deposited herself a man in a rabbit-skin cap, and with a red handkerchief tucked into his belt, held the cup of ale over the top of the shock for her to drink. But she did not accept his offer. As soon as her lunch was spread she called up the big girl, her sister, and took the baby of her, who, glad to be relieved of the burden, went away to the next shock and joined the other children playing there. Tess, with a curiously stealthy yet courageous movement, and with a still rising colour, unfastened her frock and began suckling the child. The men who sat nearest considerately turned their faces towards the other end of the field, some of them beginning to smoke; one, with absent-minded fondness, regretfully stroking the jar that would no longer yield a stream. All the women but Tess fell into animated talk, and adjusted the disarranged knots of their hair. When the infant had taken its fill, the young mother sat it upright in her lap, and looking into the far distance, dandled it with a gloomy indifference that was almost dislike; then all of a sudden she fell to violently kissing it some dozens of times, as if she could never leave off, the child crying at the vehemence of an onset which strangely combined passionateness with contempt. "She's fond of that there child, though she mid pretend to hate en, and say she wishes the baby and her too were in the churchyard," observed the woman in the red petticoat. "She'll soon leave off saying that," replied the one in buff. "Lord, 'tis wonderful what a body can get used to o' that sort in time!" "A little more than persuading had to do wi' the coming o't, I reckon. There were they that heard a sobbing one night last year in The Chase; and it mid ha' gone hard wi' a certain party if folks had come along." "Well, a little more, or a little less, 'twas a thousand pities that it should have happened to she, of all others. But 'tis always the comeliest! The plain ones be as safe as churches--hey, Jenny?" The speaker turned to one of the group who certainly was not ill-defined as plain. It was a thousand pities, indeed; it was impossible for even an enemy to feel otherwise on looking at Tess as she sat there, with her flower-like mouth and large tender eyes, neither black nor blue nor grey nor violet; rather all those shades together, and a hundred others, which could be seen if one looked into their irises--shade behind shade--tint beyond tint--around pupils that had no bottom; an almost standard woman, but for the slight incautiousness of character inherited from her race. A resolution which had surprised herself had brought her into the fields this week for the first time during many months. After wearing and wasting her palpitating heart with every engine of regret that lonely inexperience could devise, common sense had illuminated her. She felt that she would do well to be useful again--to taste anew sweet independence at any price. The past was past; whatever it had been, it was no more at hand. Whatever its consequences, time would close over them; they would all in a few years be as if they had never been, and she herself grassed down and forgotten. Meanwhile the trees were just as green as before; the birds sang and the sun shone as clearly now as ever. The familiar surroundings had not darkened because of her grief, nor sickened because of her pain. She might have seen that what had bowed her head so profoundly--the thought of the world's concern at her situation--was founded on an illusion. She was not an existence, an experience, a passion, a structure of sensations, to anybody but herself. To all humankind besides, Tess was only a passing thought. Even to friends she was no more than a frequently passing thought. If she made herself miserable the livelong night and day it was only this much to them--"Ah, she makes herself unhappy." If she tried to be cheerful, to dismiss all care, to take pleasure in the daylight, the flowers, the baby, she could only be this idea to them--"Ah, she bears it very well." Moreover, alone in a desert island would she have been wretched at what had happened to her? Not greatly. If she could have been but just created, to discover herself as a spouseless mother, with no experience of life except as the parent of a nameless child, would the position have caused her to despair? No, she would have taken it calmly, and found pleasure therein. Most of the misery had been generated by her conventional aspect, and not by her innate sensations. Whatever Tess's reasoning, some spirit had induced her to dress herself up neatly as she had formerly done, and come out into the fields, harvest-hands being greatly in demand just then. This was why she had borne herself with dignity, and had looked people calmly in the face at times, even when holding the baby in her arms. The harvest-men rose from the shock of corn, and stretched their limbs, and extinguished their pipes. The horses, which had been unharnessed and fed, were again attached to the scarlet machine. Tess, having quickly eaten her own meal, beckoned to her eldest sister to come and take away the baby, fastened her dress, put on the buff gloves again, and stooped anew to draw a bond from the last completed sheaf for the tying of the next. In the afternoon and evening the proceedings of the morning were continued, Tess staying on till dusk with the body of harvesters. Then they all rode home in one of the largest wagons, in the company of a broad tarnished moon that had risen from the ground to the eastwards, its face resembling the outworn gold-leaf halo of some worm-eaten Tuscan saint. Tess's female companions sang songs, and showed themselves very sympathetic and glad at her reappearance out of doors, though they could not refrain from mischievously throwing in a few verses of the ballad about the maid who went to the merry green wood and came back a changed state. There are counterpoises and compensations in life; and the event which had made of her a social warning had also for the moment made her the most interesting personage in the village to many. Their friendliness won her still farther away from herself, their lively spirits were contagious, and she became almost gay. But now that her moral sorrows were passing away a fresh one arose on the natural side of her which knew no social law. When she reached home it was to learn to her grief that the baby had been suddenly taken ill since the afternoon. Some such collapse had been probable, so tender and puny was its frame; but the event came as a shock nevertheless. The baby's offence against society in coming into the world was forgotten by the girl-mother; her soul's desire was to continue that offence by preserving the life of the child. However, it soon grew clear that the hour of emancipation for that little prisoner of the flesh was to arrive earlier than her worst misgiving had conjectured. And when she had discovered this she was plunged into a misery which transcended that of the child's simple loss. Her baby had not been baptized. Tess had drifted into a frame of mind which accepted passively the consideration that if she should have to burn for what she had done, burn she must, and there was an end of it. Like all village girls, she was well grounded in the Holy Scriptures, and had dutifully studied the histories of Aholah and Aholibah, and knew the inferences to be drawn therefrom. But when the same question arose with regard to the baby, it had a very different colour. Her darling was about to die, and no salvation. It was nearly bedtime, but she rushed downstairs and asked if she might send for the parson. The moment happened to be one at which her father's sense of the antique nobility of his family was highest, and his sensitiveness to the smudge which Tess had set upon that nobility most pronounced, for he had just returned from his weekly booze at Rolliver's Inn. No parson should come inside his door, he declared, prying into his affairs, just then, when, by her shame, it had become more necessary than ever to hide them. He locked the door and put the key in his pocket. The household went to bed, and, distressed beyond measure, Tess retired also. She was continually waking as she lay, and in the middle of the night found that the baby was still worse. It was obviously dying--quietly and painlessly, but none the less surely. In her misery she rocked herself upon the bed. The clock struck the solemn hour of one, that hour when fancy stalks outside reason, and malignant possibilities stand rock-firm as facts. She thought of the child consigned to the nethermost corner of hell, as its double doom for lack of baptism and lack of legitimacy; saw the arch-fiend tossing it with his three-pronged fork, like the one they used for heating the oven on baking days; to which picture she added many other quaint and curious details of torment sometimes taught the young in this Christian country. The lurid presentment so powerfully affected her imagination in the silence of the sleeping house that her nightgown became damp with perspiration, and the bedstead shook with each throb of her heart. The infant's breathing grew more difficult, and the mother's mental tension increased. It was useless to devour the little thing with kisses; she could stay in bed no longer, and walked feverishly about the room. "O merciful God, have pity; have pity upon my poor baby!" she cried. "Heap as much anger as you want to upon me, and welcome; but pity the child!" She leant against the chest of drawers, and murmured incoherent supplications for a long while, till she suddenly started up. "Ah! perhaps baby can be saved! Perhaps it will be just the same!" She spoke so brightly that it seemed as though her face might have shone in the gloom surrounding her. She lit a candle, and went to a second and a third bed under the wall, where she awoke her young sisters and brothers, all of whom occupied the same room. Pulling out the washing-stand so that she could get behind it, she poured some water from a jug, and made them kneel around, putting their hands together with fingers exactly vertical. While the children, scarcely awake, awe-stricken at her manner, their eyes growing larger and larger, remained in this position, she took the baby from her bed--a child's child--so immature as scarce to seem a sufficient personality to endow its producer with the maternal title. Tess then stood erect with the infant on her arm beside the basin; the next sister held the Prayer-Book open before her, as the clerk at church held it before the parson; and thus the girl set about baptizing her child. Her figure looked singularly tall and imposing as she stood in her long white nightgown, a thick cable of twisted dark hair hanging straight down her back to her waist. The kindly dimness of the weak candle abstracted from her form and features the little blemishes which sunlight might have revealed--the stubble scratches upon her wrists, and the weariness of her eyes--her high enthusiasm having a transfiguring effect upon the face which had been her undoing, showing it as a thing of immaculate beauty, with a touch of dignity which was almost regal. The little ones kneeling round, their sleepy eyes blinking and red, awaited her preparations full of a suspended wonder which their physical heaviness at that hour would not allow to become active. The most impressed of them said: "Be you really going to christen him, Tess?" The girl-mother replied in a grave affirmative. "What's his name going to be?" She had not thought of that, but a name suggested by a phrase in the book of Genesis came into her head as she proceeded with the baptismal service, and now she pronounced it: "SORROW, I baptize thee in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost." She sprinkled the water, and there was silence. "Say 'Amen,' children." The tiny voices piped in obedient response, "Amen!" Tess went on: "We receive this child"--and so forth--"and do sign him with the sign of the Cross." Here she dipped her hand into the basin, and fervently drew an immense cross upon the baby with her forefinger, continuing with the customary sentences as to his manfully fighting against sin, the world, and the devil, and being a faithful soldier and servant unto his life's end. She duly went on with the Lord's Prayer, the children lisping it after her in a thin gnat-like wail, till, at the conclusion, raising their voices to clerk's pitch, they again piped into silence, "Amen!" Then their sister, with much augmented confidence in the efficacy of the sacrament, poured forth from the bottom of her heart the thanksgiving that follows, uttering it boldly and triumphantly in the stopt-diapason note which her voice acquired when her heart was in her speech, and which will never be forgotten by those who knew her. The ecstasy of faith almost apotheosized her; it set upon her face a glowing irradiation, and brought a red spot into the middle of each cheek; while the miniature candle-flame inverted in her eye-pupils shone like a diamond. The children gazed up at her with more and more reverence, and no longer had a will for questioning. She did not look like Sissy to them now, but as a being large, towering, and awful--a divine personage with whom they had nothing in common. Poor Sorrow's campaign against sin, the world, and the devil was doomed to be of limited brilliancy--luckily perhaps for himself, considering his beginnings. In the blue of the morning that fragile soldier and servant breathed his last, and when the other children awoke they cried bitterly, and begged Sissy to have another pretty baby. The calmness which had possessed Tess since the christening remained with her in the infant's loss. In the daylight, indeed, she felt her terrors about his soul to have been somewhat exaggerated; whether well founded or not, she had no uneasiness now, reasoning that if Providence would not ratify such an act of approximation she, for one, did not value the kind of heaven lost by the irregularity--either for herself or for her child. So passed away Sorrow the Undesired--that intrusive creature, that bastard gift of shameless Nature, who respects not the social law; a waif to whom eternal Time had been a matter of days merely, who knew not that such things as years and centuries ever were; to whom the cottage interior was the universe, the week's weather climate, new-born babyhood human existence, and the instinct to suck human knowledge. Tess, who mused on the christening a good deal, wondered if it were doctrinally sufficient to secure a Christian burial for the child. Nobody could tell this but the parson of the parish, and he was a new-comer, and did not know her. She went to his house after dusk, and stood by the gate, but could not summon courage to go in. The enterprise would have been abandoned if she had not by accident met him coming homeward as she turned away. In the gloom she did not mind speaking freely. "I should like to ask you something, sir." He expressed his willingness to listen, and she told the story of the baby's illness and the extemporized ordinance. "And now, sir," she added earnestly, "can you tell me this--will it be just the same for him as if you had baptized him?" Having the natural feelings of a tradesman at finding that a job he should have been called in for had been unskilfully botched by his customers among themselves, he was disposed to say no. Yet the dignity of the girl, the strange tenderness in her voice, combined to affect his nobler impulses--or rather those that he had left in him after ten years of endeavour to graft technical belief on actual scepticism. The man and the ecclesiastic fought within him, and the victory fell to the man. "My dear girl," he said, "it will be just the same." "Then will you give him a Christian burial?" she asked quickly. The Vicar felt himself cornered. Hearing of the baby's illness, he had conscientiously gone to the house after nightfall to perform the rite, and, unaware that the refusal to admit him had come from Tess's father and not from Tess, he could not allow the plea of necessity for its irregular administration. "Ah--that's another matter," he said. "Another matter--why?" asked Tess, rather warmly. "Well--I would willingly do so if only we two were concerned. But I must not--for certain reasons." "Just for once, sir!" "Really I must not." "O sir!" She seized his hand as she spoke. He withdrew it, shaking his head. "Then I don't like you!" she burst out, "and I'll never come to your church no more!" "Don't talk so rashly." "Perhaps it will be just the same to him if you don't? ... Will it be just the same? Don't for God's sake speak as saint to sinner, but as you yourself to me myself--poor me!" How the Vicar reconciled his answer with the strict notions he supposed himself to hold on these subjects it is beyond a layman's power to tell, though not to excuse. Somewhat moved, he said in this case also-- "It will be just the same." So the baby was carried in a small deal box, under an ancient woman's shawl, to the churchyard that night, and buried by lantern-light, at the cost of a shilling and a pint of beer to the sexton, in that shabby corner of God's allotment where He lets the nettles grow, and where all unbaptized infants, notorious drunkards, suicides, and others of the conjecturally damned are laid. In spite of the untoward surroundings, however, Tess bravely made a little cross of two laths and a piece of string, and having bound it with flowers, she stuck it up at the head of the grave one evening when she could enter the churchyard without being seen, putting at the foot also a bunch of the same flowers in a little jar of water to keep them alive. What matter was it that on the outside of the jar the eye of mere observation noted the words "Keelwell's Marmalade"? The eye of maternal affection did not see them in its vision of higher things. "By experience," says Roger Ascham, "we find out a short way by a long wandering." Not seldom that long wandering unfits us for further travel, and of what use is our experience to us then? Tess Durbeyfield's experience was of this incapacitating kind. At last she had learned what to do; but who would now accept her doing? If before going to the d'Urbervilles' she had vigorously moved under the guidance of sundry gnomic texts and phrases known to her and to the world in general, no doubt she would never have been imposed on. But it had not been in Tess's power--nor is it in anybody's power--to feel the whole truth of golden opinions while it is possible to profit by them. She--and how many more--might have ironically said to God with Saint Augustine: "Thou hast counselled a better course than Thou hast permitted." She remained at her father's house during the winter months, plucking fowls, or cramming turkeys and geese, or making clothes for her sisters and brothers out of some finery which d'Urberville had given her, and she had put by with contempt. Apply to him she would not. But she would often clasp her hands behind her head and muse when she was supposed to be working hard. She philosophically noted dates as they came past in the revolution of the year; the disastrous night of her undoing at Trantridge with its dark background of The Chase; also the dates of the baby's birth and death; also her own birthday; and every other day individualized by incidents in which she had taken some share. She suddenly thought one afternoon, when looking in the glass at her fairness, that there was yet another date, of greater importance to her than those; that of her own death, when all these charms would have disappeared; a day which lay sly and unseen among all the other days of the year, giving no sign or sound when she annually passed over it; but not the less surely there. When was it? Why did she not feel the chill of each yearly encounter with such a cold relation? She had Jeremy Taylor's thought that some time in the future those who had known her would say: "It is the ----th, the day that poor Tess Durbeyfield died"; and there would be nothing singular to their minds in the statement. Of that day, doomed to be her terminus in time through all the ages, she did not know the place in month, week, season or year. Almost at a leap Tess thus changed from simple girl to complex woman. Symbols of reflectiveness passed into her face, and a note of tragedy at times into her voice. Her eyes grew larger and more eloquent. She became what would have been called a fine creature; her aspect was fair and arresting; her soul that of a woman whom the turbulent experiences of the last year or two had quite failed to demoralize. But for the world's opinion those experiences would have been simply a liberal education. She had held so aloof of late that her trouble, never generally known, was nearly forgotten in Marlott. But it became evident to her that she could never be really comfortable again in a place which had seen the collapse of her family's attempt to "claim kin"--and, through her, even closer union--with the rich d'Urbervilles. At least she could not be comfortable there till long years should have obliterated her keen consciousness of it. Yet even now Tess felt the pulse of hopeful life still warm within her; she might be happy in some nook which had no memories. To escape the past and all that appertained thereto was to annihilate it, and to do that she would have to get away. Was once lost always lost really true of chastity? she would ask herself. She might prove it false if she could veil bygones. The recuperative power which pervaded organic nature was surely not denied to maidenhood alone. She waited a long time without finding opportunity for a new departure. A particularly fine spring came round, and the stir of germination was almost audible in the buds; it moved her, as it moved the wild animals, and made her passionate to go. At last, one day in early May, a letter reached her from a former friend of her mother's, to whom she had addressed inquiries long before--a person whom she had never seen--that a skilful milkmaid was required at a dairy-house many miles to the southward, and that the dairyman would be glad to have her for the summer months. It was not quite so far off as could have been wished; but it was probably far enough, her radius of movement and repute having been so small. To persons of limited spheres, miles are as geographical degrees, parishes as counties, counties as provinces and kingdoms. On one point she was resolved: there should be no more d'Urberville air-castles in the dreams and deeds of her new life. She would be the dairymaid Tess, and nothing more. Her mother knew Tess's feeling on this point so well, though no words had passed between them on the subject, that she never alluded to the knightly ancestry now. Yet such is human inconsistency that one of the interests of the new place to her was the accidental virtues of its lying near her forefathers' country (for they were not Blakemore men, though her mother was Blakemore to the bone). The dairy called Talbothays, for which she was bound, stood not remotely from some of the former estates of the d'Urbervilles, near the great family vaults of her granddames and their powerful husbands. She would be able to look at them, and think not only that d'Urberville, like Babylon, had fallen, but that the individual innocence of a humble descendant could lapse as silently. All the while she wondered if any strange good thing might come of her being in her ancestral land; and some spirit within her rose automatically as the sap in the twigs. It was unexpected youth, surging up anew after its temporary check, and bringing with it hope, and the invincible instinct towards self-delight. END OF PHASE THE SECOND Phase the Third: The Rally

Chapters 12-15

https://web.archive.org/web/20201219151046/https://www.cliffsnotes.com/literature/t/tess-of-the-durbervilles/summary-and-analysis/phase-the-second-maiden-no-more-chapters-1215

In October, four months after her arrival in Trantridge, Tess leaves the d'Urberville estate to return home. Alec pursues her, offers her a ride home, and she accepts. He admits to his mistake and begs Tess' forgiveness, but to no avail. She leaves Alec in the road near her home, walking the remainder of the way. Along the way, she encounters a sign painter whose signs preach against vice and sin. Tess' mother is the first to encounter Tess when she enters the family home, and the two talk about Tess' experiences. Here, Tess asks her mother, "Why didn't you tell me there was danger in men-folk?" Joan still believes that her daughter might have a chance to marry Alec d'Urberville and become a real lady, but she is too simple or ignorant to understand Tess' dilemma. Joan's response is to, "make the best of it, I suppose. @'Tis nater, after all, and what do please God!" Tess has visits from her village friends, but these visits are not enough to erase her impending depression. Even church affords no comfort to her as the churchgoers whisper and gossip about her. After suffering the fall and winter at home, Tess is next seen the following August working as a field laborer harvesting corn. We see for the first time that Tess has a baby and stops to breastfeed him during the lunch break the harvesting crew takes. Later that night, the infant falls ill. All sense that the child will die sometime in the next few days. Tess, realizing that her baby has not been baptized, gathers her siblings and baptizes the infant herself. During the ceremony, we learn that the child's name is "Sorrow" after the phrase in Genesis 3:16, "in sorrow thou shalt bring forth children." Sorrow is buried in a nearly forgotten part of the church graveyard, where the "unbaptized infants, notorious drunkards, suicides, and others of the conjecturally damned are laid." The fall turns to winter and winter turns to spring. In May, Tess, now 20, sets out again, on her second excursion, to find work in a nearby town, at Talbothays Dairy. She wants solitude and time away from home where "she might be happy in some nook which had no memories." Her journey takes her to a beautiful valley called Blackmoor on the river Froom/Frome where a new phase of her life begins.

Religion is a major theme in much of Hardy's writings. He is critical of the shallowness that man uses to perpetuate social norms or justify poor treatment of his fellow man. When Tess encounters the artisan, or sign painter, the conversation that ensues is telling of Hardy's views on man and religion. The artisan paints small signs of biblical verses to remind readers of the presence of organized religion. Hardy says, "Some people might have cried 'Alas, poor Theology!' at the hideous defacement -- the last grotesque phase of a creed which had served mankind well in its time." Tess questions the painter further by asking, "uppose your sin was not of your own seeking?" The artisan, who has no real answer -- Hardy's suggestion that modern religion doesn't have any real answers -- says, "I cannot split hairs on that burning query." Tess' reception in church offers Hardy another opportunity to voice his criticisms of modern religion. The church is supposed to be a comfort and to forgive Tess' sins, but the churchgoers, who whisper and gossip behind Tess' back, are not forgiving in their judgment of her. In addition, Tess must baptize Sorrow herself because her father will not allow the local parson into the house, afraid that he will find out the family's secrets. Still, it seems to be the hypocrisy of religious fervor and expression that incites Hardy's ire. The scene in which Tess baptizes her dying child is, arguably, the most beautiful and poignant in the novel. Tess becomes more than a mere woman/child in the key scene of Sorrow's baptism in Chapter 14. Hardy elevates Tess to heroine status as she takes the baptism of Sorrow into her own hands. She becomes "a divine personage with whom they had nothing in common." The scene begins when Tess realizes her infant's death is imminent: "Her darling was about to die, and no salvation." Being a resourceful young lady, Tess has a revelation -- she will perform the baptism herself -- and gathers her brothers and sisters to begin the ceremony, based upon what she remembers from baptisms she witnessed while attending church, "Tess then stood erect with the infant on her arm beside the basin, the next sister held the Prayer-Book open before her, as the clerk at church held it before the parson; and thus the girl set about baptizing her child." Hardy describes Tess as a "child's child" who barely had the title of "mother." Yet in the ritual, Tess becomes more than either mother, woman, or child. She becomes, in effect, a divine person, "her high enthusiasm having a transfiguring effect upon the face which had been her undoing, showing it as a thing of immaculate beauty, with a touch of dignity which was almost regal." Tess performs the baptism: "The ecstasy of faith almost apotheosized her; it set upon her face a glowing irradiation, and brought a red spot into the middle of each cheek; while the miniature candle-flame inverted in her eye pupils shone like a diamond." The effect of this change strikes awe in Tess' siblings whom she has summoned to witness the baptism. "The children gazed up at her with more and more reverence, and no longer had a will for questioning. She did not look like Sissy to them now, but as a being large, towering and awful." In this passage, Hardy does two things: First he avers the worth of the sincere application of faith. Second, he elevates Tess to a higher status, and in so doing, emphasizes her goodness and reveals her inner strength and independence. She may be a woman plagued by fate and unhappy circumstance, but she is a heroic character. Hardy uses this scene to comment on the application of sincere expressions of faith and the application of faith as it is transmuted through the principles of social convention. Remember, social convention enabled Alec to rape Tess without consequence to himself. Social convention also shades what is and isn't permissible expressions of faith. Tess, for example, asks the parson to admit that Tess' baptism of the infant is the same as if the parson himself had conducted the ceremony. In answering, "he man and the ecclesiastic fought within him, and the victory fell to the man," and thus he tells Tess that it was. Relieved, Tess then asks for confirmation that Sorrow can then receive a proper Christian burial. At this point, the parson hesitates. Tess presses her point, further challenging him on church doctrine that the unbaptized are not accorded a proper Christian burial, and he objects based on church doctrine, "I would willingly do so if only we two are concerned. But I must not -- for certain reasons." Hardy is showing us the heavy handedness of the church, not found in any biblical text, on the burial of the dead. Tess finally tells him, "Then I don't like you . . . and I'll never come to your church again." The parson has no answer and gives in to Tess' demands. Glossary Marble term a post that marks the boundary, often in the shape of a pillar topped with a head and torso. teave work or struggle. "Clogged like a dripping pan" reference to a pan, used for roasting, in which the drippings of fat have been allowed to congeal. "dust to ashes" from Job 42:6. Hontish haughty. Robert South English divine and minister . "old double chant 'Langdon'" a chant in the Anglican Church double the normal length, in this case named after the English composer, Robert Langdon . Heliolatries religions in which the sun is worshipped. "a stranger in a strange land" in Exodus 2:22, Moses in Egypt refers to himself as a stranger in a strange land. quadrille a square dance of French origin, consisting of several figures, performed by four couples. "Tuscan saint" a reference to the images typical of Florentine art during the Renaissance. Aholah and Aholibah two sisters who were prostitutes: Ezekiel predicts that not only they but their children will be punished . Stopt-diapason note suggests Tess' voice, which, like an organ with stops, or tuned sets of pipes, is characterized by a full range of harmonious sound. "sin, the world and the devil" a reference to "the world, the flesh, and the devil," traditional temptations to sin mentioned in The Book of Common Prayer . Gnomic texts gnomic means wise and pithy; full of aphorisms; here, a reference to texts that express general truths in a wise manner. "Jeremy Taylor's thought" reference to The Rule and Exercises of Holy Dying by Jeremy Taylor, a seventeenth-century Anglican divine. Babylon ancient city noted for wealth, luxury, and wickedness. stile a vertical piece in a panel or frame, as of a door or window. texes texts. Conjecturally being inferred, theorized, or predicted from incomplete or uncertain evidence. Deal box a fir or pine board of any of several sizes; fir or pinewood.

shmoop

all_chapterized_books/28054-chapters/21.txt

finished_summaries/shmoop/The Brothers Karamazov/section_20_part_0.txt

The Brothers Karamazov.book 3.chapter 8

book 3, chapter 8

{"name": "Book 3, Chapter 8", "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20201023112808/https://www.shmoop.com/study-guides/literature/brothers-karamazov/summary/book-3-chapter-8", "summary": "Fyodor dismisses the servants. He gets more and more drunk on cognac and starts making up stories about Zosima. He asks Ivan why he won't go to Chermashnya as a favor to him, but Ivan continues to refuse. Fyodor then tells Alyosha some unsavory stories about his dead mother. After getting through one story about how he spit upon one of her religious icons, Fyodor notices that Alyosha has, all of a sudden, begun to tremble and weep, just as his mother, the \"shrieker,\" used to do. Fyodor wonders if he's gone too far, and Ivan savagely reminds him that Alyosha's mother is his mother, too. At this point, Dmitri suddenly barges into the room.", "analysis": ""}

Chapter VIII. Over The Brandy The controversy was over. But, strange to say, Fyodor Pavlovitch, who had been so gay, suddenly began frowning. He frowned and gulped brandy, and it was already a glass too much. "Get along with you, Jesuits!" he cried to the servants. "Go away, Smerdyakov. I'll send you the gold piece I promised you to-day, but be off! Don't cry, Grigory. Go to Marfa. She'll comfort you and put you to bed. The rascals won't let us sit in peace after dinner," he snapped peevishly, as the servants promptly withdrew at his word. "Smerdyakov always pokes himself in now, after dinner. It's you he's so interested in. What have you done to fascinate him?" he added to Ivan. "Nothing whatever," answered Ivan. "He's pleased to have a high opinion of me; he's a lackey and a mean soul. Raw material for revolution, however, when the time comes." "For revolution?" "There will be others and better ones. But there will be some like him as well. His kind will come first, and better ones after." "And when will the time come?" "The rocket will go off and fizzle out, perhaps. The peasants are not very fond of listening to these soup-makers, so far." "Ah, brother, but a Balaam's ass like that thinks and thinks, and the devil knows where he gets to." "He's storing up ideas," said Ivan, smiling. "You see, I know he can't bear me, nor any one else, even you, though you fancy that he has a high opinion of you. Worse still with Alyosha, he despises Alyosha. But he doesn't steal, that's one thing, and he's not a gossip, he holds his tongue, and doesn't wash our dirty linen in public. He makes capital fish pasties too. But, damn him, is he worth talking about so much?" "Of course he isn't." "And as for the ideas he may be hatching, the Russian peasant, generally speaking, needs thrashing. That I've always maintained. Our peasants are swindlers, and don't deserve to be pitied, and it's a good thing they're still flogged sometimes. Russia is rich in birches. If they destroyed the forests, it would be the ruin of Russia. I stand up for the clever people. We've left off thrashing the peasants, we've grown so clever, but they go on thrashing themselves. And a good thing too. 'For with what measure ye mete it shall be measured to you again,' or how does it go? Anyhow, it will be measured. But Russia's all swinishness. My dear, if you only knew how I hate Russia.... That is, not Russia, but all this vice! But maybe I mean Russia. _Tout cela c'est de la cochonnerie_.... Do you know what I like? I like wit." "You've had another glass. That's enough." "Wait a bit. I'll have one more, and then another, and then I'll stop. No, stay, you interrupted me. At Mokroe I was talking to an old man, and he told me: 'There's nothing we like so much as sentencing girls to be thrashed, and we always give the lads the job of thrashing them. And the girl he has thrashed to-day, the young man will ask in marriage to-morrow. So it quite suits the girls, too,' he said. There's a set of de Sades for you! But it's clever, anyway. Shall we go over and have a look at it, eh? Alyosha, are you blushing? Don't be bashful, child. I'm sorry I didn't stay to dinner at the Superior's and tell the monks about the girls at Mokroe. Alyosha, don't be angry that I offended your Superior this morning. I lost my temper. If there is a God, if He exists, then, of course, I'm to blame, and I shall have to answer for it. But if there isn't a God at all, what do they deserve, your fathers? It's not enough to cut their heads off, for they keep back progress. Would you believe it, Ivan, that that lacerates my sentiments? No, you don't believe it as I see from your eyes. You believe what people say, that I'm nothing but a buffoon. Alyosha, do you believe that I'm nothing but a buffoon?" "No, I don't believe it." "And I believe you don't, and that you speak the truth. You look sincere and you speak sincerely. But not Ivan. Ivan's supercilious.... I'd make an end of your monks, though, all the same. I'd take all that mystic stuff and suppress it, once for all, all over Russia, so as to bring all the fools to reason. And the gold and the silver that would flow into the mint!" "But why suppress it?" asked Ivan. "That Truth may prevail. That's why." "Well, if Truth were to prevail, you know, you'd be the first to be robbed and suppressed." "Ah! I dare say you're right. Ah, I'm an ass!" burst out Fyodor Pavlovitch, striking himself lightly on the forehead. "Well, your monastery may stand then, Alyosha, if that's how it is. And we clever people will sit snug and enjoy our brandy. You know, Ivan, it must have been so ordained by the Almighty Himself. Ivan, speak, is there a God or not? Stay, speak the truth, speak seriously. Why are you laughing again?" "I'm laughing that you should have made a clever remark just now about Smerdyakov's belief in the existence of two saints who could move mountains." "Why, am I like him now, then?" "Very much." "Well, that shows I'm a Russian, too, and I have a Russian characteristic. And you may be caught in the same way, though you are a philosopher. Shall I catch you? What do you bet that I'll catch you to-morrow. Speak, all the same, is there a God, or not? Only, be serious. I want you to be serious now." "No, there is no God." "Alyosha, is there a God?" "There is." "Ivan, and is there immortality of some sort, just a little, just a tiny bit?" "There is no immortality either." "None at all?" "None at all." "There's absolute nothingness then. Perhaps there is just something? Anything is better than nothing!" "Absolute nothingness." "Alyosha, is there immortality?" "There is." "God and immortality?" "God and immortality. In God is immortality." "H'm! It's more likely Ivan's right. Good Lord! to think what faith, what force of all kinds, man has lavished for nothing, on that dream, and for how many thousand years. Who is it laughing at man? Ivan! For the last time, once for all, is there a God or not? I ask for the last time!" "And for the last time there is not." "Who is laughing at mankind, Ivan?" "It must be the devil," said Ivan, smiling. "And the devil? Does he exist?" "No, there's no devil either." "It's a pity. Damn it all, what wouldn't I do to the man who first invented God! Hanging on a bitter aspen tree would be too good for him." "There would have been no civilization if they hadn't invented God." "Wouldn't there have been? Without God?" "No. And there would have been no brandy either. But I must take your brandy away from you, anyway." "Stop, stop, stop, dear boy, one more little glass. I've hurt Alyosha's feelings. You're not angry with me, Alyosha? My dear little Alexey!" "No, I am not angry. I know your thoughts. Your heart is better than your head." "My heart better than my head, is it? Oh, Lord! And that from you. Ivan, do you love Alyosha?" "Yes." "You must love him" (Fyodor Pavlovitch was by this time very drunk). "Listen, Alyosha, I was rude to your elder this morning. But I was excited. But there's wit in that elder, don't you think, Ivan?" "Very likely." "There is, there is. _Il y a du Piron la-dedans._ He's a Jesuit, a Russian one, that is. As he's an honorable person there's a hidden indignation boiling within him at having to pretend and affect holiness." "But, of course, he believes in God." "Not a bit of it. Didn't you know? Why, he tells every one so, himself. That is, not every one, but all the clever people who come to him. He said straight out to Governor Schultz not long ago: '_Credo_, but I don't know in what.' " "Really?" "He really did. But I respect him. There's something of Mephistopheles about him, or rather of 'The hero of our time' ... Arbenin, or what's his name?... You see, he's a sensualist. He's such a sensualist that I should be afraid for my daughter or my wife if she went to confess to him. You know, when he begins telling stories.... The year before last he invited us to tea, tea with liqueur (the ladies send him liqueur), and began telling us about old times till we nearly split our sides.... Especially how he once cured a paralyzed woman. 'If my legs were not bad I know a dance I could dance you,' he said. What do you say to that? 'I've plenty of tricks in my time,' said he. He did Dernidov, the merchant, out of sixty thousand." "What, he stole it?" "He brought him the money as a man he could trust, saying, 'Take care of it for me, friend, there'll be a police search at my place to-morrow.' And he kept it. 'You have given it to the Church,' he declared. I said to him: 'You're a scoundrel,' I said. 'No,' said he, 'I'm not a scoundrel, but I'm broad-minded.' But that wasn't he, that was some one else. I've muddled him with some one else ... without noticing it. Come, another glass and that's enough. Take away the bottle, Ivan. I've been telling lies. Why didn't you stop me, Ivan, and tell me I was lying?" "I knew you'd stop of yourself." "That's a lie. You did it from spite, from simple spite against me. You despise me. You have come to me and despised me in my own house." "Well, I'm going away. You've had too much brandy." "I've begged you for Christ's sake to go to Tchermashnya for a day or two, and you don't go." "I'll go to-morrow if you're so set upon it." "You won't go. You want to keep an eye on me. That's what you want, spiteful fellow. That's why you won't go." The old man persisted. He had reached that state of drunkenness when the drunkard who has till then been inoffensive tries to pick a quarrel and to assert himself. "Why are you looking at me? Why do you look like that? Your eyes look at me and say, 'You ugly drunkard!' Your eyes are mistrustful. They're contemptuous.... You've come here with some design. Alyosha, here, looks at me and his eyes shine. Alyosha doesn't despise me. Alexey, you mustn't love Ivan." "Don't be ill-tempered with my brother. Leave off attacking him," Alyosha said emphatically. "Oh, all right. Ugh, my head aches. Take away the brandy, Ivan. It's the third time I've told you." He mused, and suddenly a slow, cunning grin spread over his face. "Don't be angry with a feeble old man, Ivan. I know you don't love me, but don't be angry all the same. You've nothing to love me for. You go to Tchermashnya. I'll come to you myself and bring you a present. I'll show you a little wench there. I've had my eye on her a long time. She's still running about bare-foot. Don't be afraid of bare-footed wenches--don't despise them--they're pearls!" And he kissed his hand with a smack. "To my thinking," he revived at once, seeming to grow sober the instant he touched on his favorite topic. "To my thinking ... Ah, you boys! You children, little sucking-pigs, to my thinking ... I never thought a woman ugly in my life--that's been my rule! Can you understand that? How could you understand it? You've milk in your veins, not blood. You're not out of your shells yet. My rule has been that you can always find something devilishly interesting in every woman that you wouldn't find in any other. Only, one must know how to find it, that's the point! That's a talent! To my mind there are no ugly women. The very fact that she is a woman is half the battle ... but how could you understand that? Even in _vieilles filles_, even in them you may discover something that makes you simply wonder that men have been such fools as to let them grow old without noticing them. Bare-footed girls or unattractive ones, you must take by surprise. Didn't you know that? You must astound them till they're fascinated, upset, ashamed that such a gentleman should fall in love with such a little slut. It's a jolly good thing that there always are and will be masters and slaves in the world, so there always will be a little maid- of-all-work and her master, and you know, that's all that's needed for happiness. Stay ... listen, Alyosha, I always used to surprise your mother, but in a different way. I paid no attention to her at all, but all at once, when the minute came, I'd be all devotion to her, crawl on my knees, kiss her feet, and I always, always--I remember it as though it were to-day--reduced her to that tinkling, quiet, nervous, queer little laugh. It was peculiar to her. I knew her attacks always used to begin like that. The next day she would begin shrieking hysterically, and this little laugh was not a sign of delight, though it made a very good counterfeit. That's the great thing, to know how to take every one. Once Belyavsky--he was a handsome fellow, and rich--used to like to come here and hang about her--suddenly gave me a slap in the face in her presence. And she--such a mild sheep--why, I thought she would have knocked me down for that blow. How she set on me! 'You're beaten, beaten now,' she said. 'You've taken a blow from him. You have been trying to sell me to him,' she said.... 'And how dared he strike you in my presence! Don't dare come near me again, never, never! Run at once, challenge him to a duel!'... I took her to the monastery then to bring her to her senses. The holy Fathers prayed her back to reason. But I swear, by God, Alyosha, I never insulted the poor crazy girl! Only once, perhaps, in the first year; then she was very fond of praying. She used to keep the feasts of Our Lady particularly and used to turn me out of her room then. I'll knock that mysticism out of her, thought I! 'Here,' said I, 'you see your holy image. Here it is. Here I take it down. You believe it's miraculous, but here, I'll spit on it directly and nothing will happen to me for it!'... When she saw it, good Lord! I thought she would kill me. But she only jumped up, wrung her hands, then suddenly hid her face in them, began trembling all over and fell on the floor ... fell all of a heap. Alyosha, Alyosha, what's the matter?" The old man jumped up in alarm. From the time he had begun speaking about his mother, a change had gradually come over Alyosha's face. He flushed crimson, his eyes glowed, his lips quivered. The old sot had gone spluttering on, noticing nothing, till the moment when something very strange happened to Alyosha. Precisely what he was describing in the crazy woman was suddenly repeated with Alyosha. He jumped up from his seat exactly as his mother was said to have done, wrung his hands, hid his face in them, and fell back in his chair, shaking all over in an hysterical paroxysm of sudden violent, silent weeping. His extraordinary resemblance to his mother particularly impressed the old man. "Ivan, Ivan! Water, quickly! It's like her, exactly as she used to be then, his mother. Spurt some water on him from your mouth, that's what I used to do to her. He's upset about his mother, his mother," he muttered to Ivan. "But she was my mother, too, I believe, his mother. Was she not?" said Ivan, with uncontrolled anger and contempt. The old man shrank before his flashing eyes. But something very strange had happened, though only for a second; it seemed really to have escaped the old man's mind that Alyosha's mother actually was the mother of Ivan too. "Your mother?" he muttered, not understanding. "What do you mean? What mother are you talking about? Was she?... Why, damn it! of course she was yours too! Damn it! My mind has never been so darkened before. Excuse me, why, I was thinking, Ivan.... He he he!" He stopped. A broad, drunken, half-senseless grin overspread his face. At that moment a fearful noise and clamor was heard in the hall, there were violent shouts, the door was flung open, and Dmitri burst into the room. The old man rushed to Ivan in terror. "He'll kill me! He'll kill me! Don't let him get at me!" he screamed, clinging to the skirt of Ivan's coat.

Book 3, Chapter 8

https://web.archive.org/web/20201023112808/https://www.shmoop.com/study-guides/literature/brothers-karamazov/summary/book-3-chapter-8

Fyodor dismisses the servants. He gets more and more drunk on cognac and starts making up stories about Zosima. He asks Ivan why he won't go to Chermashnya as a favor to him, but Ivan continues to refuse. Fyodor then tells Alyosha some unsavory stories about his dead mother. After getting through one story about how he spit upon one of her religious icons, Fyodor notices that Alyosha has, all of a sudden, begun to tremble and weep, just as his mother, the "shrieker," used to do. Fyodor wonders if he's gone too far, and Ivan savagely reminds him that Alyosha's mother is his mother, too. At this point, Dmitri suddenly barges into the room.

shmoop

all_chapterized_books/5658-chapters/40.txt

finished_summaries/shmoop/Lord Jim/section_39_part_0.txt

Lord Jim.chapter 40

chapter 40

{"name": "Chapter 40", "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20210118112654/https://www.shmoop.com/study-guides/literature/lord-jim/summary/chapter-40", "summary": "Brown, Kassim, and Cornelius bide their time as they prepare for all out war. Unfortunately, this calm before the storm is interrupted when one of Brown's people shoots a villager. It seems that Brown is hoping to stir up fear and unrest among the native Patusan people to make conquering them easier. That night one of Brown's own men gets shot in retaliation. Brown refuses to let anyone go down to get the dying man, because he doesn't want anyone else to get killed. Cornelius and Brown chat more about their plans. When they hear drums, Cornelius explains that this probably means that Jim has returned, which doesn't bode well for their plans. He suggests that Brown shoot Jim on sight tomorrow.", "analysis": ""}

'Brown's object was to gain time by fooling with Kassim's diplomacy. For doing a real stroke of business he could not help thinking the white man was the person to work with. He could not imagine such a chap (who must be confoundedly clever after all to get hold of the natives like that) refusing a help that would do away with the necessity for slow, cautious, risky cheating, that imposed itself as the only possible line of conduct for a single-handed man. He, Brown, would offer him the power. No man could hesitate. Everything was in coming to a clear understanding. Of course they would share. The idea of there being a fort--all ready to his hand--a real fort, with artillery (he knew this from Cornelius), excited him. Let him only once get in and . . . He would impose modest conditions. Not too low, though. The man was no fool, it seemed. They would work like brothers till . . . till the time came for a quarrel and a shot that would settle all accounts. With grim impatience of plunder he wished himself to be talking with the man now. The land already seemed to be his to tear to pieces, squeeze, and throw away. Meantime Kassim had to be fooled for the sake of food first--and for a second string. But the principal thing was to get something to eat from day to day. Besides, he was not averse to begin fighting on that Rajah's account, and teach a lesson to those people who had received him with shots. The lust of battle was upon him. 'I am sorry that I can't give you this part of the story, which of course I have mainly from Brown, in Brown's own words. There was in the broken, violent speech of that man, unveiling before me his thoughts with the very hand of Death upon his throat, an undisguised ruthlessness of purpose, a strange vengeful attitude towards his own past, and a blind belief in the righteousness of his will against all mankind, something of that feeling which could induce the leader of a horde of wandering cut-throats to call himself proudly the Scourge of God. No doubt the natural senseless ferocity which is the basis of such a character was exasperated by failure, ill-luck, and the recent privations, as well as by the desperate position in which he found himself; but what was most remarkable of all was this, that while he planned treacherous alliances, had already settled in his own mind the fate of the white man, and intrigued in an overbearing, offhand manner with Kassim, one could perceive that what he had really desired, almost in spite of himself, was to play havoc with that jungle town which had defied him, to see it strewn over with corpses and enveloped in flames. Listening to his pitiless, panting voice, I could imagine how he must have looked at it from the hillock, peopling it with images of murder and rapine. The part nearest to the creek wore an abandoned aspect, though as a matter of fact every house concealed a few armed men on the alert. Suddenly beyond the stretch of waste ground, interspersed with small patches of low dense bush, excavations, heaps of rubbish, with trodden paths between, a man, solitary and looking very small, strolled out into the deserted opening of the street between the shut-up, dark, lifeless buildings at the end. Perhaps one of the inhabitants, who had fled to the other bank of the river, coming back for some object of domestic use. Evidently he supposed himself quite safe at that distance from the hill on the other side of the creek. A light stockade, set up hastily, was just round the turn of the street, full of his friends. He moved leisurely. Brown saw him, and instantly called to his side the Yankee deserter, who acted as a sort of second in command. This lanky, loose-jointed fellow came forward, wooden-faced, trailing his rifle lazily. When he understood what was wanted from him a homicidal and conceited smile uncovered his teeth, making two deep folds down his sallow, leathery cheeks. He prided himself on being a dead shot. He dropped on one knee, and taking aim from a steady rest through the unlopped branches of a felled tree, fired, and at once stood up to look. The man, far away, turned his head to the report, made another step forward, seemed to hesitate, and abruptly got down on his hands and knees. In the silence that fell upon the sharp crack of the rifle, the dead shot, keeping his eyes fixed upon the quarry, guessed that "this there coon's health would never be a source of anxiety to his friends any more." The man's limbs were seen to move rapidly under his body in an endeavour to run on all-fours. In that empty space arose a multitudinous shout of dismay and surprise. The man sank flat, face down, and moved no more. "That showed them what we could do," said Brown to me. "Struck the fear of sudden death into them. That was what we wanted. They were two hundred to one, and this gave them something to think over for the night. Not one of them had an idea of such a long shot before. That beggar belonging to the Rajah scooted down-hill with his eyes hanging out of his head." 'As he was telling me this he tried with a shaking hand to wipe the thin foam on his blue lips. "Two hundred to one. Two hundred to one . . . strike terror, . . . terror, terror, I tell you. . . ." His own eyes were starting out of their sockets. He fell back, clawing the air with skinny fingers, sat up again, bowed and hairy, glared at me sideways like some man-beast of folk-lore, with open mouth in his miserable and awful agony before he got his speech back after that fit. There are sights one never forgets. 'Furthermore, to draw the enemy's fire and locate such parties as might have been hiding in the bushes along the creek, Brown ordered the Solomon Islander to go down to the boat and bring an oar, as you send a spaniel after a stick into the water. This failed, and the fellow came back without a single shot having been fired at him from anywhere. "There's nobody," opined some of the men. It is "onnatural," remarked the Yankee. Kassim had gone, by that time, very much impressed, pleased too, and also uneasy. Pursuing his tortuous policy, he had dispatched a message to Dain Waris warning him to look out for the white men's ship, which, he had had information, was about to come up the river. He minimised its strength and exhorted him to oppose its passage. This double-dealing answered his purpose, which was to keep the Bugis forces divided and to weaken them by fighting. On the other hand, he had in the course of that day sent word to the assembled Bugis chiefs in town, assuring them that he was trying to induce the invaders to retire; his messages to the fort asked earnestly for powder for the Rajah's men. It was a long time since Tunku Allang had had ammunition for the score or so of old muskets rusting in their arm-racks in the audience-hall. The open intercourse between the hill and the palace unsettled all the minds. It was already time for men to take sides, it began to be said. There would soon be much bloodshed, and thereafter great trouble for many people. The social fabric of orderly, peaceful life, when every man was sure of to-morrow, the edifice raised by Jim's hands, seemed on that evening ready to collapse into a ruin reeking with blood. The poorer folk were already taking to the bush or flying up the river. A good many of the upper class judged it necessary to go and pay their court to the Rajah. The Rajah's youths jostled them rudely. Old Tunku Allang, almost out of his mind with fear and indecision, either kept a sullen silence or abused them violently for daring to come with empty hands: they departed very much frightened; only old Doramin kept his countrymen together and pursued his tactics inflexibly. Enthroned in a big chair behind the improvised stockade, he issued his orders in a deep veiled rumble, unmoved, like a deaf man, in the flying rumours. 'Dusk fell, hiding first the body of the dead man, which had been left lying with arms outstretched as if nailed to the ground, and then the revolving sphere of the night rolled smoothly over Patusan and came to a rest, showering the glitter of countless worlds upon the earth. Again, in the exposed part of the town big fires blazed along the only street, revealing from distance to distance upon their glares the falling straight lines of roofs, the fragments of wattled walls jumbled in confusion, here and there a whole hut elevated in the glow upon the vertical black stripes of a group of high piles and all this line of dwellings, revealed in patches by the swaying flames, seemed to flicker tortuously away up-river into the gloom at the heart of the land. A great silence, in which the looms of successive fires played without noise, extended into the darkness at the foot of the hill; but the other bank of the river, all dark save for a solitary bonfire at the river-front before the fort, sent out into the air an increasing tremor that might have been the stamping of a multitude of feet, the hum of many voices, or the fall of an immensely distant waterfall. It was then, Brown confessed to me, while, turning his back on his men, he sat looking at it all, that notwithstanding his disdain, his ruthless faith in himself, a feeling came over him that at last he had run his head against a stone wall. Had his boat been afloat at the time, he believed he would have tried to steal away, taking his chances of a long chase down the river and of starvation at sea. It is very doubtful whether he would have succeeded in getting away. However, he didn't try this. For another moment he had a passing thought of trying to rush the town, but he perceived very well that in the end he would find himself in the lighted street, where they would be shot down like dogs from the houses. They were two hundred to one--he thought, while his men, huddling round two heaps of smouldering embers, munched the last of the bananas and roasted the few yams they owed to Kassim's diplomacy. Cornelius sat amongst them dozing sulkily. 'Then one of the whites remembered that some tobacco had been left in the boat, and, encouraged by the impunity of the Solomon Islander, said he would go to fetch it. At this all the others shook off their despondency. Brown applied to, said, "Go, and be d--d to you," scornfully. He didn't think there was any danger in going to the creek in the dark. The man threw a leg over the tree-trunk and disappeared. A moment later he was heard clambering into the boat and then clambering out. "I've got it," he cried. A flash and a report at the very foot of the hill followed. "I am hit," yelled the man. "Look out, look out--I am hit," and instantly all the rifles went off. The hill squirted fire and noise into the night like a little volcano, and when Brown and the Yankee with curses and cuffs stopped the panic-stricken firing, a profound, weary groan floated up from the creek, succeeded by a plaint whose heartrending sadness was like some poison turning the blood cold in the veins. Then a strong voice pronounced several distinct incomprehensible words somewhere beyond the creek. "Let no one fire," shouted Brown. "What does it mean?" . . . "Do you hear on the hill? Do you hear? Do you hear?" repeated the voice three times. Cornelius translated, and then prompted the answer. "Speak," cried Brown, "we hear." Then the voice, declaiming in the sonorous inflated tone of a herald, and shifting continually on the edge of the vague waste-land, proclaimed that between the men of the Bugis nation living in Patusan and the white men on the hill and those with them, there would be no faith, no compassion, no speech, no peace. A bush rustled; a haphazard volley rang out. "Dam' foolishness," muttered the Yankee, vexedly grounding the butt. Cornelius translated. The wounded man below the hill, after crying out twice, "Take me up! take me up!" went on complaining in moans. While he had kept on the blackened earth of the slope, and afterwards crouching in the boat, he had been safe enough. It seems that in his joy at finding the tobacco he forgot himself and jumped out on her off-side, as it were. The white boat, lying high and dry, showed him up; the creek was no more than seven yards wide in that place, and there happened to be a man crouching in the bush on the other bank. 'He was a Bugis of Tondano only lately come to Patusan, and a relation of the man shot in the afternoon. That famous long shot had indeed appalled the beholders. The man in utter security had been struck down, in full view of his friends, dropping with a joke on his lips, and they seemed to see in the act an atrocity which had stirred a bitter rage. That relation of his, Si-Lapa by name, was then with Doramin in the stockade only a few feet away. You who know these chaps must admit that the fellow showed an unusual pluck by volunteering to carry the message, alone, in the dark. Creeping across the open ground, he had deviated to the left and found himself opposite the boat. He was startled when Brown's man shouted. He came to a sitting position with his gun to his shoulder, and when the other jumped out, exposing himself, he pulled the trigger and lodged three jagged slugs point-blank into the poor wretch's stomach. Then, lying flat on his face, he gave himself up for dead, while a thin hail of lead chopped and swished the bushes close on his right hand; afterwards he delivered his speech shouting, bent double, dodging all the time in cover. With the last word he leaped sideways, lay close for a while, and afterwards got back to the houses unharmed, having achieved on that night such a renown as his children will not willingly allow to die. 'And on the hill the forlorn band let the two little heaps of embers go out under their bowed heads. They sat dejected on the ground with compressed lips and downcast eyes, listening to their comrade below. He was a strong man and died hard, with moans now loud, now sinking to a strange confidential note of pain. Sometimes he shrieked, and again, after a period of silence, he could be heard muttering deliriously a long and unintelligible complaint. Never for a moment did he cease. '"What's the good?" Brown had said unmoved once, seeing the Yankee, who had been swearing under his breath, prepare to go down. "That's so," assented the deserter, reluctantly desisting. "There's no encouragement for wounded men here. Only his noise is calculated to make all the others think too much of the hereafter, cap'n." "Water!" cried the wounded man in an extraordinarily clear vigorous voice, and then went off moaning feebly. "Ay, water. Water will do it," muttered the other to himself, resignedly. "Plenty by-and-by. The tide is flowing." 'At last the tide flowed, silencing the plaint and the cries of pain, and the dawn was near when Brown, sitting with his chin in the palm of his hand before Patusan, as one might stare at the unscalable side of a mountain, heard the brief ringing bark of a brass 6-pounder far away in town somewhere. "What's this?" he asked of Cornelius, who hung about him. Cornelius listened. A muffled roaring shout rolled down-river over the town; a big drum began to throb, and others responded, pulsating and droning. Tiny scattered lights began to twinkle in the dark half of the town, while the part lighted by the loom of fires hummed with a deep and prolonged murmur. "He has come," said Cornelius. "What? Already? Are you sure?" Brown asked. "Yes! yes! Sure. Listen to the noise." "What are they making that row about?" pursued Brown. "For joy," snorted Cornelius; "he is a very great man, but all the same, he knows no more than a child, and so they make a great noise to please him, because they know no better." "Look here," said Brown, "how is one to get at him?" "He shall come to talk to you," Cornelius declared. "What do you mean? Come down here strolling as it were?" Cornelius nodded vigorously in the dark. "Yes. He will come straight here and talk to you. He is just like a fool. You shall see what a fool he is." Brown was incredulous. "You shall see; you shall see," repeated Cornelius. "He is not afraid--not afraid of anything. He will come and order you to leave his people alone. Everybody must leave his people alone. He is like a little child. He will come to you straight." Alas! he knew Jim well--that "mean little skunk," as Brown called him to me. "Yes, certainly," he pursued with ardour, "and then, captain, you tell that tall man with a gun to shoot him. Just you kill him, and you will frighten everybody so much that you can do anything you like with them afterwards--get what you like--go away when you like. Ha! ha! ha! Fine . . ." He almost danced with impatience and eagerness; and Brown, looking over his shoulder at him, could see, shown up by the pitiless dawn, his men drenched with dew, sitting amongst the cold ashes and the litter of the camp, haggard, cowed, and in rags.'

Chapter 40

https://web.archive.org/web/20210118112654/https://www.shmoop.com/study-guides/literature/lord-jim/summary/chapter-40

Brown, Kassim, and Cornelius bide their time as they prepare for all out war. Unfortunately, this calm before the storm is interrupted when one of Brown's people shoots a villager. It seems that Brown is hoping to stir up fear and unrest among the native Patusan people to make conquering them easier. That night one of Brown's own men gets shot in retaliation. Brown refuses to let anyone go down to get the dying man, because he doesn't want anyone else to get killed. Cornelius and Brown chat more about their plans. When they hear drums, Cornelius explains that this probably means that Jim has returned, which doesn't bode well for their plans. He suggests that Brown shoot Jim on sight tomorrow.

novelguide

all_chapterized_books/110-chapters/60.txt

finished_summaries/novelguide/Tess of the d'Urbervilles/section_7_part_7.txt

Tess of the d'Urbervilles.chapter lix

chapter lix

{"name": "Chapter LIX", "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20210213065711/https://www.novelguide.com/tess-of-the-durbervilles/summaries/phase7-chapter53-59", "summary": "In the final chapter, Angel and Liza-Lu, now a couple, watch as a black flag is raised on a tower signaling Tess's death: \"justice was done. they joined hands again and went on\".", "analysis": ". Although she is still alive, in the final and shortest section, it seems as if Tess is already dead. While most of the novel has been narrated from Tess's perspective, the final section is told from Angel's perspective, and since he knows nothing of what has happed to Tess in his absence, the reader is left just as much in the dark, having never seen Tess leave with Alec. She just appears at Sandbourne without a second seduction scene, as expected. Indeed, at this point even the minor characters have more agency than Tess. Angel hears from her mother that Tess is no longer at Marlott. Mrs. Brooks is central to the murder scene. When Angel arrives at Sandbourne, Tess is a \"different woman,\" dressed in cashmere, living in the lap of luxury--a far, far remove from the Tess shivering and starving at Flintcomb-Ash. It is as if she has come so far under Alec's spell that she has lost her \"self. It takes Angel's renewed presence to force Tess into taking action against Alec. And act she does. Seeing Angel once more ignites in Tess a storm of pent-up emotion that results in Alec's death. For once she manages to break out of the fragile female role and kills her lover violently with a phallic knife--but readers never see her act and it is the minor nosey character Mrs. Brooks who reports the murder. At the end of the novel, Tess and Angel are finally equal. As they make their escape, there is no more hesitancy about their socially inferior or superior backgrounds. Finally, they are just themselves and cannot worry about how society will judge them. Angel has undergone great mental anguish that has resulted in conversion and forgiveness, and physical pain that has left him weakened, aged, and not at all handsome. Tess similarly has undergone privations beyond endurance and doesn't owe anyone an apology. In the old mansion in the woods they stand as equals and finally experience a joyous honeymoon. However, as Hardy makes clear in his title \"Phase the Fifth, the woman pays\" Tess must mount the scaffold alone while Angel walks off with a new Tess. hat of Alec d'Urberville, who leaves his selfish self behind to be replaced, albeit temporarily, with a man of the cloth bent on saving others. But this man of the cloth is a sham. Hardy compares him with \"the Other,\" otherwise known as Satan, who tempts Eve in the garden paradise. And, just as he did years before, Alec seduces Tess. However, Alec appears to love Tess, who has some kind of hold on him. Why else the transformation into a man of God when she leaves, and why else the return to the man-of-old upon her return. Throughout the novel, Hardy paints a picture of, as the title denotes, \"a pure woman,\" and the tenuous position of such a woman, without a man's protection, in nineteenth-century Britain. Because of her fall from maidenhood Tess can only live as a man's mistress but never as his wife. Alec no doubt wanted Tess to remain with him, but he never asked her to marry him. Hardy provides no explanation for this because to his readers it would not be credible for a lower-class servant to marry an upper-class man with a noble name, even though that name is a sham. The upper-class Angel can marry Tess, but he has to justify this decision by pointing out how virtuous she is and how she will benefit him monetarily in his future as a farmer. Tess, however, is never Angel's wife in the physical sense of the word until the end of the novel. when the couple lives outside society's boundaries in the woods. Despite all the maneuverings of his characters, Hardy holds fast to his idea that fate ultimately controls all. Tess attempts to get Angel's attention by visiting his parents to ask for help and support. However, fate would have it that Angel's brothers just happen to be talking of their errant brother's marriage and they pass a veiled Tess. Had Tess spoken to the Clare family, chances are that she never would have encountered Alec, and certainly, if she had, not had the necessity to return to him in desperation. Hardy would thus have us believe that the course of our life, and thus our decisions, is predestined"}

The city of Wintoncester, that fine old city, aforetime capital of Wessex, lay amidst its convex and concave downlands in all the brightness and warmth of a July morning. The gabled brick, tile, and freestone houses had almost dried off for the season their integument of lichen, the streams in the meadows were low, and in the sloping High Street, from the West Gateway to the mediaeval cross, and from the mediaeval cross to the bridge, that leisurely dusting and sweeping was in progress which usually ushers in an old-fashioned market-day. From the western gate aforesaid the highway, as every Wintoncestrian knows, ascends a long and regular incline of the exact length of a measured mile, leaving the houses gradually behind. Up this road from the precincts of the city two persons were walking rapidly, as if unconscious of the trying ascent--unconscious through preoccupation and not through buoyancy. They had emerged upon this road through a narrow, barred wicket in a high wall a little lower down. They seemed anxious to get out of the sight of the houses and of their kind, and this road appeared to offer the quickest means of doing so. Though they were young, they walked with bowed heads, which gait of grief the sun's rays smiled on pitilessly. One of the pair was Angel Clare, the other a tall budding creature--half girl, half woman--a spiritualized image of Tess, slighter than she, but with the same beautiful eyes--Clare's sister-in-law, 'Liza-Lu. Their pale faces seemed to have shrunk to half their natural size. They moved on hand in hand, and never spoke a word, the drooping of their heads being that of Giotto's "Two Apostles". When they had nearly reached the top of the great West Hill the clocks in the town struck eight. Each gave a start at the notes, and, walking onward yet a few steps, they reached the first milestone, standing whitely on the green margin of the grass, and backed by the down, which here was open to the road. They entered upon the turf, and, impelled by a force that seemed to overrule their will, suddenly stood still, turned, and waited in paralyzed suspense beside the stone. The prospect from this summit was almost unlimited. In the valley beneath lay the city they had just left, its more prominent buildings showing as in an isometric drawing--among them the broad cathedral tower, with its Norman windows and immense length of aisle and nave, the spires of St Thomas's, the pinnacled tower of the College, and, more to the right, the tower and gables of the ancient hospice, where to this day the pilgrim may receive his dole of bread and ale. Behind the city swept the rotund upland of St Catherine's Hill; further off, landscape beyond landscape, till the horizon was lost in the radiance of the sun hanging above it. Against these far stretches of country rose, in front of the other city edifices, a large red-brick building, with level gray roofs, and rows of short barred windows bespeaking captivity, the whole contrasting greatly by its formalism with the quaint irregularities of the Gothic erections. It was somewhat disguised from the road in passing it by yews and evergreen oaks, but it was visible enough up here. The wicket from which the pair had lately emerged was in the wall of this structure. From the middle of the building an ugly flat-topped octagonal tower ascended against the east horizon, and viewed from this spot, on its shady side and against the light, it seemed the one blot on the city's beauty. Yet it was with this blot, and not with the beauty, that the two gazers were concerned. Upon the cornice of the tower a tall staff was fixed. Their eyes were riveted on it. A few minutes after the hour had struck something moved slowly up the staff, and extended itself upon the breeze. It was a black flag. "Justice" was done, and the President of the Immortals, in Aeschylean phrase, had ended his sport with Tess. And the d'Urberville knights and dames slept on in their tombs unknowing. The two speechless gazers bent themselves down to the earth, as if in prayer, and remained thus a long time, absolutely motionless: the flag continued to wave silently. As soon as they had strength, they arose, joined hands again, and went on.

Chapter LIX

https://web.archive.org/web/20210213065711/https://www.novelguide.com/tess-of-the-durbervilles/summaries/phase7-chapter53-59

In the final chapter, Angel and Liza-Lu, now a couple, watch as a black flag is raised on a tower signaling Tess's death: "justice was done. they joined hands again and went on".

. Although she is still alive, in the final and shortest section, it seems as if Tess is already dead. While most of the novel has been narrated from Tess's perspective, the final section is told from Angel's perspective, and since he knows nothing of what has happed to Tess in his absence, the reader is left just as much in the dark, having never seen Tess leave with Alec. She just appears at Sandbourne without a second seduction scene, as expected. Indeed, at this point even the minor characters have more agency than Tess. Angel hears from her mother that Tess is no longer at Marlott. Mrs. Brooks is central to the murder scene. When Angel arrives at Sandbourne, Tess is a "different woman," dressed in cashmere, living in the lap of luxury--a far, far remove from the Tess shivering and starving at Flintcomb-Ash. It is as if she has come so far under Alec's spell that she has lost her "self. It takes Angel's renewed presence to force Tess into taking action against Alec. And act she does. Seeing Angel once more ignites in Tess a storm of pent-up emotion that results in Alec's death. For once she manages to break out of the fragile female role and kills her lover violently with a phallic knife--but readers never see her act and it is the minor nosey character Mrs. Brooks who reports the murder. At the end of the novel, Tess and Angel are finally equal. As they make their escape, there is no more hesitancy about their socially inferior or superior backgrounds. Finally, they are just themselves and cannot worry about how society will judge them. Angel has undergone great mental anguish that has resulted in conversion and forgiveness, and physical pain that has left him weakened, aged, and not at all handsome. Tess similarly has undergone privations beyond endurance and doesn't owe anyone an apology. In the old mansion in the woods they stand as equals and finally experience a joyous honeymoon. However, as Hardy makes clear in his title "Phase the Fifth, the woman pays" Tess must mount the scaffold alone while Angel walks off with a new Tess. hat of Alec d'Urberville, who leaves his selfish self behind to be replaced, albeit temporarily, with a man of the cloth bent on saving others. But this man of the cloth is a sham. Hardy compares him with "the Other," otherwise known as Satan, who tempts Eve in the garden paradise. And, just as he did years before, Alec seduces Tess. However, Alec appears to love Tess, who has some kind of hold on him. Why else the transformation into a man of God when she leaves, and why else the return to the man-of-old upon her return. Throughout the novel, Hardy paints a picture of, as the title denotes, "a pure woman," and the tenuous position of such a woman, without a man's protection, in nineteenth-century Britain. Because of her fall from maidenhood Tess can only live as a man's mistress but never as his wife. Alec no doubt wanted Tess to remain with him, but he never asked her to marry him. Hardy provides no explanation for this because to his readers it would not be credible for a lower-class servant to marry an upper-class man with a noble name, even though that name is a sham. The upper-class Angel can marry Tess, but he has to justify this decision by pointing out how virtuous she is and how she will benefit him monetarily in his future as a farmer. Tess, however, is never Angel's wife in the physical sense of the word until the end of the novel. when the couple lives outside society's boundaries in the woods. Despite all the maneuverings of his characters, Hardy holds fast to his idea that fate ultimately controls all. Tess attempts to get Angel's attention by visiting his parents to ask for help and support. However, fate would have it that Angel's brothers just happen to be talking of their errant brother's marriage and they pass a veiled Tess. Had Tess spoken to the Clare family, chances are that she never would have encountered Alec, and certainly, if she had, not had the necessity to return to him in desperation. Hardy would thus have us believe that the course of our life, and thus our decisions, is predestined

pinkmonkey

all_chapterized_books/5658-chapters/29.txt

finished_summaries/pinkmonkey/Lord Jim/section_28_part_0.txt

Lord Jim.chapter 29

chapter 29

{"name": "Chapter 29", "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20180820051943/http://www.pinkmonkey.com/booknotes/monkeynotes/pmLordJim38.asp", "summary": "Marlow remembers more about Jewel, especially her pale complexion and jet black hair. He also sees her furtive glances at Jim, while he spoke to Marlow. She loved Jim jealously and possessively, as Jim did her. Her mother had taught her to read and write, and she learned a bit of English from Jim. As a result, she mixed being shy with being bold. Marlow returns to Jim's early history in Patusan. When he left Doramin's house, he went to live with Cornelius, whom he would soon be replacing as manager. In Cornelius' house, Jim was very uncomfortable because he felt his resentment. Cornelius' house was in ruins; the roof had fallen in and the storehouse was filled with rats. Half the time Jim got no food. His physical misery coupled with Raja Allang's threats to kill him made the first six weeks in Patusan were very unpleasant for Jim.", "analysis": "Notes The romance of Jim and Jewel takes place in a setting filled with intrigue and fear. Threats on Jim's life are frequent. As a result, Jewel is a calming influence in his life. Her total devotion to Jim is obvious. He has the undivided love of both Jewel and Tamb'Itam. Yet Marlow feels that he \"is imprisoned within the freedom of his power.\" Jim tries to forget his past, but it is of no use; it still comes back to haunt him. He cannot tell the Malay people why he cannot return home. According to Conrad, it is not possible to start life totally afresh."}

'This was the theory of Jim's marital evening walks. I made a third on more than one occasion, unpleasantly aware every time of Cornelius, who nursed the aggrieved sense of his legal paternity, slinking in the neighbourhood with that peculiar twist of his mouth as if he were perpetually on the point of gnashing his teeth. But do you notice how, three hundred miles beyond the end of telegraph cables and mail-boat lines, the haggard utilitarian lies of our civilisation wither and die, to be replaced by pure exercises of imagination, that have the futility, often the charm, and sometimes the deep hidden truthfulness, of works of art? Romance had singled Jim for its own--and that was the true part of the story, which otherwise was all wrong. He did not hide his jewel. In fact, he was extremely proud of it. 'It comes to me now that I had, on the whole, seen very little of her. What I remember best is the even, olive pallor of her complexion, and the intense blue-black gleams of her hair, flowing abundantly from under a small crimson cap she wore far back on her shapely head. Her movements were free, assured, and she blushed a dusky red. While Jim and I were talking, she would come and go with rapid glances at us, leaving on her passage an impression of grace and charm and a distinct suggestion of watchfulness. Her manner presented a curious combination of shyness and audacity. Every pretty smile was succeeded swiftly by a look of silent, repressed anxiety, as if put to flight by the recollection of some abiding danger. At times she would sit down with us and, with her soft cheek dimpled by the knuckles of her little hand, she would listen to our talk; her big clear eyes would remain fastened on our lips, as though each pronounced word had a visible shape. Her mother had taught her to read and write; she had learned a good bit of English from Jim, and she spoke it most amusingly, with his own clipping, boyish intonation. Her tenderness hovered over him like a flutter of wings. She lived so completely in his contemplation that she had acquired something of his outward aspect, something that recalled him in her movements, in the way she stretched her arm, turned her head, directed her glances. Her vigilant affection had an intensity that made it almost perceptible to the senses; it seemed actually to exist in the ambient matter of space, to envelop him like a peculiar fragrance, to dwell in the sunshine like a tremulous, subdued, and impassioned note. I suppose you think that I too am romantic, but it is a mistake. I am relating to you the sober impressions of a bit of youth, of a strange uneasy romance that had come in my way. I observed with interest the work of his--well--good fortune. He was jealously loved, but why she should be jealous, and of what, I could not tell. The land, the people, the forests were her accomplices, guarding him with vigilant accord, with an air of seclusion, of mystery, of invincible possession. There was no appeal, as it were; he was imprisoned within the very freedom of his power, and she, though ready to make a footstool of her head for his feet, guarded her conquest inflexibly--as though he were hard to keep. The very Tamb' Itam, marching on our journeys upon the heels of his white lord, with his head thrown back, truculent and be-weaponed like a janissary, with kriss, chopper, and lance (besides carrying Jim's gun); even Tamb' Itam allowed himself to put on the airs of uncompromising guardianship, like a surly devoted jailer ready to lay down his life for his captive. On the evenings when we sat up late, his silent, indistinct form would pass and repass under the verandah, with noiseless footsteps, or lifting my head I would unexpectedly make him out standing rigidly erect in the shadow. As a general rule he would vanish after a time, without a sound; but when we rose he would spring up close to us as if from the ground, ready for any orders Jim might wish to give. The girl too, I believe, never went to sleep till we had separated for the night. More than once I saw her and Jim through the window of my room come out together quietly and lean on the rough balustrade--two white forms very close, his arm about her waist, her head on his shoulder. Their soft murmurs reached me, penetrating, tender, with a calm sad note in the stillness of the night, like a self-communion of one being carried on in two tones. Later on, tossing on my bed under the mosquito-net, I was sure to hear slight creakings, faint breathing, a throat cleared cautiously--and I would know that Tamb' Itam was still on the prowl. Though he had (by the favour of the white lord) a house in the compound, had "taken wife," and had lately been blessed with a child, I believe that, during my stay at all events, he slept on the verandah every night. It was very difficult to make this faithful and grim retainer talk. Even Jim himself was answered in jerky short sentences, under protest as it were. Talking, he seemed to imply, was no business of his. The longest speech I heard him volunteer was one morning when, suddenly extending his hand towards the courtyard, he pointed at Cornelius and said, "Here comes the Nazarene." I don't think he was addressing me, though I stood at his side; his object seemed rather to awaken the indignant attention of the universe. Some muttered allusions, which followed, to dogs and the smell of roast-meat, struck me as singularly felicitous. The courtyard, a large square space, was one torrid blaze of sunshine, and, bathed in intense light, Cornelius was creeping across in full view with an inexpressible effect of stealthiness, of dark and secret slinking. He reminded one of everything that is unsavoury. His slow laborious walk resembled the creeping of a repulsive beetle, the legs alone moving with horrid industry while the body glided evenly. I suppose he made straight enough for the place where he wanted to get to, but his progress with one shoulder carried forward seemed oblique. He was often seen circling slowly amongst the sheds, as if following a scent; passing before the verandah with upward stealthy glances; disappearing without haste round the corner of some hut. That he seemed free of the place demonstrated Jim's absurd carelessness or else his infinite disdain, for Cornelius had played a very dubious part (to say the least of it) in a certain episode which might have ended fatally for Jim. As a matter of fact, it had redounded to his glory. But everything redounded to his glory; and it was the irony of his good fortune that he, who had been too careful of it once, seemed to bear a charmed life. 'You must know he had left Doramin's place very soon after his arrival--much too soon, in fact, for his safety, and of course a long time before the war. In this he was actuated by a sense of duty; he had to look after Stein's business, he said. Hadn't he? To that end, with an utter disregard of his personal safety, he crossed the river and took up his quarters with Cornelius. How the latter had managed to exist through the troubled times I can't say. As Stein's agent, after all, he must have had Doramin's protection in a measure; and in one way or another he had managed to wriggle through all the deadly complications, while I have no doubt that his conduct, whatever line he was forced to take, was marked by that abjectness which was like the stamp of the man. That was his characteristic; he was fundamentally and outwardly abject, as other men are markedly of a generous, distinguished, or venerable appearance. It was the element of his nature which permeated all his acts and passions and emotions; he raged abjectly, smiled abjectly, was abjectly sad; his civilities and his indignations were alike abject. I am sure his love would have been the most abject of sentiments--but can one imagine a loathsome insect in love? And his loathsomeness, too, was abject, so that a simply disgusting person would have appeared noble by his side. He has his place neither in the background nor in the foreground of the story; he is simply seen skulking on its outskirts, enigmatical and unclean, tainting the fragrance of its youth and of its naiveness. 'His position in any case could not have been other than extremely miserable, yet it may very well be that he found some advantages in it. Jim told me he had been received at first with an abject display of the most amicable sentiments. "The fellow apparently couldn't contain himself for joy," said Jim with disgust. "He flew at me every morning to shake both my hands--confound him!--but I could never tell whether there would be any breakfast. If I got three meals in two days I considered myself jolly lucky, and he made me sign a chit for ten dollars every week. Said he was sure Mr. Stein did not mean him to keep me for nothing. Well--he kept me on nothing as near as possible. Put it down to the unsettled state of the country, and made as if to tear his hair out, begging my pardon twenty times a day, so that I had at last to entreat him not to worry. It made me sick. Half the roof of his house had fallen in, and the whole place had a mangy look, with wisps of dry grass sticking out and the corners of broken mats flapping on every wall. He did his best to make out that Mr. Stein owed him money on the last three years' trading, but his books were all torn, and some were missing. He tried to hint it was his late wife's fault. Disgusting scoundrel! At last I had to forbid him to mention his late wife at all. It made Jewel cry. I couldn't discover what became of all the trade-goods; there was nothing in the store but rats, having a high old time amongst a litter of brown paper and old sacking. I was assured on every hand that he had a lot of money buried somewhere, but of course could get nothing out of him. It was the most miserable existence I led there in that wretched house. I tried to do my duty by Stein, but I had also other matters to think of. When I escaped to Doramin old Tunku Allang got frightened and returned all my things. It was done in a roundabout way, and with no end of mystery, through a Chinaman who keeps a small shop here; but as soon as I left the Bugis quarter and went to live with Cornelius it began to be said openly that the Rajah had made up his mind to have me killed before long. Pleasant, wasn't it? And I couldn't see what there was to prevent him if he really _had_ made up his mind. The worst of it was, I couldn't help feeling I wasn't doing any good either for Stein or for myself. Oh! it was beastly--the whole six weeks of it."'

Chapter 29

https://web.archive.org/web/20180820051943/http://www.pinkmonkey.com/booknotes/monkeynotes/pmLordJim38.asp

Marlow remembers more about Jewel, especially her pale complexion and jet black hair. He also sees her furtive glances at Jim, while he spoke to Marlow. She loved Jim jealously and possessively, as Jim did her. Her mother had taught her to read and write, and she learned a bit of English from Jim. As a result, she mixed being shy with being bold. Marlow returns to Jim's early history in Patusan. When he left Doramin's house, he went to live with Cornelius, whom he would soon be replacing as manager. In Cornelius' house, Jim was very uncomfortable because he felt his resentment. Cornelius' house was in ruins; the roof had fallen in and the storehouse was filled with rats. Half the time Jim got no food. His physical misery coupled with Raja Allang's threats to kill him made the first six weeks in Patusan were very unpleasant for Jim.

Notes The romance of Jim and Jewel takes place in a setting filled with intrigue and fear. Threats on Jim's life are frequent. As a result, Jewel is a calming influence in his life. Her total devotion to Jim is obvious. He has the undivided love of both Jewel and Tamb'Itam. Yet Marlow feels that he "is imprisoned within the freedom of his power." Jim tries to forget his past, but it is of no use; it still comes back to haunt him. He cannot tell the Malay people why he cannot return home. According to Conrad, it is not possible to start life totally afresh.

cliffnotes

all_chapterized_books/44747-chapters/part_2_chapters_13_to_16.txt

finished_summaries/cliffnotes/The Red and the Black/section_13_part_0.txt

The Red and the Black.part 2.chapters 13-16

chapters 13-16

{"name": "Chapters 13-16", "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20201128052739/https://www.cliffsnotes.com/literature/r/the-red-and-the-black/summary-and-analysis/part-2-chapters-1316", "summary": "Julien finds himself in love with the beauty and charm of Mathilde, and even his previous black vision of her as a Catherine de Medici forms part of the ideal she is becoming for him. Convinced, however, that he will be made a dupe, Julien pretexts a business trip to Mole's estates in the Languedoc. This threat of departure moves Mathilde to action, and in the declaration of love that she writes him, she states that it would be beyond her strength to be separated from him. Julien is overjoyed at this avowal and convinces Mole that the latter's affairs in Normandy now require a change in plans and Julien's presence in Paris. Mole's joy at Julien's plans causes a conflict to rise for Julien. How can he seduce the daughter of a man who has been so kind and who is so attached to him? He silences this scruple and, still driven by his mistrust of these aristocrats, devises a plan whereby, if need be, there will exist proof of Mathilde's attempt to seduce him. He copies the letter and sends it in a Bible to his friend Fouque for safekeeping. Then he composes a truly diplomatic letter as an answer to Mathilde, an answer that does not compromise him. Mathilde writes Julien a second letter, impatiently demanding an answer. Julien complies but admits nothing and announces his imminent departure from Paris. In order to deliver it to her, he strolls in the garden, and there he catches her eye as she watches him from her room. The next exchange contains her queenly command that Julien is to come to her room by means of a ladder at one o'clock. The evening before the rendezvous finds Julien still debating over Mathilde's intentions. Prepared for the worst, Julien imagines the various means at the disposal of the conspirators to capture, murder, and disgrace him. He sends more copies of Mathilde's letters to Fouque, together with a sealed denunciation to be circulated to various newspapers in the event of a catastrophe. Julien tries, in vain, to read betrayal on the face of the servants and of Mathilde during dinner. He strolls in the garden, wishing that she would appear to reassure him. He then reproaches himself for having stooped to ingratitude that would compromise the honor of such a noble family. He regrets having mailed the letters to Fouque. At the appointed hour, Julien climbs the ladder to Mathilde's window. Their first moments of conversation are forced, and both are very ill at ease. Julien stealthily inspects the premises, searching for concealed enemies. Finally he confesses his suspicions to Mathilde. They search desperately for subjects of conversation. Julien's evident assurance as he projects future meetings causes Mathilde to realize with horror that she has given herself a master. After much hesitation, Mathilde decides that she owes it to Julien, who has displayed much courage by appearing, to give herself to him. Neither finds pleasure, however, in the act of love. Julien departs before dawn, riding to the heights of Meudon, where at last he finds happiness. Mathilde asks herself whether she loves Julien after all.", "analysis": "These chapters relate the development, manifestations, and expressions of the duel of love that is waged between Julien and Mathilde. Chapter 16 culminates in the first rendezvous in her room, representing a definitive victory for Julien. Although Julien has certainly been formed by the action since his days in Verrieres, his success with Mathilde depends on his own blundering, which is reminiscent of his affair with Mme. de Renal. It is his distrust, his suspicion that he will be made a dupe, that prevent him from accepting Mathilde's overt advances. This coldness, on the other hand, is exactly what encourages Mathilde, and her fear of losing Julien prompts her to make the first written avowal. In spite of Stendhal's ironic treatment of the lovers' dilemma, Julien remains the fictitious Stendhal who coolly puts into operation what Stendhal himself had learned about the mechanism of love, as expressed in De L'Amour. As it has been shown, Julien is vaguely aware of the uniqueness of the psychology of this haughty Mathilde, but he is unable yet to exploit his knowledge efficaciously. The element of gratuitous victory is also present in his evaluation of her character. He sees her as Machiavellian, exaggerating her duplicity. She is, in fact, complex and strange, but not in that way. He is, therefore, right and wrong simultaneously. Stendhal gives to Julien an awareness of his own crystallization process. Julien attributes to Mathilde all qualities; he imagines her to be Catherine de Medici: \"Nothing was too profound or too criminal for the character he ascribed to her.\" Julien, like Mathilde, seems to be in love with an ideal. Mathilde is undergoing the same torment, fearing that Julien feels nothing for her. The theme of self-delusion, manifest here in the area of love, is one of the dominant Stendhalian themes and constitutes part of his uniqueness as a psychological novelist. The rationalization that Julien makes of the affront of which he is guilty toward M. de la Mole is a very convincing demonstration of the title of the novel. Julien vindictively shouts his battle cry: It's every man for himself in this desert of selfishness known as life. Why should providence have given him such a noble soul and not the material success that should accompany it? He has been denied the brilliant uniform that Croisenois wears, but he has known how to choose the uniform of his time -- the priest's cassock that could ultimately become a cardinal's robe. Julien sees the necessity of a strategic campaign, cloaked in duplicity, as the only means to success. He begins the attack by composing his diplomatic letter to Mathilde. Chapter 14 illustrates again Stendhal's concentric-circle technique of narration. He now returns to a description of the circumstances surrounding the delivery of the first letter to Julien, this time from Mathilde's point of view. Like Julien, Mathilde has undergone a conflict as her love has progressed. She has feared that she is not loved, and the new fear is born, to become stronger later, that she has given herself a master. Stendhal then shifts to Julien's point of view, proceeding to the second and third letters from Mathilde. Still undecided as to the reality that confronts him, Julien plans for both eventualities: either Mathilde's love for him, regulated by her pride, or the comedy in which his adversaries would make him the dupe. He realizes that he made a mistake by not leaving as he had threatened; therefore, his answer to Mathilde's second letter announces, in effect, that this time he will leave. The result in this comedy of errors is that Mathilde gives him a rendezvous. Without really being conscious of it, Julien has successfully used, on two occasions, a threat of departure to bring about the seduction of Mathilde. He is re-enacting his experience with Mme. de Renal. In the interior monologue preceding the rendezvous, Julien sees himself as most assuredly a victim of his imagined conspirators. The scene is perhaps the most exemplary in the novel of the almost paranoiac state into which the hero is capable of working himself. It is hardly a question of withdrawing at this point. Things have progressed too far, and honor forbids him from shirking his duty. A bust of Richelieu silently reproaches him and rids him early of any doubt but that the rendezvous will take place. What he debates is how to rehabilitate his personal honor, how to justify himself after the scandal, the eruption of which looms as a certainty. That nothing could convince him of the contrary is evidenced by the fact that he \"sees\" conspiracy in the servants' faces and a medieval grandeur in the face of Mathilde. He is imposing his own fears on reality. Note how even this impending doom for himself that he sees on Mathilde's face is intimately related with his love for her: \"He nearly fell in love with her.\" The Stendhalian hero permits himself to be afraid without shame because he has resolved to have the courage before the event itself. This attests to the self-imposed honesty and astringent morality by which Julien lives. He is presented truly as the military commander surveying the battlefield, anxiously awaiting the offensive. Julien is capable of detachment and of a sort of ironic self-scrutiny. This is a kind of insurance against ridicule that Stendhal permits Julien to create. After all, Julien does not take himself too seriously, just as Stendhal has not been his own dupe. Julien repents for having sent the letters to Fouque. He sees the possible circulation of the documents as a base action on his own part since posterity would see in him an ingrate who would resort to attacking a woman's honor. He is now at the point of preferring to be a dupe, his personal honor requiring self-immolation in silence. Note the rapidity of Stendhal's pace in narration, imitating, thereby, the mental processes of Julien. Chapter 16 begins without a break from the end of the preceding by the running interior monologue of the hero. Although Julien has never been so afraid in his life, waiting at any moment for the conspirators to strike, he assures himself that he has left no eventuality without consideration, so that he will not be able to reproach himself in the event of a blunder. Arriving at Mathilde's window with his pistol in hand, Julien goes to battle. The rendezvous scene is rightly reputed as one of Stendhal's masterpieces in psychological analysis. The scene is very dramatic and fast moving. These effects are achieved by the use of short, terse sentences, both by Stendhal in commenting and by the characters in dialogue. A second contributing factor is the structure: Stendhal alternates consistently in his presentation, first of Julien's, then of Mathilde's view of the situation, adding commentaries and making analysis after the remarks of each character. Alternation is necessitated by the nature of the characters and of their love. Both have conceived a role that they are playing, and the roles prove inadequate to the occasion. Such a rendezvous demands passion, spontaneity, forgetfulness of self. Both are self-conscious, scheming, suspicious, acting out a preconceived conduct. It is the bifurcation of two characters into an identical role and their own individual \"doubling\" in the presence of the other that make the scene basically comic-heroic. A rapid sketch of their respective states -- internal and the manner in which they find external expression-follows: Mathilde has been observing Julien for an hour and is now very emotional. Nonetheless, she addresses him as \"Monsieur.\" Julien has thought only of the ambush he expects and therefore is ill-prepared. He remembers, in his embarrassment, that his role requires that he be romantic; therefore, he attempts to embrace Mathilde. Her refusal, stemming, no doubt, from timidity and from her preference of the ideal to the real, puts Julien back on the defensive. This explains his reaction: \". . . overjoyed at being repulsed, he hastened to look around.\" Mathilde is delighted to find a topic of conversation, she is so unprepared for this \"real\" situation. She asks what Julien has in his pockets. Julien, likewise embarrassed, is pleased to have conversational subject matter and explains that he is carrying an \"arsenal.\" Then it is a question of how to dispose of the ladder. Mathilde adopts a tone of normal conversation, admonishing Julien not to break the windows, lamenting over the flowers crushed as the ladder falls. Julien, seemingly dedicated to the idea of self-defeat, sees Mathilde's supply of rope as proof that Croisenois has triumphed over him after all since he, Julien, must not be the first to have visited her room. Julien becomes suspicious again, but he has enough resourcefulness and presence of mind to playfully adopt a Creole accent. This effort does not escape Mathilde's attention, and she joins in the game, seeing this as a manifestation of Julien's superiority, thus justifying, in her own eyes, her love for him. When she takes his arm, his violent reaction is one of suspicion again, and he draws his dagger. There reigns a complicity of silence as they are listening for a menacing noise. Then returns the embarrassing silence. Julien busies himself with measures of security; Mathilde has just awakened to the compromising situation her daring has put her into. This leads her to ask what has happened to her letters. Julien, still distrustful, explains the measures he has taken to safeguard himself, believing that his hidden enemies will hear his words. Mathilde's amazement calls forth a sincere avowal on Julien's part of his suspicions. Mathilde has now switched to \"tu,\" but her tone belies this familiarity. This encourages Julien to embrace her, and she only half repulses the embrace. Now Julien is more the master of himself and, relying on recollection of his past successes, begins reciting love passages from Rousseau. Mathilde, not even hearing them, but carrying on her own mental debate, announces that she finds his courage in coming proof that he merits her love. Each is attempting to capture reflections of the \"self,\" not to direct attention to the \"other.\" Therefore, what is actually occurring are two separate monologues: Mathilde looking for evidence that Julien is worthy of the sacrifice she has made, Julien looking for encouragement, which in turn will bolster his self-esteem and courage. Stendhal is showing vanity, an early stage of love. Sensing the emptiness of the familiar address, Julien falls back on his reason, and he is content, momentarily, to found his happiness simply on being preferred by this haughty aristocrat. Now he is searching for a plan of conduct, making conversation to fill the silence: Mathilde joins in this \"substitute\" action, covering her horror at her own indiscretion by prattle about when they can meet again. In narrating their conversation, Stendhal has recourse to a method of narration called later \"style indirect libre,\" the initiation of which is attributed to Flaubert. It consists of quoting the words of the characters out of quotes, of narrating as if the characters were speaking. Julien offers his plan, not directly quoted as dialogue, but as part of the narration: \"What could be easier for them than to meet in the library and make arrangement for everything?\" and again: \"If Mathilde thought it better for him always to come by means of a ladder, he would expose himself to that slight danger with a heart overflowing with joy.\" Instead of helping to create an air of complicity, thus furthering their rendezvous and speeding it on to its climax, Julien's brilliance and self-assurance awaken Mathilde's pride and make her ask herself again whether Julien is now her master. \"If she had been able, she would have annihilated herself and Julien,\" says Stendhal in an abrupt manner, startling the reader. Stendhal prefers classical litotes to romantic hyperbole. Mathilde had not predicted this attitude of hers; thus do Stendhal's characters watch themselves develop, surprised at what they become. Eventually, her will silences her remorse, timidity, shyness, and wounded modesty, and she notes that she is not fulfilling her role: One speaks to one's lover. She therefore speaks tender words in a cold tone. She forces herself to permit herself to be seduced. From this act, typically hardly alluded to because of Stendhal's great modesty, neither feels pleasure. Their reactions are different, yet consistent with their character: Julien feels happiness only in retrospect as he rides in \"high solitude\"; Mathilde wonders why there has been such a distance between her ideal and the real, and she asks whether she really loves Julien. The reaction of both characters echoes Stendhal's own at his persistent disappointment with reality: N'est ce que ca? Mathilde has emptied the act of pleasure for Julien because she has undertaken it as a duty to him and to herself. Julien had felt the same reaction after his first rendezvous with Mme. de Renal. He notices again, however, how inferior is this happiness with Mathilde to that which he knew with Mme. de Renal."}

CHAPTER XLIII A PLOT Disconnected remarks, casual meetings, become transformed in the eyes of an imaginative man into the most convincing proofs, if he has any fire in his temperament.--_Schiller_. The following day he again caught Norbert and his sister talking about him. A funereal silence was established on his arrival as on the previous day. His suspicions were now unbounded. "Can these charming young people have started to make fun of me? I must own this is much more probable, much more natural than any suggested passion on the part of mademoiselle de La Mole for a poor devil of a secretary. In the first place, have those people got any passions at all? Mystification is their strong point. They are jealous of my poor little superiority in speaking. Being jealous again is one of their weaknesses. On that basis everything is explicable. Mademoiselle de La Mole simply wants to persuade me that she is marking me out for special favour in order to show me off to her betrothed?" This cruel suspicion completely changed Julien's psychological condition. The idea found in his heart a budding love which it had no difficulty in destroying. This love was only founded on Mathilde's rare beauty, or rather on her queenly manners and her admirable dresses. Julien was still a parvenu in this respect. We are assured that there is nothing equal to a pretty society women for dazzling a peasant who is at the same time a man of intellect, when he is admitted to first class society. It had not been Mathilde's character which had given Julien food for dreams in the days that had just passed. He had sufficient sense to realise that he knew nothing about her character. All he saw of it might be merely superficial. For instance, Mathilde would not have missed mass on Sunday for anything in the world. She accompanied her mother there nearly every time. If when in the salon of the Hotel de La Mole some indiscreet man forgot where he was, and indulged in the remotest allusion to any jest against the real or supposed interests of Church or State, Mathilde immediately assumed an icy seriousness. Her previously arch expression re-assumed all the impassive haughtiness of an old family portrait. But Julien had assured himself that she always had one or two of Voltaire's most philosophic volumes in her room. He himself would often steal some tomes of that fine edition which was so magnificently bound. By moving each volume a little distance from the one next to it he managed to hide the absence of the one he took away, but he soon noticed that someone else was reading Voltaire. He had recourse to a trick worthy of the seminary and placed some pieces of hair on those volumes which he thought were likely to interest mademoiselle de La Mole. They disappeared for whole weeks. M. de La Mole had lost patience with his bookseller, who always sent him all the spurious memoirs, and had instructed Julien to buy all the new books, which were at all stimulating. But in order to prevent the poison spreading over the household, the secretary was ordered to place the books in a little book-case that stood in the marquis's own room. He was soon quite certain that although the new books were hostile to the interests of both State and Church, they very quickly disappeared. It was certainly not Norbert who read them. Julien attached undue importance to this discovery, and attributed to mademoiselle de la Mole a Machiavellian role. This seeming depravity constituted a charm in his eyes, the one moral charm, in fact, which she possessed. He was led into this extravagance by his boredom with hypocrisy and moral platitudes. It was more a case of his exciting his own imagination than of his being swept away by his love. It was only after he had abandoned himself to reveries about the elegance of mademoiselle de la Mole's figure, the excellent taste of he dress, the whiteness of her hand, the beauty of her arm, the _disinvoltura_ of all her movements, that he began to find himself in love. Then in order to complete the charm he thought her a Catherine de' Medici. Nothing was too deep or too criminal for the character which he ascribed to her. She was the ideal of the Maslons, the Frilairs, and the Castanedes whom he had admired so much in his youth. To put it shortly, she represented in his eyes the Paris ideal. Could anything possibly be more humorous than believing in the depth or in the depravity of the Parisian character? It is impossible that this _trio_ is making fun of me thought Julien. The reader knows little of his character if he has not begun already to imagine his cold and gloomy expression when he answered Mathilde's looks. A bitter irony rebuffed those assurances of friendship which the astonished mademoiselle de la Mole ventured to hazard on two or three occasions. Piqued by this sudden eccentricity, the heart of this young girl, though naturally cold, bored and intellectual, became as impassioned as it was naturally capable of being. But there was also a large element of pride in Mathilde's character, and the birth of a sentiment which made all her happiness dependent on another, was accompanied by a gloomy melancholy. Julien had derived sufficient advantage from his stay in Paris to appreciate that this was not the frigid melancholy of ennui. Instead of being keen as she had been on at homes, theatres, and all kinds of distractions, she now shunned them. Music sung by Frenchmen bored Mathilde to death, yet Julien, who always made a point of being present when the audience came out of the Opera, noticed that she made a point of getting taken there as often as she could. He thought he noticed that she had lost a little of that brilliant neatness of touch which used to be manifest in everything she did. She would sometimes answer her friends with jests rendered positively outrageous through the sheer force of their stinging energy. He thought that she made a special butt of the marquis de Croisenois. That young man must be desperately in love with money not to give the go-by to that girl, however rich she maybe, thought Julien. And as for himself, indignant at these outrages on masculine self-respect, he redoubled his frigidity towards her. Sometimes he went so far as to answer her with scant courtesy. In spite of his resolution not to become the dupe of Mathilde's signs of interest, these manifestations were so palpable on certain days, and Julien, whose eyes were beginning to be opened, began to find her so pretty, that he was sometimes embarrassed. "These young people of society will score in the long run by their skill and their coolness over my inexperience," he said to himself. "I must leave and put an end to all this." The marquis had just entrusted him with the administration of a number of small estates and houses which he possessed in Lower Languedoc. A journey was necessary; M. de la Mole reluctantly consented. Julien had become his other self, except in those matters which concerned his political career. "So, when we come to balance the account," Julien said to himself, as he prepared his departure, "they have not caught me. Whether the jests that mademoiselle de la Mole made to those gentlemen are real, or whether they were only intended to inspire me with confidence, they have simply amused me. "If there is no conspiracy against the carpenter's son, mademoiselle de la Mole is an enigma, but at any rate, she is quite as much an enigma for the marquis de Croisenois as she is to me. Yesterday, for instance, her bad temper was very real, and I had the pleasure of seeing her snub, thanks to her favour for me, a young man who is as noble and as rich as I am a poor scoundrel of a plebeian. That is my finest triumph; it will divert me in my post-chaise as I traverse the Languedoc plains." He had kept his departure a secret, but Mathilde knew, even better than he did himself, that he was going to leave Paris the following day for a long time. She developed a maddening headache, which was rendered worse by the stuffy salon. She walked a great deal in the garden, and persecuted Norbert, the marquis de Croisenois, Caylus, de Luz, and some other young men who had dined at the Hotel de la Mole, to such an extent by her mordant witticisms, that she drove them to take their leave. She kept looking at Julien in a strange way. "Perhaps that look is a pose," thought Julien, "but how about that hurried breathing and all that agitation? Bah," he said to himself, "who am I to judge of such things? We are dealing with the cream of Parisian sublimity and subtlety. As for that hurried breathing which was on the point of affecting me, she no doubt studied it with Leontine Fay, whom she likes so much." They were left alone; the conversation was obviously languishing. "No, Julien has no feeling for me," said Mathilde to herself, in a state of real unhappiness. As he was taking leave of her she took his arm violently. "You will receive a letter from me this evening," she said to him in a voice that was so changed that its tone was scarcely recognisable. This circumstance affected Julien immediately. "My father," she continued, "has a proper regard for the services you render him. You must not leave to-morrow; find an excuse." And she ran away. Her figure was charming. It was impossible to have a prettier foot. She ran with a grace which fascinated Julien, but will the reader guess what he began to think about after she had finally left him? He felt wounded by the imperious tone with which she had said the words, "you must." Louis XV. too, when on his death-bed, had been keenly irritated by the words "you must," which had been tactlessly pronounced by his first physician, and yet Louis XV. was not a parvenu. An hour afterwards a footman gave Julien a letter. It was quite simply a declaration of love. "The style is too affected," said Julien to himself, as he endeavoured to control by his literary criticism the joy which was spreading over his cheeks and forcing him to smile in spite of himself. At last his passionate exultation was too strong to be controlled. "So I," he suddenly exclaimed, "I, the poor peasant, get a declaration of love from a great lady." "As for myself, I haven't done so badly," he added, restraining his joy as much as he could. "I have managed to preserve my self-respect. I did not say that I loved her." He began to study the formation of the letters. Mademoiselle de la Mole had a pretty little English handwriting. He needed some concrete occupation to distract him from a joy which verged on delirium. "Your departure forces me to speak.... I could not bear not to see you again." A thought had just struck Julien like a new discovery. It interrupted his examination of Mathilde's letter, and redoubled his joy. "So I score over the marquis de Croisenois," he exclaimed. "Yes, I who could only talk seriously! And he is so handsome. He has a moustache and a charming uniform. He always manages to say something witty and clever just at the psychological moment." Julien experienced a delightful minute. He was wandering at random in the garden, mad with happiness. Afterwards he went up to his desk, and had himself ushered in to the marquis de la Mole, who was fortunately still in. He showed him several stamped papers which had come from Normandy, and had no difficulty in convincing him that he was obliged to put off his departure for Languedoc in order to look after the Normandy lawsuits. "I am very glad that you are not going," said the marquis to him, when they had finished talking business. "I like seeing you." Julien went out; the words irritated him. "And I--I am going to seduce his daughter! and perhaps render impossible that marriage with the marquis de Croisenois to which the marquis looks forward with such delight. If he does not get made a duke, at any rate his daughter will have a coronet." Julien thought of leaving for Languedoc in spite of Mathilde's letter, and in spite of the explanation he had just given to the marquis. This flash of virtue quickly disappeared. "How kind it is of me," he said to himself, "me ... a plebeian, takes pity on a family of this rank! Yes, me, whom the duke of Chaulnes calls a servant! How does the marquis manage to increase his immense fortune? By selling stock when he picks up information at the castle that there will be a panic of a _coup d'etat_ on the following day. And shall I, who have been flung down into the lowest class by a cruel providence--I, whom providence has given a noble heart but not an income of a thousand francs, that is to say, not enough to buy bread with, literally not enough to buy bread with--shall I refuse a pleasure that presents itself? A limpid fountain which will quench my thirst in this scorching desert of mediocrity which I am traversing with such difficulty! Upon my word, I am not such a fool! Each man for himself in that desert of egoism which is called life." And he remembered certain disdainful looks which madame de la Mole, and especially her lady friends, had favoured him with. The pleasure of scoring over the marquis de Croisenois completed the rout of this echo of virtue. "How I should like to make him angry," said Julien. "With what confidence would I give him a sword thrust now!" And he went through the segoon thrust. "Up till now I have been a mere usher, who exploited basely the little courage he had. After this letter I am his equal. "Yes," he slowly said to himself, with an infinite pleasure, "the merits of the marquis and myself have been weighed in the balance, and it is the poor carpenter from the Jura who turns the scale. "Good!" he exclaimed, "this is how I shall sign my answer. Don't imagine, mademoiselle de la Mole, that I am forgetting my place. I will make you realise and fully appreciate that it is for a carpenter's son that you are betraying a descendant of the famous Guy de Croisenois who followed St. Louis to the Crusade." Julien was unable to control his joy. He was obliged to go down into the garden. He had locked himself in his room, but he found it too narrow to breathe in. "To think of it being me, the poor peasant from the Jura," he kept on repeating to himself, "to think of it being me who am eternally condemned to wear this gloomy black suit! Alas twenty years ago I would have worn a uniform like they do! In those days a man like me either got killed or became a general at thirty-six. The letter which he held clenched in his hand gave him a heroic pose and stature. Nowadays, it is true, if one sticks to this black suit, one gets at forty an income of a hundred thousand francs and the blue ribbon like my lord bishop of Beauvais. "Well," he said to himself with a Mephistophelian smile, "I have more brains than they. I am shrewd enough to choose the uniform of my century. And he felt a quickening of his ambition and of his attachment to his ecclesiastical dress. What cardinals of even lower birth than mine have not succeeded in governing! My compatriot Granvelle, for instance." Julien's agitation became gradually calmed! Prudence emerged to the top. He said to himself like his master Tartuffe whose part he knew by heart: Je puis croire ces mots, un artifice honnete. * * * * * * * * * * * * * * Je ne me firai point a des propos si doux, Qu'un peu de ses faveurs apres quoi je soupire Ne vienne m'assurer tout ce qu'ils m'ont pudire. _Tartuffe, act iv. Scene v_. "Tartuffe, too, was ruined by a woman, and he was as good as most men.... My answer may be shown.... and the way out of that is this," he added pronouncing his words slowly with an intonation of deliberate and restrained ferocity. "We will begin by quoting the most vivid passages from the letter of the sublime Mathilde." "Quite so, but M. de Croisenois' lackeys will hurl themselves upon me and snatch the original away." "No, they won't, for I am well armed, and as we know I am accustomed to firing on lackeys." "Well, suppose one of them has courage, and hurls himself upon me. He has been promised a hundred napoleons. I kill him, or wound him, good, that's what they want. I shall be thrown into prison legally. I shall be had up in the police court and the judges will send me with all justice and all equity to keep Messieurs Fontan and Magalon company in Poissy. There I shall be landed in the middle of four hundred scoundrels.... And am I to have the slightest pity on these people," he exclaimed getting up impetuously! "Do they show any to persons of the third estate when they have them in their power!" With these words his gratitude to M. de la Mole, which had been in spite of himself torturing his conscience up to this time, breathed its last. "Softly, gentlemen, I follow this little Machiavellian trick, the abbe Maslon or M. Castanede of the seminary could not have done better. You will take the provocative letter away from me and I shall exemplify the second volume of Colonel Caron at Colmar." "One moment, gentlemen, I will send the fatal letter in a well-sealed packet to M. the abbe Pirard to take care of. He's an honest man, a Jansenist, and consequently incorruptible. Yes, but he will open the letters.... Fouque is the man to whom I must send it." We must admit that Julien's expression was awful, his countenance ghastly; it breathed unmitigated criminality. It represented the unhappy man at war with all society. "To arms," exclaimed Julien. And he bounded up the flight of steps of the hotel with one stride. He entered the stall of the street scrivener; he frightened him. "Copy this," he said, giving him mademoiselle de la Mole's letter. While the scrivener was working, he himself wrote to Fouque. He asked him to take care of a valuable deposit. "But he said to himself," breaking in upon his train of thought, "the secret service of the post-office will open my letter, and will give you gentlemen the one you are looking for ... not quite, gentlemen." He went and bought an enormous Bible from a Protestant bookseller, skillfully hid Mathilde's letter in the cover, and packed it all up. His parcel left by the diligence addressed to one of Fouque's workmen, whose name was known to nobody at Paris. This done, he returned to the Hotel de la Mole, joyous and buoyant. Now it's our turn he exclaimed as he locked himself into the room and threw off his coat. "What! mademoiselle," he wrote to Mathilde, "is it mademoiselle de la Mole who gets Arsene her father's lackey to hand an only too flattering letter to a poor carpenter from the Jura, in order no doubt to make fun of his simplicity?" And he copied out the most explicit phrases in the letter which he had just received. His own letter would have done honour to the diplomatic prudence of M. the Chevalier de Beauvoisis. It was still only ten o'clock when Julien entered the Italian opera, intoxicated with happiness and that feeling of his own power which was so novel for a poor devil like him. He heard his friend Geronimo sing. Music had never exalted him to such a pitch. CHAPTER XLIV A YOUNG GIRL'S THOUGHTS What perplexity! What sleepless nights! Great God. Am I going to make myself contemptible? He will despise me himself. But he is leaving, he is going away. _Alfred de Musset_ Mathilde had not written without a struggle. Whatever might have been the beginning of her interest in Julien, it soon dominated that pride which had reigned unchallenged in her heart since she had begun to know herself. This cold and haughty soul was swept away for the first time by a sentiment of passion, but if this passion dominated her pride, it still kept faithfully to the habits of that pride. Two months of struggles and new sensations had transformed, so to speak her whole moral life. Mathilde thought she was in sight of happiness. This vista, irresistible as it is for those who combine a superior intellect with a courageous soul, had to struggle for a long time against her self respect and all her vulgar duties. One day she went into her mother's room at seven o'clock in the morning and asked permission to take refuge in Villequier. The marquise did not even deign to answer her, and advised her to go back to bed. This was the last effort of vulgar prudence and respect for tradition. The fear of doing wrong and of offending those ideas which the Caylus's, the de Luz's, the Croisenois' held for sacred had little power over her soul. She considered such creatures incapable of understanding her. She would have consulted them, if it had been a matter of buying a carriage or an estate. Her real fear was that Julien was displeased with her. "Perhaps he, too, has only the appearance of a superior man?" She abhorred lack of character; that was her one objection to the handsome young men who surrounded her. The more they made elegant fun of everything which deviated from the prevailing mode, or which conformed to it but indifferently, the lower they fell in her eyes. They were brave and that was all. "And after all in what way were they brave?" she said to herself. "In duels, but the duel is nothing more than a formality. The whole thing is mapped out beforehand, even the correct thing to say when you fall. Stretched on the turf, and with your hand on your heart, you must vouchsafe a generous forgiveness to the adversary, and a few words for a fair lady, who is often imaginary, or if she does exist, will go to a ball on the day of your death for fear of arousing suspicion." "One braves danger at the head of a squadron brilliant with steel, but how about that danger which is solitary, strange, unforeseen and really ugly." "Alas," said Mathilde to herself, "it was at the court of Henri III. that men who were great both by character and by birth were to be found! Yes! If Julien had served at Jarnac or Moncontour, I should no longer doubt. In those days of strength and vigour Frenchmen were not dolls. The day of the battle was almost the one which presented the fewest problems." Their life was not imprisoned, like an Egyptian mummy in a covering which was common to all, and always the same. "Yes," she added, "there was more real courage in going home alone at eleven o'clock in the evening when one came out of the Hotel de Soissons where Catherine de' Medici lived than there is nowadays in running over to Algiers. A man's life was then a series of hazards. Nowadays civilisation has banished hazard. There are no more surprises. If anything new appears in any idea there are not sufficient epigrams to immortalise it, but if anything new appears in actual life, our panic reaches the lowest depth of cowardice. Whatever folly panic makes us commit is excused. What a degenerate and boring age! What would Boniface de la Mole have said if, lifting his cut-off head out of the tomb, he had seen seventeen of his descendants allow themselves to be caught like sheep in 1793 in order to be guillotined two days afterwards! Death was certain, but it would have been bad form to have defended themselves and to have killed at least one or two Jacobins. Yes! in the heroic days of France, in the age of Boniface de la Mole, Julien would have been the chief of a squadron, while my brother would have been the young priest with decorous manners, with wisdom in his eyes and reason on his lips." Some months previously Mathilde had given up all hope of meeting any being who was a little different from the common pattern. She had found some happiness in allowing herself to write to some young society men. This rash procedure, which was so unbecoming and so imprudent in a young girl, might have disgraced her in the eyes of M. de Croisenois, the Duke de Chaulnes, his father, and the whole Hotel de Chaulnes, who on seeing the projected marriage broken off would have wanted to know the reason. At that time Mathilde had been unable to sleep on those days when she had written one of her letters. But those letters were only answers. But now she ventured to declare her own love. She wrote first (what a terrible word!) to a man of the lowest social grade. This circumstance rendered her eternal disgrace quite inevitable in the event of detection. Who of the women who visited her mother would have dared to take her part? What official excuse could be evolved which could successfully cope with the awful contempt of society. Besides speaking was awful enough, but writing! "There are some things which are not written!" Napoleon had exclaimed on learning of the capitulation of Baylen. And it was Julien who had told her that epigram, as though giving her a lesson that was to come in useful subsequently. But all this was comparatively unimportant, Mathilde's anguish had other causes. Forgetting the terrible effect it would produce on society, and the ineffable blot on her scutcheon that would follow such an outrage on her own caste, Mathilde was going to write to a person of a very different character to the Croisenois', the de Luz's, the Caylus's. She would have been frightened at the depth and mystery in Julien's character, even if she had merely entered into a conventional acquaintance with him. And she was going to make him her lover, perhaps her master. "What will his pretensions not be, if he is ever in a position to do everything with me? Well! I shall say, like Medea: _Au milieu de tant de perils il me reste Moi_." She believed that Julien had no respect for nobility of blood. What was more, he probably did not love her. In these last moments of awful doubt her feminine pride suggested to her certain ideas. "Everything is bound to be extraordinary in the life of a girl like me," exclaimed Mathilde impatiently. The pride, which had been drilled into her since her cradle, began to struggle with her virtue. It was at this moment that Julien's departure precipitated everything. (Such characters are luckily very rare.) Very late in the evening, Julien was malicious enough to have a very heavy trunk taken down to the porter's lodge. He called the valet, who was courting mademoiselle de la Mole's chambermaid, to move it. "This manoeuvre cannot result in anything," he said to himself, "but if it does succeed, she will think that I have gone." Very tickled by this humorous thought, he fell asleep. Mathilde did not sleep a wink. Julien left the hotel very early the next morning without being seen, but he came back before eight o'clock. He had scarcely entered the library before M. de la Mole appeared on the threshold. He handed her his answer. He thought that it was his duty to speak to her, it was certainly perfectly feasible, but mademoiselle de la Mole would not listen to him and disappeared. Julien was delighted. He did not know what to say. "If all this is not a put up job with comte Norbert, it is clear that it is my cold looks which have kindled the strange love which this aristocratic girl chooses to entertain for me. I should be really too much of a fool if I ever allowed myself to take a fancy to that big blonde doll." This train of reasoning left him colder and more calculating than he had ever been. "In the battle for which we are preparing," he added, "pride of birth will be like a high hill which constitutes a military position between her and me. That must be the field of the manoeuvres. I made a great mistake in staying in Paris; this postponing of my departure cheapens and exposes me, if all this is simply a trick. What danger was there in leaving? If they were making fun of me, I was making fun of them. If her interest for me was in any way real, I was making that interest a hundred times more intense." Mademoiselle de la Mole's letter had given Julien's vanity so keen a pleasure, that wreathed as he was in smiles at his good fortune he had forgotten to think seriously about the propriety of leaving. It was one of the fatal elements of his character to be extremely sensitive to his own weaknesses. He was extremely upset by this one, and had almost forgotten the incredible victory which had preceded this slight check, when about nine o'clock mademoiselle de la Mole appeared on the threshold of the library, flung him a letter and ran away. "So this is going to be the romance by letters," he said as he picked it up. "The enemy makes a false move; I will reply by coldness and virtue." He was asked with a poignancy which merely increased his inner gaiety to give a definite answer. He indulged in the pleasure of mystifying those persons who he thought wanted to make fun of him for two pages, and it was out of humour again that he announced towards the end of his answer his definite departure on the following morning. "The garden will be a useful place to hand her the letter," he thought after he had finished it, and he went there. He looked at the window of mademoiselle de la Mole's room. It was on the first storey, next to her mother's apartment, but there was a large ground floor. This latter was so high that, as Julien walked under the avenue of pines with his letter in his hands, he could not be seen from mademoiselle de la Mole's window. The dome formed by the well clipped pines intercepted the view. "What!" said Julien to himself angrily, "another indiscretion! If they have really begun making fun of me, showing myself with a letter is playing into my enemy's hands." Norbert's room was exactly above his sister's and if Julien came out from under the dome formed by the clipped branches of the pine, the comte and his friend could follow all his movements. Mademoiselle de la Mole appeared behind her window; he half showed his letter; she lowered her head, then Julien ran up to his own room and met accidentally on the main staircase the fair Mathilde, who seized the letter with complete self-possession and smiling eyes. "What passion there was in the eyes of that poor madame de Renal," said Julien to himself, "when she ventured to receive a letter from me, even after six months of intimate relationship! I don't think she ever looked at me with smiling eyes in her whole life." He did not formulate so precisely the rest of his answer; was he perhaps ashamed of the triviality of the motive which were actuating him? "But how different too," he went on to think, "are her elegant morning dress and her distinguished appearance! A man of taste on seeing mademoiselle de la Mole thirty yards off would infer the position which she occupies in society. That is what can be called a specific merit." In spite of all this humorousness, Julien was not yet quite honest with himself; madame de Renal had no marquis de Croisenois to sacrifice to him. His only rival was that grotesque sub-prefect, M. Charcot, who assumed the name of Maugiron, because there were no Maugirons left in France. At five o'clock Julien received a third letter. It was thrown to him from the library door. Mademoiselle de la Mole ran away again. "What a mania for writing," he said to himself with a laugh, "when one can talk so easily. The enemy wants my letters, that is clear, and many of them." He did not hurry to open this one. "More elegant phrases," he thought; but he paled as he read it. There were only eight lines. "I need to speak to you; I must speak to you this evening. Be in the garden at the moment when one o'clock is striking. Take the big gardeners' ladder near the well; place it against my window, and climb up to my room. It is moonlight; never mind." CHAPTER XLV IS IT A PLOT? Oh, how cruel is the interval between the conception and the execution of a great project. What vain fears, what fits of irresolution! It is a matter of life and death--even more is at stake honour!--_Schiller_. "This is getting serious," thought Julien, "and a little too clear," he added after thinking a little. "Why to be sure! This fine young lady can talk to me in the library with a freedom which, thank heaven, is absolutely complete; the marquis, frightened as he is that I show him accounts, never sets foot in it. Why! M. de la Mole and the comte Norbert, the only persons who ever come here, are absent nearly the whole day, and the sublime Mathilde for whom a sovereign prince would not be too noble a suitor, wants me to commit an abominable indiscretion. "It is clear they want to ruin me, or at the least make fun of me. First they wanted to ruin me by my own letters; they happen to be discreet; well, they want some act which is clearer than daylight. These handsome little gentlemen think I am too silly or too conceited. The devil! To think of climbing like this up a ladder to a storey twenty-five feet high in the finest moonlight. They would have time to see me, even from the neighbouring houses. I shall cut a pretty figure to be sure on my ladder!" Julien went up to his room again and began to pack his trunk whistling. He had decided to leave and not even to answer. But this wise resolution did not give him peace of mind. "If by chance," he suddenly said to himself after he had closed his trunk, "Mathilde is in good faith, why then I cut the figure of an arrant coward in her eyes. I have no birth myself, so I need great qualities attested straight away by speaking actions--money down--no charitable credit." He spent a quarter-of-an-hour in reflecting. "What is the good of denying it?" he said at last. "She will think me a coward. I shall lose not only the most brilliant person in high society, as they all said at M. the duke de Retz's ball, but also the heavenly pleasure of seeing the marquis de Croisenois, the son of a duke, who will be one day a duke himself, sacrificed to me. A charming young man who has all the qualities I lack. A happy wit, birth, fortune.... "This regret will haunt me all my life, not on her account, 'there are so many mistresses!... but there is only one honour!' says old don Diego. And here am I clearly and palpably shrinking from the first danger that presents itself; for the duel with M. de Beauvoisis was simply a joke. This is quite different. A servant may fire at me point blank, but that is the least danger; I may be disgraced. "This is getting serious, my boy," he added with a Gascon gaiety and accent. "Honour is at stake. A poor devil flung by chance into as low a grade as I am will never find such an opportunity again. I shall have my conquests, but they will be inferior ones...." He reflected for a long time, he walked up and down hurriedly, and then from time to time would suddenly stop. A magnificent marble bust of cardinal de Richelieu had been placed in his room. It attracted his gaze in spite of himself. This bust seemed to look at him severely as though reproaching him with the lack of that audacity which ought to be so natural to the French character. "Would I have hesitated in your age great man?" "At the worst," said Julien to himself, "suppose all this is a trap, it is pretty black and pretty compromising for a young girl. They know that I am not the man to hold my tongue. They will therefore have to kill me. That was right enough in 1574 in the days of Boniface de la Mole, but nobody today would ever have the pluck. They are not the same men. Mademoiselle de la Mole is the object of so much jealousy. Four hundred salons would ring with her disgrace to-morrow, and how pleased they would all be. "The servants gossip among themselves about marked the favours of which I am the recipient. I know it, I have heard them.... "On the other hand they're her letters. They may think that I have them on me. They may surprise me in her room and take them from me. I shall have to deal with two, three, or four men. How can I tell? But where are they going to find these men? Where are they to find discreet subordinates in Paris? Justice frightens them.... By God! It may be the Caylus's, the Croisenois', the de Luz's themselves. The idea of the ludicrous figure I should cut in the middle of them at the particular minute may have attracted them. Look out for the fate of Abelard, M. the secretary. "Well, by heaven, I'll mark you. I'll strike at your faces like Caesar's soldiers at Pharsalia. As for the letters, I can put them in a safe place." Julien copied out the two last, hid them in a fine volume of Voltaire in the library and himself took the originals to the post. "What folly am I going to rush into," he said to himself with surprise and terror when he returned. He had been a quarter of an hour without contemplating what he was to do on this coming night. "But if I refuse, I am bound to despise myself afterwards. This matter will always occasion me great doubt during my whole life, and to a man like me such doubts are the most poignant unhappiness. Did I not feel like that for Amanda's lover! I think I would find it easier to forgive myself for a perfectly clear crime; once admitted, I could leave off thinking of it. "Why! I shall have been the rival of a man who bears one of the finest names in France, and then out of pure light-heartedness, declared myself his inferior! After all, it is cowardly not to go; these words clinch everything," exclaimed Julien as he got up ... "besides she is quite pretty." "If this is not a piece of treachery, what a folly is she not committing for my sake. If it's a piece of mystification, by heaven, gentlemen, it only depends on me to turn the jest into earnest and that I will do. "But supposing they tie my hands together at the moment I enter the room: they may have placed some ingenious machine there. "It's like a duel," he said to himself with a laugh. "Everyone makes a full parade, says my _maitre d'armes_, but the good God, who wishes the thing to end, makes one of them forget to parry. Besides, here's something to answer them with." He drew his pistols out of his pocket, and although the priming was shining, he renewed it. There was still several hours to wait. Julien wrote to Fouque in order to have something to do. "My friend, do not open the enclosed letter except in the event of an accident, if you hear that something strange has happened to me. In that case blot out the proper names in the manuscript which I am sending you, make eight copies of it, and send it to the papers of Marseilles, Bordeaux, Lyons, Brussels, etc. Ten days later have the manuscript printed, send the first copy to M. the marquis de la Mole, and a fortnight after that throw the other copies at night into the streets of Verrieres." Julien made this little memoir in defence of his position as little compromising as possible for mademoiselle de la Mole. Fouque was only to open it in the event of an accident. It was put in the form of a story, but in fact it exactly described his situation. Julien had just fastened his packet when the dinner bell rang. It made his heart beat. His imagination was distracted by the story which he had just composed, and fell a prey to tragic presentiments. He saw himself seized by servants, trussed, and taken into a cellar with a gag in his mouth. A servant was stationed there, who never let him out of sight, and if the family honour required that the adventure should have a tragic end, it was easy to finish everything with those poisons which leave no trace. They could then say that he had died of an illness and would carry his dead body back into his room. Thrilled like a dramatic author by his own story, Julien was really afraid when he entered the dining-room. He looked at all those liveried servants--he studied their faces. "Which ones are chosen for to-night's expedition?" he said to himself. "The memories of the court of Henri III. are so vivid in this family, and so often recalled, that if they think they have been insulted they will show more resolution than other persons of the same rank." He looked at mademoiselle de la Mole in order to read the family plans in her eyes; she was pale and looked quite middle-aged. He thought that she had never looked so great: she was really handsome and imposing; he almost fell in love with her. "_Pallida morte futura_," he said to himself (her pallor indicates her great plans). It was in vain that after dinner he made a point of walking for a long time in the garden, mademoiselle did not appear. Speaking to her at that moment would have lifted a great weight off his heart. Why not admit it? he was afraid. As he had resolved to act, he was not ashamed to abandon himself to this emotion. "So long as I show the necessary courage at the actual moment," he said to himself, "what does it matter what I feel at this particular moment?" He went to reconnoitre the situation and find out the weight of the ladder. "This is an instrument," he said to himself with a smile, "which I am fated to use both here and at Verrieres. What a difference! In those days," he added with a sigh, "I was not obliged to distrust the person for whom I exposed myself to danger. What a difference also in the danger!" "There would have been no dishonour for me if I had been killed in M. de Renal's gardens. It would have been easy to have made my death into a mystery. But here all kinds of abominable scandal will be talked in the salons of the Hotel de Chaulnes, the Hotel de Caylus, de Retz, etc., everywhere in fact. I shall go down to posterity as a monster." "For two or three years," he went on with a laugh, making fun of himself; but the idea paralysed him. "And how am I going to manage to get justified? Suppose that Fouque does print my posthumous pamphlet, it will only be taken for an additional infamy. Why! I get received into a house, and I reward the hospitality which I have received, the kindness with which I have been loaded by printing a pamphlet about what has happened and attacking the honour of women! Nay! I'd a thousand times rather be duped." The evening was awful. CHAPTER XLVI ONE O'CLOCK IN THE MORNING This garden was very big, it had been planned a few years ago in perfect taste. But the trees were more than a century old. It had a certain rustic atmosphere.--_Massinger_. He was going to write a countermanding letter to Fouque when eleven o'clock struck. He noisily turned the lock of the door of his room as though he had locked himself in. He went with a sleuth-like step to observe what was happening over the house, especially on the fourth storey where the servants slept. There was nothing unusual. One of madame de la Mole's chambermaids was giving an entertainment, the servants were taking punch with much gaiety. "Those who laugh like that," thought Julien, "cannot be participating in the nocturnal expedition; if they were, they would be more serious." Eventually he stationed himself in an obscure corner of the garden. "If their plan is to hide themselves from the servants of the house, they will despatch the persons whom they have told off to surprise me over the garden wall. "If M. de Croisenois shows any sense of proportion in this matter, he is bound to find it less compromising for the young person, whom he wishes to make his wife if he has me surprised before I enter her room." He made a military and extremely detailed reconnaissance. "My honour is at stake," he thought. "If I tumble into some pitfall it will not be an excuse in my own eyes to say, 'I never thought of it.'" The weather was desperately serene. About eleven o'clock the moon rose, at half-past twelve it completely illuminated the facade of the hotel looking out upon the garden. "She is mad," Julien said to himself. As one o'clock struck there was still a light in comte Norbert's windows. Julien had never been so frightened in his life, he only saw the dangers of the enterprise and had no enthusiasm at all. He went and took the immense ladder, waited five minutes to give her time to tell him not to go, and five minutes after one placed the ladder against Mathilde's window. He mounted softly, pistol in hand, astonished at not being attacked. As he approached the window it opened noiselessly. "So there you are, monsieur," said Mathilde to him with considerable emotion. "I have been following your movements for the last hour." Julien was very much embarrassed. He did not know how to conduct himself. He did not feel at all in love. He thought in his embarrassment that he ought to be venturesome. He tried to kiss Mathilde. "For shame," she said to him, pushing him away. Extremely glad at being rebuffed, he hastened to look round him. The moon was so brilliant that the shadows which it made in mademoiselle de la Mole's room were black. "It's quite possible for men to be concealed without my seeing them," he thought. "What have you got in your pocket at the side of your coat?" Mathilde said to him, delighted at finding something to talk about. She was suffering strangely; all those sentiments of reserve and timidity which were so natural to a girl of good birth, had reasserted their dominion and were torturing her. "I have all kinds of arms and pistols," answered Julien equally glad at having something to say. "You must take the ladder away," said Mathilde. "It is very big, and may break the windows of the salon down below or the room on the ground floor." "You must not break the windows," replied Mathilde making a vain effort to assume an ordinary conversational tone; "it seems to me you can lower the ladder by tying a cord to the first rung. I have always a supply of cords at hand." "So this is a woman in love," thought Julien. "She actually dares to say that she is in love. So much self-possession and such shrewdness in taking precautions are sufficient indications that I am not triumphing over M. de Croisenois as I foolishly believed, but that I am simply succeeding him. As a matter of fact, what does it matter to me? Do I love her? I am triumphing over the marquis in so far as he would be very angry at having a successor, and angrier still at that successor being myself. How haughtily he looked at me this evening in the Cafe Tortoni when he pretended not to recognise me! And how maliciously he bowed to me afterwards, when he could not get out of it." Julien had tied the cord to the last rung of the ladder. He lowered it softly and leant far out of the balcony in order to avoid its touching the window pane. "A fine opportunity to kill me," he thought, "if anyone is hidden in Mathilde's room;" but a profound silence continued to reign everywhere. The ladder touched the ground. Julien succeeded in laying it on the border of the exotic flowers along side the wall. "What will my mother say," said Mathilde, "when she sees her beautiful plants all crushed? You must throw down the cord," she added with great self-possession. "If it were noticed going up to the balcony, it would be a difficult circumstance to explain." "And how am I to get away?" said Julien in a jesting tone affecting the Creole accent. (One of the chambermaids of the household had been born in Saint-Domingo.) "You? Why you will leave by the door," said Mathilde, delighted at the idea. "Ah! how worthy this man is of all my love," she thought. Julien had just let the cord fall into the garden; Mathilde grasped his arm. He thought he had been seized by an enemy and turned round sharply, drawing a dagger. She had thought that she had heard a window opening. They remained motionless and scarcely breathed. The moonlight lit up everything. The noise was not renewed and there was no more cause for anxiety. Then their embarrassment began again; it was great on both sides. Julien assured himself that the door was completely locked; he thought of looking under the bed, but he did not dare; "they might have stationed one or two lackeys there." Finally he feared that he might reproach himself in the future for this lack of prudence, and did look. Mathilde had fallen into all the anguish of the most extreme timidity. She was horrified at her position. "What have you done with my letters?" she said at last. "What a good opportunity to upset these gentlemen, if they are eavesdropping, and thus avoiding the battle," thought Julien. "The first is hid in a big Protestant Bible, which last night's diligence is taking far away from here." He spoke very distinctly as he went into these details, so as to be heard by any persons who might be concealed in two large mahogany cupboards which he had not dared to inspect. "The other two are in the post and are bound for the same destination as the first." "Heavens, why all these precautions?" said Mathilde in alarm. "What is the good of my lying?" thought Julien, and he confessed all his suspicions. "So that's the cause for the coldness of your letters, dear," exclaimed Mathilde in a tone of madness rather than of tenderness. Julien did not notice that nuance. The endearment made him lose his head, or at any rate his suspicions vanished. He dared to clasp in his arms that beautiful girl who inspired him with such respect. He was only partially rebuffed. He fell back on his memory as he had once at Besancon with Armanda Binet, and recited by heart several of the finest phrases out of the _Nouvelle Heloise_. "You have the heart of a man," was the answer she made without listening too attentively to his phrases; "I wanted to test your courage, I confess it. Your first suspicions and your resolutions show you even more intrepid, dear, than I had believed." Mathilde had to make an effort to call him "dear," and was evidently paying more attention to this strange method of speech than to the substance of what she was saying. Being called "dear" without any tenderness in the tone afforded no pleasure to Julien; he was astonished at not being happy, and eventually fell back on his reasoning in order to be so. He saw that he was respected by this proud young girl who never gave undeserved praise; by means of this reasoning he managed to enjoy the happiness of satisfied vanity. It was not, it was true, that soulful pleasure which he had sometimes found with madame de Renal. There was no element of tenderness in the feelings of these first few minutes. It was the keen happiness of a gratified ambition, and Julien was, above all, ambitious. He talked again of the people whom he had suspected and of the precautions which he had devised. As he spoke, he thought of the best means of exploiting his victory. Mathilde was still very embarrassed and seemed paralysed by the steps which she had taken. She appeared delighted to find a topic of conversation. They talked of how they were to see each other again. Julien extracted a delicious joy from the consciousness of the intelligence and the courage, of which he again proved himself possessed during this discussion. They had to reckon with extremely sharp people, the little Tanbeau was certainly a spy, but Mathilde and himself as well had their share of cleverness. What was easier than to meet in the library, and there make all arrangements? "I can appear in all parts of the hotel," added Julien, "without rousing suspicion almost, in fact, in madame de la Mole's own room." It was absolutely necessary to go through it in order to reach her daughter's room. If Mathilde thought it preferable for him always to come by a ladder, then he would expose himself to that paltry danger with a heart intoxicated with joy. As she listened to him speaking, Mathilde was shocked by this air of triumph. "So he is my master," she said to herself, she was already a prey to remorse. Her reason was horrified at the signal folly which she had just committed. If she had had the power she would have annihilated both herself and Julien. When for a few moments she managed by sheer will-power to silence her pangs of remorse, she was rendered very unhappy by her timidity and wounded shame. She had quite failed to foresee the awful plight in which she now found herself. "I must speak to him, however," she said at last. "That is the proper thing to do. One does talk to one's lover." And then with a view of accomplishing a duty, and with a tenderness which was manifested rather in the words which she employed than in the inflection of her voice, she recounted various resolutions which she had made concerning him during the last few days. She had decided that if he should dare to come to her room by the help of the gardener's ladder according to his instructions, she would be entirely his. But never were such tender passages spoken in a more polite and frigid tone. Up to the present this assignation had been icy. It was enough to make one hate the name of love. What a lesson in morality for a young and imprudent girl! Is it worth while to ruin one's future for moments such as this? After long fits of hesitation which a superficial observer might have mistaken for the result of the most emphatic hate (so great is the difficulty which a woman's self-respect finds in yielding even to so firm a will as hers) Mathilde became eventually a charming mistress. In point of fact, these ecstasies were a little artificial. Passionate love was still more the model which they imitated than a real actuality. Mademoiselle de la Mole thought she was fulfilling a duty towards herself and towards her lover. "The poor boy," she said to herself, "has shewn a consummate bravery. He deserves to be happy or it is really I who will be shewing a lack of character." But she would have been glad to have redeemed the cruel necessity in which she found herself even at the price of an eternity of unhappiness. In spite of the awful violence she was doing to herself she was completely mistress of her words. No regret and no reproach spoiled that night which Julien found extraordinary rather than happy. Great heavens! what a difference to his last twenty-four hours' stay in Verrieres. These fine Paris manners manage to spoil everything, even love, he said to himself, quite unjustly. He abandoned himself to these reflections as he stood upright in one of the great mahogany cupboards into which he had been put at the sign of the first sounds of movement in the neighbouring apartment, which was madame de la Mole's. Mathilde followed her mother to mass, the servants soon left the apartment and Julien easily escaped before they came back to finish their work. He mounted a horse and tried to find the most solitary spots in one of the forests near Paris. He was more astonished than happy. The happiness which filled his soul from time to time resembled that of a young sub-lieutenant who as the result of some surprising feat has just been made a full-fledged colonel by the commander-in-chief; he felt himself lifted up to an immense height. Everything which was above him the day before was now on a level with him or even below him. Little by little Julien's happiness increased in proportion as he got further away from Paris. If there was no tenderness in his soul, the reason was that, however strange it may appear to say so, Mathilde had in everything she had done, simply accomplished a duty. The only thing she had not foreseen in all the events of that night, was the shame and unhappiness which she had experienced instead of that absolute felicity which is found in novels. "Can I have made a mistake, and not be in love with him?" she said to herself.

Chapters 13-16

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Julien finds himself in love with the beauty and charm of Mathilde, and even his previous black vision of her as a Catherine de Medici forms part of the ideal she is becoming for him. Convinced, however, that he will be made a dupe, Julien pretexts a business trip to Mole's estates in the Languedoc. This threat of departure moves Mathilde to action, and in the declaration of love that she writes him, she states that it would be beyond her strength to be separated from him. Julien is overjoyed at this avowal and convinces Mole that the latter's affairs in Normandy now require a change in plans and Julien's presence in Paris. Mole's joy at Julien's plans causes a conflict to rise for Julien. How can he seduce the daughter of a man who has been so kind and who is so attached to him? He silences this scruple and, still driven by his mistrust of these aristocrats, devises a plan whereby, if need be, there will exist proof of Mathilde's attempt to seduce him. He copies the letter and sends it in a Bible to his friend Fouque for safekeeping. Then he composes a truly diplomatic letter as an answer to Mathilde, an answer that does not compromise him. Mathilde writes Julien a second letter, impatiently demanding an answer. Julien complies but admits nothing and announces his imminent departure from Paris. In order to deliver it to her, he strolls in the garden, and there he catches her eye as she watches him from her room. The next exchange contains her queenly command that Julien is to come to her room by means of a ladder at one o'clock. The evening before the rendezvous finds Julien still debating over Mathilde's intentions. Prepared for the worst, Julien imagines the various means at the disposal of the conspirators to capture, murder, and disgrace him. He sends more copies of Mathilde's letters to Fouque, together with a sealed denunciation to be circulated to various newspapers in the event of a catastrophe. Julien tries, in vain, to read betrayal on the face of the servants and of Mathilde during dinner. He strolls in the garden, wishing that she would appear to reassure him. He then reproaches himself for having stooped to ingratitude that would compromise the honor of such a noble family. He regrets having mailed the letters to Fouque. At the appointed hour, Julien climbs the ladder to Mathilde's window. Their first moments of conversation are forced, and both are very ill at ease. Julien stealthily inspects the premises, searching for concealed enemies. Finally he confesses his suspicions to Mathilde. They search desperately for subjects of conversation. Julien's evident assurance as he projects future meetings causes Mathilde to realize with horror that she has given herself a master. After much hesitation, Mathilde decides that she owes it to Julien, who has displayed much courage by appearing, to give herself to him. Neither finds pleasure, however, in the act of love. Julien departs before dawn, riding to the heights of Meudon, where at last he finds happiness. Mathilde asks herself whether she loves Julien after all.

These chapters relate the development, manifestations, and expressions of the duel of love that is waged between Julien and Mathilde. Chapter 16 culminates in the first rendezvous in her room, representing a definitive victory for Julien. Although Julien has certainly been formed by the action since his days in Verrieres, his success with Mathilde depends on his own blundering, which is reminiscent of his affair with Mme. de Renal. It is his distrust, his suspicion that he will be made a dupe, that prevent him from accepting Mathilde's overt advances. This coldness, on the other hand, is exactly what encourages Mathilde, and her fear of losing Julien prompts her to make the first written avowal. In spite of Stendhal's ironic treatment of the lovers' dilemma, Julien remains the fictitious Stendhal who coolly puts into operation what Stendhal himself had learned about the mechanism of love, as expressed in De L'Amour. As it has been shown, Julien is vaguely aware of the uniqueness of the psychology of this haughty Mathilde, but he is unable yet to exploit his knowledge efficaciously. The element of gratuitous victory is also present in his evaluation of her character. He sees her as Machiavellian, exaggerating her duplicity. She is, in fact, complex and strange, but not in that way. He is, therefore, right and wrong simultaneously. Stendhal gives to Julien an awareness of his own crystallization process. Julien attributes to Mathilde all qualities; he imagines her to be Catherine de Medici: "Nothing was too profound or too criminal for the character he ascribed to her." Julien, like Mathilde, seems to be in love with an ideal. Mathilde is undergoing the same torment, fearing that Julien feels nothing for her. The theme of self-delusion, manifest here in the area of love, is one of the dominant Stendhalian themes and constitutes part of his uniqueness as a psychological novelist. The rationalization that Julien makes of the affront of which he is guilty toward M. de la Mole is a very convincing demonstration of the title of the novel. Julien vindictively shouts his battle cry: It's every man for himself in this desert of selfishness known as life. Why should providence have given him such a noble soul and not the material success that should accompany it? He has been denied the brilliant uniform that Croisenois wears, but he has known how to choose the uniform of his time -- the priest's cassock that could ultimately become a cardinal's robe. Julien sees the necessity of a strategic campaign, cloaked in duplicity, as the only means to success. He begins the attack by composing his diplomatic letter to Mathilde. Chapter 14 illustrates again Stendhal's concentric-circle technique of narration. He now returns to a description of the circumstances surrounding the delivery of the first letter to Julien, this time from Mathilde's point of view. Like Julien, Mathilde has undergone a conflict as her love has progressed. She has feared that she is not loved, and the new fear is born, to become stronger later, that she has given herself a master. Stendhal then shifts to Julien's point of view, proceeding to the second and third letters from Mathilde. Still undecided as to the reality that confronts him, Julien plans for both eventualities: either Mathilde's love for him, regulated by her pride, or the comedy in which his adversaries would make him the dupe. He realizes that he made a mistake by not leaving as he had threatened; therefore, his answer to Mathilde's second letter announces, in effect, that this time he will leave. The result in this comedy of errors is that Mathilde gives him a rendezvous. Without really being conscious of it, Julien has successfully used, on two occasions, a threat of departure to bring about the seduction of Mathilde. He is re-enacting his experience with Mme. de Renal. In the interior monologue preceding the rendezvous, Julien sees himself as most assuredly a victim of his imagined conspirators. The scene is perhaps the most exemplary in the novel of the almost paranoiac state into which the hero is capable of working himself. It is hardly a question of withdrawing at this point. Things have progressed too far, and honor forbids him from shirking his duty. A bust of Richelieu silently reproaches him and rids him early of any doubt but that the rendezvous will take place. What he debates is how to rehabilitate his personal honor, how to justify himself after the scandal, the eruption of which looms as a certainty. That nothing could convince him of the contrary is evidenced by the fact that he "sees" conspiracy in the servants' faces and a medieval grandeur in the face of Mathilde. He is imposing his own fears on reality. Note how even this impending doom for himself that he sees on Mathilde's face is intimately related with his love for her: "He nearly fell in love with her." The Stendhalian hero permits himself to be afraid without shame because he has resolved to have the courage before the event itself. This attests to the self-imposed honesty and astringent morality by which Julien lives. He is presented truly as the military commander surveying the battlefield, anxiously awaiting the offensive. Julien is capable of detachment and of a sort of ironic self-scrutiny. This is a kind of insurance against ridicule that Stendhal permits Julien to create. After all, Julien does not take himself too seriously, just as Stendhal has not been his own dupe. Julien repents for having sent the letters to Fouque. He sees the possible circulation of the documents as a base action on his own part since posterity would see in him an ingrate who would resort to attacking a woman's honor. He is now at the point of preferring to be a dupe, his personal honor requiring self-immolation in silence. Note the rapidity of Stendhal's pace in narration, imitating, thereby, the mental processes of Julien. Chapter 16 begins without a break from the end of the preceding by the running interior monologue of the hero. Although Julien has never been so afraid in his life, waiting at any moment for the conspirators to strike, he assures himself that he has left no eventuality without consideration, so that he will not be able to reproach himself in the event of a blunder. Arriving at Mathilde's window with his pistol in hand, Julien goes to battle. The rendezvous scene is rightly reputed as one of Stendhal's masterpieces in psychological analysis. The scene is very dramatic and fast moving. These effects are achieved by the use of short, terse sentences, both by Stendhal in commenting and by the characters in dialogue. A second contributing factor is the structure: Stendhal alternates consistently in his presentation, first of Julien's, then of Mathilde's view of the situation, adding commentaries and making analysis after the remarks of each character. Alternation is necessitated by the nature of the characters and of their love. Both have conceived a role that they are playing, and the roles prove inadequate to the occasion. Such a rendezvous demands passion, spontaneity, forgetfulness of self. Both are self-conscious, scheming, suspicious, acting out a preconceived conduct. It is the bifurcation of two characters into an identical role and their own individual "doubling" in the presence of the other that make the scene basically comic-heroic. A rapid sketch of their respective states -- internal and the manner in which they find external expression-follows: Mathilde has been observing Julien for an hour and is now very emotional. Nonetheless, she addresses him as "Monsieur." Julien has thought only of the ambush he expects and therefore is ill-prepared. He remembers, in his embarrassment, that his role requires that he be romantic; therefore, he attempts to embrace Mathilde. Her refusal, stemming, no doubt, from timidity and from her preference of the ideal to the real, puts Julien back on the defensive. This explains his reaction: ". . . overjoyed at being repulsed, he hastened to look around." Mathilde is delighted to find a topic of conversation, she is so unprepared for this "real" situation. She asks what Julien has in his pockets. Julien, likewise embarrassed, is pleased to have conversational subject matter and explains that he is carrying an "arsenal." Then it is a question of how to dispose of the ladder. Mathilde adopts a tone of normal conversation, admonishing Julien not to break the windows, lamenting over the flowers crushed as the ladder falls. Julien, seemingly dedicated to the idea of self-defeat, sees Mathilde's supply of rope as proof that Croisenois has triumphed over him after all since he, Julien, must not be the first to have visited her room. Julien becomes suspicious again, but he has enough resourcefulness and presence of mind to playfully adopt a Creole accent. This effort does not escape Mathilde's attention, and she joins in the game, seeing this as a manifestation of Julien's superiority, thus justifying, in her own eyes, her love for him. When she takes his arm, his violent reaction is one of suspicion again, and he draws his dagger. There reigns a complicity of silence as they are listening for a menacing noise. Then returns the embarrassing silence. Julien busies himself with measures of security; Mathilde has just awakened to the compromising situation her daring has put her into. This leads her to ask what has happened to her letters. Julien, still distrustful, explains the measures he has taken to safeguard himself, believing that his hidden enemies will hear his words. Mathilde's amazement calls forth a sincere avowal on Julien's part of his suspicions. Mathilde has now switched to "tu," but her tone belies this familiarity. This encourages Julien to embrace her, and she only half repulses the embrace. Now Julien is more the master of himself and, relying on recollection of his past successes, begins reciting love passages from Rousseau. Mathilde, not even hearing them, but carrying on her own mental debate, announces that she finds his courage in coming proof that he merits her love. Each is attempting to capture reflections of the "self," not to direct attention to the "other." Therefore, what is actually occurring are two separate monologues: Mathilde looking for evidence that Julien is worthy of the sacrifice she has made, Julien looking for encouragement, which in turn will bolster his self-esteem and courage. Stendhal is showing vanity, an early stage of love. Sensing the emptiness of the familiar address, Julien falls back on his reason, and he is content, momentarily, to found his happiness simply on being preferred by this haughty aristocrat. Now he is searching for a plan of conduct, making conversation to fill the silence: Mathilde joins in this "substitute" action, covering her horror at her own indiscretion by prattle about when they can meet again. In narrating their conversation, Stendhal has recourse to a method of narration called later "style indirect libre," the initiation of which is attributed to Flaubert. It consists of quoting the words of the characters out of quotes, of narrating as if the characters were speaking. Julien offers his plan, not directly quoted as dialogue, but as part of the narration: "What could be easier for them than to meet in the library and make arrangement for everything?" and again: "If Mathilde thought it better for him always to come by means of a ladder, he would expose himself to that slight danger with a heart overflowing with joy." Instead of helping to create an air of complicity, thus furthering their rendezvous and speeding it on to its climax, Julien's brilliance and self-assurance awaken Mathilde's pride and make her ask herself again whether Julien is now her master. "If she had been able, she would have annihilated herself and Julien," says Stendhal in an abrupt manner, startling the reader. Stendhal prefers classical litotes to romantic hyperbole. Mathilde had not predicted this attitude of hers; thus do Stendhal's characters watch themselves develop, surprised at what they become. Eventually, her will silences her remorse, timidity, shyness, and wounded modesty, and she notes that she is not fulfilling her role: One speaks to one's lover. She therefore speaks tender words in a cold tone. She forces herself to permit herself to be seduced. From this act, typically hardly alluded to because of Stendhal's great modesty, neither feels pleasure. Their reactions are different, yet consistent with their character: Julien feels happiness only in retrospect as he rides in "high solitude"; Mathilde wonders why there has been such a distance between her ideal and the real, and she asks whether she really loves Julien. The reaction of both characters echoes Stendhal's own at his persistent disappointment with reality: N'est ce que ca? Mathilde has emptied the act of pleasure for Julien because she has undertaken it as a duty to him and to herself. Julien had felt the same reaction after his first rendezvous with Mme. de Renal. He notices again, however, how inferior is this happiness with Mathilde to that which he knew with Mme. de Renal.

gradesaver

all_chapterized_books/110-chapters/27.txt

finished_summaries/gradesaver/Tess of the D'Urbervilles/section_3_part_3.txt

Tess of the D'Urbervilles.chapter 27

chapter 27

{"name": "Chapter 27", "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20210410060617/https://www.gradesaver.com/tess-of-the-durbervilles/study-guide/summary-phase-4-chapters-25-34", "summary": "Angel returns to Talbothays, where he finds Tess, who has recently awakened. Angel tells Tess that he shall soon want to marry, and asks Tess if she will be his wife. Tess declares that she cannot be his wife, and she claims that the reason is that his father is a parson and his mother wouldn't want her to marry him. He counters these objections, telling her that he has discussed the matter with his parents. Angel then recounts the story that his father told him about Alec d'Urberville, not mentioning the actual name, and when he asks Tess about marriage once more she says that it cannot be.", "analysis": "Hardy shifts the burden of obstacles to the romance between Tess and Angel to Tess in this chapter, in which she refuses his proposal of marriage. Although Tess claims that it is her lowly status and the objections that his parents would make to her as the rationale for her rejection of Angel, the mention of Alec d'Urberville serves as a reminder that it is rather fear of her past that drives Tess to reject Angel. Tess views this as an insurmountable obstacle to her happiness; she cannot tell Angel about her past because he would reject her in turn, while she cannot keep it as a secret for he would inevitably learn of her more sordid history"}

An up-hill and down-hill ride of twenty-odd miles through a garish mid-day atmosphere brought him in the afternoon to a detached knoll a mile or two west of Talbothays, whence he again looked into that green trough of sappiness and humidity, the valley of the Var or Froom. Immediately he began to descend from the upland to the fat alluvial soil below, the atmosphere grew heavier; the languid perfume of the summer fruits, the mists, the hay, the flowers, formed therein a vast pool of odour which at this hour seemed to make the animals, the very bees and butterflies drowsy. Clare was now so familiar with the spot that he knew the individual cows by their names when, a long distance off, he saw them dotted about the meads. It was with a sense of luxury that he recognized his power of viewing life here from its inner side, in a way that had been quite foreign to him in his student-days; and, much as he loved his parents, he could not help being aware that to come here, as now, after an experience of home-life, affected him like throwing off splints and bandages; even the one customary curb on the humours of English rural societies being absent in this place, Talbothays having no resident landlord. Not a human being was out of doors at the dairy. The denizens were all enjoying the usual afternoon nap of an hour or so which the exceedingly early hours kept in summer-time rendered a necessity. At the door the wood-hooped pails, sodden and bleached by infinite scrubbings, hung like hats on a stand upon the forked and peeled limb of an oak fixed there for that purpose; all of them ready and dry for the evening milking. Angel entered, and went through the silent passages of the house to the back quarters, where he listened for a moment. Sustained snores came from the cart-house, where some of the men were lying down; the grunt and squeal of sweltering pigs arose from the still further distance. The large-leaved rhubarb and cabbage plants slept too, their broad limp surfaces hanging in the sun like half-closed umbrellas. He unbridled and fed his horse, and as he re-entered the house the clock struck three. Three was the afternoon skimming-hour; and, with the stroke, Clare heard the creaking of the floor-boards above, and then the touch of a descending foot on the stairs. It was Tess's, who in another moment came down before his eyes. She had not heard him enter, and hardly realized his presence there. She was yawning, and he saw the red interior of her mouth as if it had been a snake's. She had stretched one arm so high above her coiled-up cable of hair that he could see its satin delicacy above the sunburn; her face was flushed with sleep, and her eyelids hung heavy over their pupils. The brim-fulness of her nature breathed from her. It was a moment when a woman's soul is more incarnate than at any other time; when the most spiritual beauty bespeaks itself flesh; and sex takes the outside place in the presentation. Then those eyes flashed brightly through their filmy heaviness, before the remainder of her face was well awake. With an oddly compounded look of gladness, shyness, and surprise, she exclaimed--"O Mr Clare! How you frightened me--I--" There had not at first been time for her to think of the changed relations which his declaration had introduced; but the full sense of the matter rose up in her face when she encountered Clare's tender look as he stepped forward to the bottom stair. "Dear, darling Tessy!" he whispered, putting his arm round her, and his face to her flushed cheek. "Don't, for Heaven's sake, Mister me any more. I have hastened back so soon because of you!" Tess's excitable heart beat against his by way of reply; and there they stood upon the red-brick floor of the entry, the sun slanting in by the window upon his back, as he held her tightly to his breast; upon her inclining face, upon the blue veins of her temple, upon her naked arm, and her neck, and into the depths of her hair. Having been lying down in her clothes she was warm as a sunned cat. At first she would not look straight up at him, but her eyes soon lifted, and his plumbed the deepness of the ever-varying pupils, with their radiating fibrils of blue, and black, and gray, and violet, while she regarded him as Eve at her second waking might have regarded Adam. "I've got to go a-skimming," she pleaded, "and I have on'y old Deb to help me to-day. Mrs Crick is gone to market with Mr Crick, and Retty is not well, and the others are gone out somewhere, and won't be home till milking." As they retreated to the milk-house Deborah Fyander appeared on the stairs. "I have come back, Deborah," said Mr Clare, upwards. "So I can help Tess with the skimming; and, as you are very tired, I am sure, you needn't come down till milking-time." Possibly the Talbothays milk was not very thoroughly skimmed that afternoon. Tess was in a dream wherein familiar objects appeared as having light and shade and position, but no particular outline. Every time she held the skimmer under the pump to cool it for the work her hand trembled, the ardour of his affection being so palpable that she seemed to flinch under it like a plant in too burning a sun. Then he pressed her again to his side, and when she had done running her forefinger round the leads to cut off the cream-edge, he cleaned it in nature's way; for the unconstrained manners of Talbothays dairy came convenient now. "I may as well say it now as later, dearest," he resumed gently. "I wish to ask you something of a very practical nature, which I have been thinking of ever since that day last week in the meads. I shall soon want to marry, and, being a farmer, you see I shall require for my wife a woman who knows all about the management of farms. Will you be that woman, Tessy?" He put it that way that she might not think he had yielded to an impulse of which his head would disapprove. She turned quite careworn. She had bowed to the inevitable result of proximity, the necessity of loving him; but she had not calculated upon this sudden corollary, which, indeed, Clare had put before her without quite meaning himself to do it so soon. With pain that was like the bitterness of dissolution she murmured the words of her indispensable and sworn answer as an honourable woman. "O Mr Clare--I cannot be your wife--I cannot be!" The sound of her own decision seemed to break Tess's very heart, and she bowed her face in her grief. "But, Tess!" he said, amazed at her reply, and holding her still more greedily close. "Do you say no? Surely you love me?" "O yes, yes! And I would rather be yours than anybody's in the world," returned the sweet and honest voice of the distressed girl. "But I CANNOT marry you!" "Tess," he said, holding her at arm's length, "you are engaged to marry some one else!" "No, no!" "Then why do you refuse me?" "I don't want to marry! I have not thought of doing it. I cannot! I only want to love you." "But why?" Driven to subterfuge, she stammered-- "Your father is a parson, and your mother wouldn' like you to marry such as me. She will want you to marry a lady." "Nonsense--I have spoken to them both. That was partly why I went home." "I feel I cannot--never, never!" she echoed. "Is it too sudden to be asked thus, my Pretty?" "Yes--I did not expect it." "If you will let it pass, please, Tessy, I will give you time," he said. "It was very abrupt to come home and speak to you all at once. I'll not allude to it again for a while." She again took up the shining skimmer, held it beneath the pump, and began anew. But she could not, as at other times, hit the exact under-surface of the cream with the delicate dexterity required, try as she might; sometimes she was cutting down into the milk, sometimes in the air. She could hardly see, her eyes having filled with two blurring tears drawn forth by a grief which, to this her best friend and dear advocate, she could never explain. "I can't skim--I can't!" she said, turning away from him. Not to agitate and hinder her longer, the considerate Clare began talking in a more general way: You quite misapprehend my parents. They are the most simple-mannered people alive, and quite unambitious. They are two of the few remaining Evangelical school. Tessy, are you an Evangelical?" "I don't know." "You go to church very regularly, and our parson here is not very High, they tell me." Tess's ideas on the views of the parish clergyman, whom she heard every week, seemed to be rather more vague than Clare's, who had never heard him at all. "I wish I could fix my mind on what I hear there more firmly than I do," she remarked as a safe generality. "It is often a great sorrow to me." She spoke so unaffectedly that Angel was sure in his heart that his father could not object to her on religious grounds, even though she did not know whether her principles were High, Low or Broad. He himself knew that, in reality, the confused beliefs which she held, apparently imbibed in childhood, were, if anything, Tractarian as to phraseology, and Pantheistic as to essence. Confused or otherwise, to disturb them was his last desire: Leave thou thy sister, when she prays, Her early Heaven, her happy views; Nor thou with shadow'd hint confuse A life that leads melodious days. He had occasionally thought the counsel less honest than musical; but he gladly conformed to it now. He spoke further of the incidents of his visit, of his father's mode of life, of his zeal for his principles; she grew serener, and the undulations disappeared from her skimming; as she finished one lead after another he followed her, and drew the plugs for letting down the milk. "I fancied you looked a little downcast when you came in," she ventured to observe, anxious to keep away from the subject of herself. "Yes--well, my father had been talking a good deal to me of his troubles and difficulties, and the subject always tends to depress me. He is so zealous that he gets many snubs and buffetings from people of a different way of thinking from himself, and I don't like to hear of such humiliations to a man of his age, the more particularly as I don't think earnestness does any good when carried so far. He has been telling me of a very unpleasant scene in which he took part quite recently. He went as the deputy of some missionary society to preach in the neighbourhood of Trantridge, a place forty miles from here, and made it his business to expostulate with a lax young cynic he met with somewhere about there--son of some landowner up that way--and who has a mother afflicted with blindness. My father addressed himself to the gentleman point-blank, and there was quite a disturbance. It was very foolish of my father, I must say, to intrude his conversation upon a stranger when the probabilities were so obvious that it would be useless. But whatever he thinks to be his duty, that he'll do, in season or out of season; and, of course, he makes many enemies, not only among the absolutely vicious, but among the easy-going, who hate being bothered. He says he glories in what happened, and that good may be done indirectly; but I wish he would not wear himself out now he is getting old, and would leave such pigs to their wallowing." Tess's look had grown hard and worn, and her ripe mouth tragical; but she no longer showed any tremulousness. Clare's revived thoughts of his father prevented his noticing her particularly; and so they went on down the white row of liquid rectangles till they had finished and drained them off, when the other maids returned, and took their pails, and Deb came to scald out the leads for the new milk. As Tess withdrew to go afield to the cows he said to her softly-- "And my question, Tessy?" "O no--no!" replied she with grave hopelessness, as one who had heard anew the turmoil of her own past in the allusion to Alec d'Urberville. "It CAN'T be!" She went out towards the mead, joining the other milkmaids with a bound, as if trying to make the open air drive away her sad constraint. All the girls drew onward to the spot where the cows were grazing in the farther mead, the bevy advancing with the bold grace of wild animals--the reckless, unchastened motion of women accustomed to unlimited space--in which they abandoned themselves to the air as a swimmer to the wave. It seemed natural enough to him now that Tess was again in sight to choose a mate from unconstrained Nature, and not from the abodes of Art.

Chapter 27

https://web.archive.org/web/20210410060617/https://www.gradesaver.com/tess-of-the-durbervilles/study-guide/summary-phase-4-chapters-25-34

Angel returns to Talbothays, where he finds Tess, who has recently awakened. Angel tells Tess that he shall soon want to marry, and asks Tess if she will be his wife. Tess declares that she cannot be his wife, and she claims that the reason is that his father is a parson and his mother wouldn't want her to marry him. He counters these objections, telling her that he has discussed the matter with his parents. Angel then recounts the story that his father told him about Alec d'Urberville, not mentioning the actual name, and when he asks Tess about marriage once more she says that it cannot be.

Hardy shifts the burden of obstacles to the romance between Tess and Angel to Tess in this chapter, in which she refuses his proposal of marriage. Although Tess claims that it is her lowly status and the objections that his parents would make to her as the rationale for her rejection of Angel, the mention of Alec d'Urberville serves as a reminder that it is rather fear of her past that drives Tess to reject Angel. Tess views this as an insurmountable obstacle to her happiness; she cannot tell Angel about her past because he would reject her in turn, while she cannot keep it as a secret for he would inevitably learn of her more sordid history

pinkmonkey

all_chapterized_books/161-chapters/31.txt

finished_summaries/pinkmonkey/Sense and Sensibility/section_30_part_0.txt

Sense and Sensibility.chapter 31

chapter 31

{"name": "Chapter 31", "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20180820034609/http://www.pinkmonkey.com/booknotes/monkeynotes/pmSenseSensibility45.asp", "summary": "On waking up the next morning, Elinor finds Marianne sobbing and writing a letter to Willoughby. Since Marianne refuses to reveal anything to her sister, Elinor leaves her alone. After breakfast, Marianne receives a letter from Willoughby. The letter creates even more pain for Marianne than did his behavior at the party. Willoughby denies ever having loved Marianne and returns all the letters she had written him in the past, as well as the lock of hair he had taken from her. Elinor reads the letter and condemns Willoughby for his heartlessness. She also reads the three letters Marianne had written earlier, in which she professed her love for Willoughby and expressed her eagerness to meet him. Marianne feels that others might have poisoned Willoughby's mind against her. However, she is not able to excuse his hypocrisy and indifference. Weighed down by sorrow, she expresses a desire to go back to Barton to meet her mother. Elinor asks her to wait for some more time.", "analysis": "Notes Jane Austen convincingly portrays a woman passionately in love, one who has been thwarted by her lover. Marianne is shattered by Willoughby's attitude. Unable to suppress her feelings, she writes one more letter to him, asking him to justify his behavior during the previous evening. Willoughby's reply wounds her tortured heart all the more. He neither expresses regret nor apologizes for his behavior at the party. His words express only cruelty. Marianne's last hope fails. She breaks down in front of her sister and asks her to take her home. She wants to go away from the city, which has given her nothing but anxiety and pain. Elinor, who generally excuses people for their lapses, finds Willoughby's behavior atrocious. He has used her sister shamelessly and discarded her at his convenience. She condemns him for his villainy. Again, her response is entirely justified. CHAPTER 30 Summary The news spreads like wild fire. Mrs. Jennings, returning back from her visit, gives them the news about Willoughby's engagement to Miss Grey. She takes pity on Marianne and tries to soothe her wounded heart. In the evening, during dinner, she gives more information about Miss Grey. Willoughby's fiancee is a fashionable and wealthy woman, inheriting fifty thousand pounds; but she is common in her looks. The news distresses Marianne all the more. Shortly afterwards, Colonel Brandon enters the scene. He has also heard about Willoughby and his engagement. He shows his concern for Marianne and inquires about her reaction. Notes Mrs. Jennings is one of the most likeable characters in this novel. She loves teasing young people in love, but at the same time, is sympathetic to those who have been wronged by love. Her generous heart goes out to Marianne. She curses Willoughby and consoles Marianne. However, her concern for Marianne is an added irritant: by fussing over the girl, Mrs. Jennings only increases her agitation. But the old lady is quite unaware of this. The chapter relates how news spreads like wild fire, thanks to the women busy in gossiping. Just a short while after Marianne and Elinor learn of Willoughby's engagement, Mrs. Jennings comes home with the news: \"Mrs. Taylor told me of it half an hour ago, and she was told it by a particular friend of Miss Grey herself, else I am sure I would not have believed it.\" The old lady also provides all the details about Miss Grey. In the evening Colonel Brandon comes to share the news he has heard in a stationer's shop in Pall Mall. He reveals, \"Two ladies were waiting for their carriage, and one of them was giving the other an account of the intended match, in a voice so little attempting concealment, that it was impossible for me not to hear all.\" This also hints that the Colonel is a gentleman who does not pursue gossip. CHAPTER 31 Summary Elinor tries her best to lift Marianne from her depression by talking to her. Shortly afterwards, they receive a letter from their mother. Mrs. Dashwood, unaware of the recent developments, asks Marianne to explain her relationship with Willoughby. Her letter, full of wishes and hope, moves Marianne, who wants to go see her mother all the more. Colonel Brandon calls on them again. He recounts his past to Elinor. He also talks about Eliza Brandon and her daughter, Miss Williams. He relates how Willoughby had once played with the girl's heart, and after managing to seduce her, had left her in the lurch. Notes Marianne is still in love with Willoughby and nurtures a hope that he may repent and come back to her. Thus, when Mrs. Jennings brings a letter for them, Marianne imagines it to be a letter of repentance from Willoughby. Marianne is emotional and prejudiced. She does not take kindly to Mrs. Jennings' genuine sympathy or generosity. In her opinion, all that the old lady wants is \"gossip, and she only likes me now because I supply it. \" She also considers Colonel Brandon as an intruder who enjoys interfering in others' affairs. She remarks: \"A man who has nothing to do with his own time, has no conscience in his intrusion on that of others.\" Marianne lacks a mature understanding of human nature. Immersed in her own sorrow, she fails to notice the genuine concern that others may have. Colonel Brandon clears the suspicions regarding his reputation by revealing his past to Elinor. Miss Williams is not his natural daughter, as most people imagine, but Eliza Brandon's. He had once loved Eliza Brandon, but she was forced to marry his brother. The marriage was unhappy, and Eliza had several extra- marital affairs. Colonel Brandon ultimately became the guardian of Eliza Williams, the daughter that resulted from the first of these affairs. His love for Marianne makes him confide in Elinor. He also exposes the deceptive nature and base character of Willoughby. Willoughby behaved in a disreputable manner with Miss Williams but has refused to acknowledge his mistake. He deserves to be punished, but the Colonel has been generous enough to pardon him."}

From a night of more sleep than she had expected, Marianne awoke the next morning to the same consciousness of misery in which she had closed her eyes. Elinor encouraged her as much as possible to talk of what she felt; and before breakfast was ready, they had gone through the subject again and again; and with the same steady conviction and affectionate counsel on Elinor's side, the same impetuous feelings and varying opinions on Marianne's, as before. Sometimes she could believe Willoughby to be as unfortunate and as innocent as herself, and at others, lost every consolation in the impossibility of acquitting him. At one moment she was absolutely indifferent to the observation of all the world, at another she would seclude herself from it for ever, and at a third could resist it with energy. In one thing, however, she was uniform, when it came to the point, in avoiding, where it was possible, the presence of Mrs. Jennings, and in a determined silence when obliged to endure it. Her heart was hardened against the belief of Mrs. Jennings's entering into her sorrows with any compassion. "No, no, no, it cannot be," she cried; "she cannot feel. Her kindness is not sympathy; her good-nature is not tenderness. All that she wants is gossip, and she only likes me now because I supply it." Elinor had not needed this to be assured of the injustice to which her sister was often led in her opinion of others, by the irritable refinement of her own mind, and the too great importance placed by her on the delicacies of a strong sensibility, and the graces of a polished manner. Like half the rest of the world, if more than half there be that are clever and good, Marianne, with excellent abilities and an excellent disposition, was neither reasonable nor candid. She expected from other people the same opinions and feelings as her own, and she judged of their motives by the immediate effect of their actions on herself. Thus a circumstance occurred, while the sisters were together in their own room after breakfast, which sunk the heart of Mrs. Jennings still lower in her estimation; because, through her own weakness, it chanced to prove a source of fresh pain to herself, though Mrs. Jennings was governed in it by an impulse of the utmost goodwill. With a letter in her outstretched hand, and countenance gaily smiling, from the persuasion of bringing comfort, she entered their room, saying, "Now, my dear, I bring you something that I am sure will do you good." Marianne heard enough. In one moment her imagination placed before her a letter from Willoughby, full of tenderness and contrition, explanatory of all that had passed, satisfactory, convincing; and instantly followed by Willoughby himself, rushing eagerly into the room to inforce, at her feet, by the eloquence of his eyes, the assurances of his letter. The work of one moment was destroyed by the next. The hand writing of her mother, never till then unwelcome, was before her; and, in the acuteness of the disappointment which followed such an ecstasy of more than hope, she felt as if, till that instant, she had never suffered. The cruelty of Mrs. Jennings no language, within her reach in her moments of happiest eloquence, could have expressed; and now she could reproach her only by the tears which streamed from her eyes with passionate violence--a reproach, however, so entirely lost on its object, that after many expressions of pity, she withdrew, still referring her to the letter of comfort. But the letter, when she was calm enough to read it, brought little comfort. Willoughby filled every page. Her mother, still confident of their engagement, and relying as warmly as ever on his constancy, had only been roused by Elinor's application, to intreat from Marianne greater openness towards them both; and this, with such tenderness towards her, such affection for Willoughby, and such a conviction of their future happiness in each other, that she wept with agony through the whole of it. All her impatience to be at home again now returned; her mother was dearer to her than ever; dearer through the very excess of her mistaken confidence in Willoughby, and she was wildly urgent to be gone. Elinor, unable herself to determine whether it were better for Marianne to be in London or at Barton, offered no counsel of her own except of patience till their mother's wishes could be known; and at length she obtained her sister's consent to wait for that knowledge. Mrs. Jennings left them earlier than usual; for she could not be easy till the Middletons and Palmers were able to grieve as much as herself; and positively refusing Elinor's offered attendance, went out alone for the rest of the morning. Elinor, with a very heavy heart, aware of the pain she was going to communicate, and perceiving, by Marianne's letter, how ill she had succeeded in laying any foundation for it, then sat down to write her mother an account of what had passed, and entreat her directions for the future; while Marianne, who came into the drawing-room on Mrs. Jennings's going away, remained fixed at the table where Elinor wrote, watching the advancement of her pen, grieving over her for the hardship of such a task, and grieving still more fondly over its effect on her mother. In this manner they had continued about a quarter of an hour, when Marianne, whose nerves could not then bear any sudden noise, was startled by a rap at the door. "Who can this be?" cried Elinor. "So early too! I thought we HAD been safe." Marianne moved to the window-- "It is Colonel Brandon!" said she, with vexation. "We are never safe from HIM." "He will not come in, as Mrs. Jennings is from home." "I will not trust to THAT," retreating to her own room. "A man who has nothing to do with his own time has no conscience in his intrusion on that of others." The event proved her conjecture right, though it was founded on injustice and error; for Colonel Brandon DID come in; and Elinor, who was convinced that solicitude for Marianne brought him thither, and who saw THAT solicitude in his disturbed and melancholy look, and in his anxious though brief inquiry after her, could not forgive her sister for esteeming him so lightly. "I met Mrs. Jennings in Bond Street," said he, after the first salutation, "and she encouraged me to come on; and I was the more easily encouraged, because I thought it probable that I might find you alone, which I was very desirous of doing. My object--my wish--my sole wish in desiring it--I hope, I believe it is--is to be a means of giving comfort;--no, I must not say comfort--not present comfort--but conviction, lasting conviction to your sister's mind. My regard for her, for yourself, for your mother--will you allow me to prove it, by relating some circumstances which nothing but a VERY sincere regard--nothing but an earnest desire of being useful--I think I am justified--though where so many hours have been spent in convincing myself that I am right, is there not some reason to fear I may be wrong?" He stopped. "I understand you," said Elinor. "You have something to tell me of Mr. Willoughby, that will open his character farther. Your telling it will be the greatest act of friendship that can be shewn Marianne. MY gratitude will be insured immediately by any information tending to that end, and HERS must be gained by it in time. Pray, pray let me hear it." "You shall; and, to be brief, when I quitted Barton last October,--but this will give you no idea--I must go farther back. You will find me a very awkward narrator, Miss Dashwood; I hardly know where to begin. A short account of myself, I believe, will be necessary, and it SHALL be a short one. On such a subject," sighing heavily, "can I have little temptation to be diffuse." He stopt a moment for recollection, and then, with another sigh, went on. "You have probably entirely forgotten a conversation--(it is not to be supposed that it could make any impression on you)--a conversation between us one evening at Barton Park--it was the evening of a dance--in which I alluded to a lady I had once known, as resembling, in some measure, your sister Marianne." "Indeed," answered Elinor, "I have NOT forgotten it." He looked pleased by this remembrance, and added, "If I am not deceived by the uncertainty, the partiality of tender recollection, there is a very strong resemblance between them, as well in mind as person. The same warmth of heart, the same eagerness of fancy and spirits. This lady was one of my nearest relations, an orphan from her infancy, and under the guardianship of my father. Our ages were nearly the same, and from our earliest years we were playfellows and friends. I cannot remember the time when I did not love Eliza; and my affection for her, as we grew up, was such, as perhaps, judging from my present forlorn and cheerless gravity, you might think me incapable of having ever felt. Hers, for me, was, I believe, fervent as the attachment of your sister to Mr. Willoughby and it was, though from a different cause, no less unfortunate. At seventeen she was lost to me for ever. She was married--married against her inclination to my brother. Her fortune was large, and our family estate much encumbered. And this, I fear, is all that can be said for the conduct of one, who was at once her uncle and guardian. My brother did not deserve her; he did not even love her. I had hoped that her regard for me would support her under any difficulty, and for some time it did; but at last the misery of her situation, for she experienced great unkindness, overcame all her resolution, and though she had promised me that nothing--but how blindly I relate! I have never told you how this was brought on. We were within a few hours of eloping together for Scotland. The treachery, or the folly, of my cousin's maid betrayed us. I was banished to the house of a relation far distant, and she was allowed no liberty, no society, no amusement, till my father's point was gained. I had depended on her fortitude too far, and the blow was a severe one--but had her marriage been happy, so young as I then was, a few months must have reconciled me to it, or at least I should not have now to lament it. This however was not the case. My brother had no regard for her; his pleasures were not what they ought to have been, and from the first he treated her unkindly. The consequence of this, upon a mind so young, so lively, so inexperienced as Mrs. Brandon's, was but too natural. She resigned herself at first to all the misery of her situation; and happy had it been if she had not lived to overcome those regrets which the remembrance of me occasioned. But can we wonder that, with such a husband to provoke inconstancy, and without a friend to advise or restrain her (for my father lived only a few months after their marriage, and I was with my regiment in the East Indies) she should fall? Had I remained in England, perhaps--but I meant to promote the happiness of both by removing from her for years, and for that purpose had procured my exchange. The shock which her marriage had given me," he continued, in a voice of great agitation, "was of trifling weight--was nothing to what I felt when I heard, about two years afterwards, of her divorce. It was THAT which threw this gloom,--even now the recollection of what I suffered--" He could say no more, and rising hastily walked for a few minutes about the room. Elinor, affected by his relation, and still more by his distress, could not speak. He saw her concern, and coming to her, took her hand, pressed it, and kissed it with grateful respect. A few minutes more of silent exertion enabled him to proceed with composure. "It was nearly three years after this unhappy period before I returned to England. My first care, when I DID arrive, was of course to seek for her; but the search was as fruitless as it was melancholy. I could not trace her beyond her first seducer, and there was every reason to fear that she had removed from him only to sink deeper in a life of sin. Her legal allowance was not adequate to her fortune, nor sufficient for her comfortable maintenance, and I learnt from my brother that the power of receiving it had been made over some months before to another person. He imagined, and calmly could he imagine it, that her extravagance, and consequent distress, had obliged her to dispose of it for some immediate relief. At last, however, and after I had been six months in England, I DID find her. Regard for a former servant of my own, who had since fallen into misfortune, carried me to visit him in a spunging-house, where he was confined for debt; and there, in the same house, under a similar confinement, was my unfortunate sister. So altered--so faded--worn down by acute suffering of every kind! hardly could I believe the melancholy and sickly figure before me, to be the remains of the lovely, blooming, healthful girl, on whom I had once doted. What I endured in so beholding her--but I have no right to wound your feelings by attempting to describe it--I have pained you too much already. That she was, to all appearance, in the last stage of a consumption, was--yes, in such a situation it was my greatest comfort. Life could do nothing for her, beyond giving time for a better preparation for death; and that was given. I saw her placed in comfortable lodgings, and under proper attendants; I visited her every day during the rest of her short life: I was with her in her last moments." Again he stopped to recover himself; and Elinor spoke her feelings in an exclamation of tender concern, at the fate of his unfortunate friend. "Your sister, I hope, cannot be offended," said he, "by the resemblance I have fancied between her and my poor disgraced relation. Their fates, their fortunes, cannot be the same; and had the natural sweet disposition of the one been guarded by a firmer mind, or a happier marriage, she might have been all that you will live to see the other be. But to what does all this lead? I seem to have been distressing you for nothing. Ah! Miss Dashwood--a subject such as this--untouched for fourteen years--it is dangerous to handle it at all! I WILL be more collected--more concise. She left to my care her only child, a little girl, the offspring of her first guilty connection, who was then about three years old. She loved the child, and had always kept it with her. It was a valued, a precious trust to me; and gladly would I have discharged it in the strictest sense, by watching over her education myself, had the nature of our situations allowed it; but I had no family, no home; and my little Eliza was therefore placed at school. I saw her there whenever I could, and after the death of my brother, (which happened about five years ago, and which left to me the possession of the family property,) she visited me at Delaford. I called her a distant relation; but I am well aware that I have in general been suspected of a much nearer connection with her. It is now three years ago (she had just reached her fourteenth year,) that I removed her from school, to place her under the care of a very respectable woman, residing in Dorsetshire, who had the charge of four or five other girls of about the same time of life; and for two years I had every reason to be pleased with her situation. But last February, almost a twelvemonth back, she suddenly disappeared. I had allowed her, (imprudently, as it has since turned out,) at her earnest desire, to go to Bath with one of her young friends, who was attending her father there for his health. I knew him to be a very good sort of man, and I thought well of his daughter--better than she deserved, for, with a most obstinate and ill-judged secrecy, she would tell nothing, would give no clue, though she certainly knew all. He, her father, a well-meaning, but not a quick-sighted man, could really, I believe, give no information; for he had been generally confined to the house, while the girls were ranging over the town and making what acquaintance they chose; and he tried to convince me, as thoroughly as he was convinced himself, of his daughter's being entirely unconcerned in the business. In short, I could learn nothing but that she was gone; all the rest, for eight long months, was left to conjecture. What I thought, what I feared, may be imagined; and what I suffered too." "Good heavens!" cried Elinor, "could it be--could Willoughby!"-- "The first news that reached me of her," he continued, "came in a letter from herself, last October. It was forwarded to me from Delaford, and I received it on the very morning of our intended party to Whitwell; and this was the reason of my leaving Barton so suddenly, which I am sure must at the time have appeared strange to every body, and which I believe gave offence to some. Little did Mr. Willoughby imagine, I suppose, when his looks censured me for incivility in breaking up the party, that I was called away to the relief of one whom he had made poor and miserable; but HAD he known it, what would it have availed? Would he have been less gay or less happy in the smiles of your sister? No, he had already done that, which no man who CAN feel for another would do. He had left the girl whose youth and innocence he had seduced, in a situation of the utmost distress, with no creditable home, no help, no friends, ignorant of his address! He had left her, promising to return; he neither returned, nor wrote, nor relieved her." "This is beyond every thing!" exclaimed Elinor. "His character is now before you; expensive, dissipated, and worse than both. Knowing all this, as I have now known it many weeks, guess what I must have felt on seeing your sister as fond of him as ever, and on being assured that she was to marry him: guess what I must have felt for all your sakes. When I came to you last week and found you alone, I came determined to know the truth; though irresolute what to do when it WAS known. My behaviour must have seemed strange to you then; but now you will comprehend it. To suffer you all to be so deceived; to see your sister--but what could I do? I had no hope of interfering with success; and sometimes I thought your sister's influence might yet reclaim him. But now, after such dishonorable usage, who can tell what were his designs on her. Whatever they may have been, however, she may now, and hereafter doubtless WILL turn with gratitude towards her own condition, when she compares it with that of my poor Eliza, when she considers the wretched and hopeless situation of this poor girl, and pictures her to herself, with an affection for him so strong, still as strong as her own, and with a mind tormented by self-reproach, which must attend her through life. Surely this comparison must have its use with her. She will feel her own sufferings to be nothing. They proceed from no misconduct, and can bring no disgrace. On the contrary, every friend must be made still more her friend by them. Concern for her unhappiness, and respect for her fortitude under it, must strengthen every attachment. Use your own discretion, however, in communicating to her what I have told you. You must know best what will be its effect; but had I not seriously, and from my heart believed it might be of service, might lessen her regrets, I would not have suffered myself to trouble you with this account of my family afflictions, with a recital which may seem to have been intended to raise myself at the expense of others." Elinor's thanks followed this speech with grateful earnestness; attended too with the assurance of her expecting material advantage to Marianne, from the communication of what had passed. "I have been more pained," said she, "by her endeavors to acquit him than by all the rest; for it irritates her mind more than the most perfect conviction of his unworthiness can do. Now, though at first she will suffer much, I am sure she will soon become easier. Have you," she continued, after a short silence, "ever seen Mr. Willoughby since you left him at Barton?" "Yes," he replied gravely, "once I have. One meeting was unavoidable." Elinor, startled by his manner, looked at him anxiously, saying, "What? have you met him to--" "I could meet him no other way. Eliza had confessed to me, though most reluctantly, the name of her lover; and when he returned to town, which was within a fortnight after myself, we met by appointment, he to defend, I to punish his conduct. We returned unwounded, and the meeting, therefore, never got abroad." Elinor sighed over the fancied necessity of this; but to a man and a soldier she presumed not to censure it. "Such," said Colonel Brandon, after a pause, "has been the unhappy resemblance between the fate of mother and daughter! and so imperfectly have I discharged my trust!" "Is she still in town?" "No; as soon as she recovered from her lying-in, for I found her near her delivery, I removed her and her child into the country, and there she remains." Recollecting, soon afterwards, that he was probably dividing Elinor from her sister, he put an end to his visit, receiving from her again the same grateful acknowledgments, and leaving her full of compassion and esteem for him.

Chapter 31

https://web.archive.org/web/20180820034609/http://www.pinkmonkey.com/booknotes/monkeynotes/pmSenseSensibility45.asp

On waking up the next morning, Elinor finds Marianne sobbing and writing a letter to Willoughby. Since Marianne refuses to reveal anything to her sister, Elinor leaves her alone. After breakfast, Marianne receives a letter from Willoughby. The letter creates even more pain for Marianne than did his behavior at the party. Willoughby denies ever having loved Marianne and returns all the letters she had written him in the past, as well as the lock of hair he had taken from her. Elinor reads the letter and condemns Willoughby for his heartlessness. She also reads the three letters Marianne had written earlier, in which she professed her love for Willoughby and expressed her eagerness to meet him. Marianne feels that others might have poisoned Willoughby's mind against her. However, she is not able to excuse his hypocrisy and indifference. Weighed down by sorrow, she expresses a desire to go back to Barton to meet her mother. Elinor asks her to wait for some more time.

Notes Jane Austen convincingly portrays a woman passionately in love, one who has been thwarted by her lover. Marianne is shattered by Willoughby's attitude. Unable to suppress her feelings, she writes one more letter to him, asking him to justify his behavior during the previous evening. Willoughby's reply wounds her tortured heart all the more. He neither expresses regret nor apologizes for his behavior at the party. His words express only cruelty. Marianne's last hope fails. She breaks down in front of her sister and asks her to take her home. She wants to go away from the city, which has given her nothing but anxiety and pain. Elinor, who generally excuses people for their lapses, finds Willoughby's behavior atrocious. He has used her sister shamelessly and discarded her at his convenience. She condemns him for his villainy. Again, her response is entirely justified. CHAPTER 30 Summary The news spreads like wild fire. Mrs. Jennings, returning back from her visit, gives them the news about Willoughby's engagement to Miss Grey. She takes pity on Marianne and tries to soothe her wounded heart. In the evening, during dinner, she gives more information about Miss Grey. Willoughby's fiancee is a fashionable and wealthy woman, inheriting fifty thousand pounds; but she is common in her looks. The news distresses Marianne all the more. Shortly afterwards, Colonel Brandon enters the scene. He has also heard about Willoughby and his engagement. He shows his concern for Marianne and inquires about her reaction. Notes Mrs. Jennings is one of the most likeable characters in this novel. She loves teasing young people in love, but at the same time, is sympathetic to those who have been wronged by love. Her generous heart goes out to Marianne. She curses Willoughby and consoles Marianne. However, her concern for Marianne is an added irritant: by fussing over the girl, Mrs. Jennings only increases her agitation. But the old lady is quite unaware of this. The chapter relates how news spreads like wild fire, thanks to the women busy in gossiping. Just a short while after Marianne and Elinor learn of Willoughby's engagement, Mrs. Jennings comes home with the news: "Mrs. Taylor told me of it half an hour ago, and she was told it by a particular friend of Miss Grey herself, else I am sure I would not have believed it." The old lady also provides all the details about Miss Grey. In the evening Colonel Brandon comes to share the news he has heard in a stationer's shop in Pall Mall. He reveals, "Two ladies were waiting for their carriage, and one of them was giving the other an account of the intended match, in a voice so little attempting concealment, that it was impossible for me not to hear all." This also hints that the Colonel is a gentleman who does not pursue gossip. CHAPTER 31 Summary Elinor tries her best to lift Marianne from her depression by talking to her. Shortly afterwards, they receive a letter from their mother. Mrs. Dashwood, unaware of the recent developments, asks Marianne to explain her relationship with Willoughby. Her letter, full of wishes and hope, moves Marianne, who wants to go see her mother all the more. Colonel Brandon calls on them again. He recounts his past to Elinor. He also talks about Eliza Brandon and her daughter, Miss Williams. He relates how Willoughby had once played with the girl's heart, and after managing to seduce her, had left her in the lurch. Notes Marianne is still in love with Willoughby and nurtures a hope that he may repent and come back to her. Thus, when Mrs. Jennings brings a letter for them, Marianne imagines it to be a letter of repentance from Willoughby. Marianne is emotional and prejudiced. She does not take kindly to Mrs. Jennings' genuine sympathy or generosity. In her opinion, all that the old lady wants is "gossip, and she only likes me now because I supply it. " She also considers Colonel Brandon as an intruder who enjoys interfering in others' affairs. She remarks: "A man who has nothing to do with his own time, has no conscience in his intrusion on that of others." Marianne lacks a mature understanding of human nature. Immersed in her own sorrow, she fails to notice the genuine concern that others may have. Colonel Brandon clears the suspicions regarding his reputation by revealing his past to Elinor. Miss Williams is not his natural daughter, as most people imagine, but Eliza Brandon's. He had once loved Eliza Brandon, but she was forced to marry his brother. The marriage was unhappy, and Eliza had several extra- marital affairs. Colonel Brandon ultimately became the guardian of Eliza Williams, the daughter that resulted from the first of these affairs. His love for Marianne makes him confide in Elinor. He also exposes the deceptive nature and base character of Willoughby. Willoughby behaved in a disreputable manner with Miss Williams but has refused to acknowledge his mistake. He deserves to be punished, but the Colonel has been generous enough to pardon him.

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The Prince.chapter 25

chapter 25

{"name": "Chapter 25", "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20201108110625/https://www.cliffsnotes.com/literature/p/the-prince/summary-and-analysis/chapter-25", "summary": "Many people believe that fortune controls everything, so that there is no use in trying to act, but fortune controls only half of one's actions, leaving free will to control the other half. Fortune can be compared to a river that floods, destroying everything in its way. But when the weather is good, people can prepare dams and dikes to control the flood. If Italy had such preparations, she would not have suffered so much in the present floods. Princes are successful one day and ruined the next, with no change in their natures. Two men may use the same method, but only one succeeds; and two men may use different methods, but reach the same goal, all because the circumstances do or do not suit their actions. If a man is successful by acting one way and the circumstances change, he will fail if he does not change his methods. But men are never flexible enough to change, either because their natures will not let them or because they become accustomed to a certain behavior bringing success. It is better to be bold than timid and cautious, because fortune is a woman, and the man who wants to control her must treat her roughly.", "analysis": "This chapter is perhaps the most pivotal in The Prince, because Machiavelli discusses the relationship of action and fortune in determining the prince's success. Machiavelli uses fortune in at least two senses. In Chapters 7 and 8, Machiavelli contrasts virtu with fortune in the sense of luck or the favor of powerful people. In those chapters, the contrast is between what the prince can control and what he cannot control . In this chapter, fortune refers more to prevailing circumstances and events, which are still things that the prince cannot directly control. Rather than taking the fatalistic view that all events are controlled by destiny and that it is useless to work toward a particular outcome, Machiavelli gives fortune control over only half of human actions, letting free will influence the rest. If free will did not operate, all of a prince's virtu would be for nothing. Yet Machiavelli struggles with the problem of why one person succeeds and another fails, even though they have employed the same methods, or why totally different methods can arrive at the same outcome. To explain this, he proposes that success comes when virtu is suited to the particular situation a prince finds himself in. Machiavelli envisions fortune as a set of constantly changing circumstances in which particular actions can bring about success or failure. To describe it, he uses one of his few extended metaphors, making fortune a force of nature, like a river that seems uncontrollable, yet can be tamed and directed by human activity. If the Italian princes had made suitable preparations, the \"flood\" of foreign invasions would not have swept over the open and unprotected country. Having affirmed the value of free will, Machiavelli limits it by asserting that even though it may be possible to vary one's actions to suit the times, no one ever does. Machiavelli implies that this is because virtu is an inherent, natural quality that the prince cannot change. People act according to their character and cannot change their natures. This line of reasoning brings Machiavelli back to the pessimistic fatalism he rejected at the beginning of the chapter. If a prince cannot change his nature, success depends simply on being lucky enough to have a character suited to the times he lives in. Fortune was frequently personified in Renaissance art and literature as Fortuna, a female figure who held a turning wheel to symbolize her constant state of change. Fortuna's fickleness is her greatest trait; no sooner are you at the top of her wheel than it turns, and you end up at the bottom. Drawing on this symbolism, Machiavelli closes the chapter by saying that a man who wants to subdue fortune must treat her like the woman she is, and approach her with boldness and roughness. While Machiavelli's metaphor may be offensive to some modern readers, it would not have been shocking in its own day. Even in modern times, the saying \"fortune favors the bold\" can still be heard. Glossary Julius the warlike pope's remarkable career as a military leader was cut short by his sudden death in 1513."}

It is not unknown to me how many men have had, and still have, the opinion that the affairs of the world are in such wise governed by fortune and by God that men with their wisdom cannot direct them and that no one can even help them; and because of this they would have us believe that it is not necessary to labour much in affairs, but to let chance govern them. This opinion has been more credited in our times because of the great changes in affairs which have been seen, and may still be seen, every day, beyond all human conjecture. Sometimes pondering over this, I am in some degree inclined to their opinion. Nevertheless, not to extinguish our free will, I hold it to be true that Fortune is the arbiter of one-half of our actions,(*) but that she still leaves us to direct the other half, or perhaps a little less. (*) Frederick the Great was accustomed to say: "The older one gets the more convinced one becomes that his Majesty King Chance does three-quarters of the business of this miserable universe." Sorel's "Eastern Question." I compare her to one of those raging rivers, which when in flood overflows the plains, sweeping away trees and buildings, bearing away the soil from place to place; everything flies before it, all yield to its violence, without being able in any way to withstand it; and yet, though its nature be such, it does not follow therefore that men, when the weather becomes fair, shall not make provision, both with defences and barriers, in such a manner that, rising again, the waters may pass away by canal, and their force be neither so unrestrained nor so dangerous. So it happens with fortune, who shows her power where valour has not prepared to resist her, and thither she turns her forces where she knows that barriers and defences have not been raised to constrain her. And if you will consider Italy, which is the seat of these changes, and which has given to them their impulse, you will see it to be an open country without barriers and without any defence. For if it had been defended by proper valour, as are Germany, Spain, and France, either this invasion would not have made the great changes it has made or it would not have come at all. And this I consider enough to say concerning resistance to fortune in general. But confining myself more to the particular, I say that a prince may be seen happy to-day and ruined to-morrow without having shown any change of disposition or character. This, I believe, arises firstly from causes that have already been discussed at length, namely, that the prince who relies entirely on fortune is lost when it changes. I believe also that he will be successful who directs his actions according to the spirit of the times, and that he whose actions do not accord with the times will not be successful. Because men are seen, in affairs that lead to the end which every man has before him, namely, glory and riches, to get there by various methods; one with caution, another with haste; one by force, another by skill; one by patience, another by its opposite; and each one succeeds in reaching the goal by a different method. One can also see of two cautious men the one attain his end, the other fail; and similarly, two men by different observances are equally successful, the one being cautious, the other impetuous; all this arises from nothing else than whether or not they conform in their methods to the spirit of the times. This follows from what I have said, that two men working differently bring about the same effect, and of two working similarly, one attains his object and the other does not. Changes in estate also issue from this, for if, to one who governs himself with caution and patience, times and affairs converge in such a way that his administration is successful, his fortune is made; but if times and affairs change, he is ruined if he does not change his course of action. But a man is not often found sufficiently circumspect to know how to accommodate himself to the change, both because he cannot deviate from what nature inclines him to do, and also because, having always prospered by acting in one way, he cannot be persuaded that it is well to leave it; and, therefore, the cautious man, when it is time to turn adventurous, does not know how to do it, hence he is ruined; but had he changed his conduct with the times fortune would not have changed. Pope Julius the Second went to work impetuously in all his affairs, and found the times and circumstances conform so well to that line of action that he always met with success. Consider his first enterprise against Bologna, Messer Giovanni Bentivogli being still alive. The Venetians were not agreeable to it, nor was the King of Spain, and he had the enterprise still under discussion with the King of France; nevertheless he personally entered upon the expedition with his accustomed boldness and energy, a move which made Spain and the Venetians stand irresolute and passive, the latter from fear, the former from desire to recover the kingdom of Naples; on the other hand, he drew after him the King of France, because that king, having observed the movement, and desiring to make the Pope his friend so as to humble the Venetians, found it impossible to refuse him. Therefore Julius with his impetuous action accomplished what no other pontiff with simple human wisdom could have done; for if he had waited in Rome until he could get away, with his plans arranged and everything fixed, as any other pontiff would have done, he would never have succeeded. Because the King of France would have made a thousand excuses, and the others would have raised a thousand fears. I will leave his other actions alone, as they were all alike, and they all succeeded, for the shortness of his life did not let him experience the contrary; but if circumstances had arisen which required him to go cautiously, his ruin would have followed, because he would never have deviated from those ways to which nature inclined him. I conclude, therefore that, fortune being changeful and mankind steadfast in their ways, so long as the two are in agreement men are successful, but unsuccessful when they fall out. For my part I consider that it is better to be adventurous than cautious, because fortune is a woman, and if you wish to keep her under it is necessary to beat and ill-use her; and it is seen that she allows herself to be mastered by the adventurous rather than by those who go to work more coldly. She is, therefore, always, woman-like, a lover of young men, because they are less cautious, more violent, and with more audacity command her.

Chapter 25

https://web.archive.org/web/20201108110625/https://www.cliffsnotes.com/literature/p/the-prince/summary-and-analysis/chapter-25

Many people believe that fortune controls everything, so that there is no use in trying to act, but fortune controls only half of one's actions, leaving free will to control the other half. Fortune can be compared to a river that floods, destroying everything in its way. But when the weather is good, people can prepare dams and dikes to control the flood. If Italy had such preparations, she would not have suffered so much in the present floods. Princes are successful one day and ruined the next, with no change in their natures. Two men may use the same method, but only one succeeds; and two men may use different methods, but reach the same goal, all because the circumstances do or do not suit their actions. If a man is successful by acting one way and the circumstances change, he will fail if he does not change his methods. But men are never flexible enough to change, either because their natures will not let them or because they become accustomed to a certain behavior bringing success. It is better to be bold than timid and cautious, because fortune is a woman, and the man who wants to control her must treat her roughly.

This chapter is perhaps the most pivotal in The Prince, because Machiavelli discusses the relationship of action and fortune in determining the prince's success. Machiavelli uses fortune in at least two senses. In Chapters 7 and 8, Machiavelli contrasts virtu with fortune in the sense of luck or the favor of powerful people. In those chapters, the contrast is between what the prince can control and what he cannot control . In this chapter, fortune refers more to prevailing circumstances and events, which are still things that the prince cannot directly control. Rather than taking the fatalistic view that all events are controlled by destiny and that it is useless to work toward a particular outcome, Machiavelli gives fortune control over only half of human actions, letting free will influence the rest. If free will did not operate, all of a prince's virtu would be for nothing. Yet Machiavelli struggles with the problem of why one person succeeds and another fails, even though they have employed the same methods, or why totally different methods can arrive at the same outcome. To explain this, he proposes that success comes when virtu is suited to the particular situation a prince finds himself in. Machiavelli envisions fortune as a set of constantly changing circumstances in which particular actions can bring about success or failure. To describe it, he uses one of his few extended metaphors, making fortune a force of nature, like a river that seems uncontrollable, yet can be tamed and directed by human activity. If the Italian princes had made suitable preparations, the "flood" of foreign invasions would not have swept over the open and unprotected country. Having affirmed the value of free will, Machiavelli limits it by asserting that even though it may be possible to vary one's actions to suit the times, no one ever does. Machiavelli implies that this is because virtu is an inherent, natural quality that the prince cannot change. People act according to their character and cannot change their natures. This line of reasoning brings Machiavelli back to the pessimistic fatalism he rejected at the beginning of the chapter. If a prince cannot change his nature, success depends simply on being lucky enough to have a character suited to the times he lives in. Fortune was frequently personified in Renaissance art and literature as Fortuna, a female figure who held a turning wheel to symbolize her constant state of change. Fortuna's fickleness is her greatest trait; no sooner are you at the top of her wheel than it turns, and you end up at the bottom. Drawing on this symbolism, Machiavelli closes the chapter by saying that a man who wants to subdue fortune must treat her like the woman she is, and approach her with boldness and roughness. While Machiavelli's metaphor may be offensive to some modern readers, it would not have been shocking in its own day. Even in modern times, the saying "fortune favors the bold" can still be heard. Glossary Julius the warlike pope's remarkable career as a military leader was cut short by his sudden death in 1513.

gradesaver

all_chapterized_books/110-chapters/16.txt

finished_summaries/gradesaver/Tess of the D'Urbervilles/section_2_part_1.txt

Tess of the D'Urbervilles.chapter 16

chapter 16

{"name": "Chapter 16", "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20210410060617/https://www.gradesaver.com/tess-of-the-durbervilles/study-guide/summary-phase-3-chapters-16-24", "summary": "Tess leaves home for the second time, deciding that were she to remain, her younger siblings would probably gain less good by her precepts than harm by her example. On the way to Talbothays, Tess passes Kingsbere, the area in which her ancestors lay entombed. She dismisses ideas about her ancestors, realizing that she has as much of her mother as her father in her. Tess arrives at the dairy around milking time, half-past four in the morning.", "analysis": "Upon leaving Marlott, Tess Durbeyfield once again confronts the ancestors whose discovery by her father prompted Tess to be sent to find ruin with Alec d'Urberville. However, while she was once intrigued by the idea that she may find fortune and security with the d'Urbervilles, by this point in her life she has rejected such unrealistic dreams. Her journey to the dairy contrasts with her first journey out of Marlott, for in this instance Tess goes to perform hard manual labor, yet nevertheless appears more calm and confident on her second journey than her more leisurely first"}

On a thyme-scented, bird-hatching morning in May, between two and three years after the return from Trantridge--silent, reconstructive years for Tess Durbeyfield--she left her home for the second time. Having packed up her luggage so that it could be sent to her later, she started in a hired trap for the little town of Stourcastle, through which it was necessary to pass on her journey, now in a direction almost opposite to that of her first adventuring. On the curve of the nearest hill she looked back regretfully at Marlott and her father's house, although she had been so anxious to get away. Her kindred dwelling there would probably continue their daily lives as heretofore, with no great diminution of pleasure in their consciousness, although she would be far off, and they deprived of her smile. In a few days the children would engage in their games as merrily as ever, without the sense of any gap left by her departure. This leaving of the younger children she had decided to be for the best; were she to remain they would probably gain less good by her precepts than harm by her example. She went through Stourcastle without pausing and onward to a junction of highways, where she could await a carrier's van that ran to the south-west; for the railways which engirdled this interior tract of country had never yet struck across it. While waiting, however, there came along a farmer in his spring cart, driving approximately in the direction that she wished to pursue. Though he was a stranger to her she accepted his offer of a seat beside him, ignoring that its motive was a mere tribute to her countenance. He was going to Weatherbury, and by accompanying him thither she could walk the remainder of the distance instead of travelling in the van by way of Casterbridge. Tess did not stop at Weatherbury, after this long drive, further than to make a slight nondescript meal at noon at a cottage to which the farmer recommended her. Thence she started on foot, basket in hand, to reach the wide upland of heath dividing this district from the low-lying meads of a further valley in which the dairy stood that was the aim and end of her day's pilgrimage. Tess had never before visited this part of the country, and yet she felt akin to the landscape. Not so very far to the left of her she could discern a dark patch in the scenery, which inquiry confirmed her in supposing to be trees marking the environs of Kingsbere--in the church of which parish the bones of her ancestors--her useless ancestors--lay entombed. She had no admiration for them now; she almost hated them for the dance they had led her; not a thing of all that had been theirs did she retain but the old seal and spoon. "Pooh--I have as much of mother as father in me!" she said. "All my prettiness comes from her, and she was only a dairymaid." The journey over the intervening uplands and lowlands of Egdon, when she reached them, was a more troublesome walk than she had anticipated, the distance being actually but a few miles. It was two hours, owing to sundry wrong turnings, ere she found herself on a summit commanding the long-sought-for vale, the Valley of the Great Dairies, the valley in which milk and butter grew to rankness, and were produced more profusely, if less delicately, than at her home--the verdant plain so well watered by the river Var or Froom. It was intrinsically different from the Vale of Little Dairies, Blackmoor Vale, which, save during her disastrous sojourn at Trantridge, she had exclusively known till now. The world was drawn to a larger pattern here. The enclosures numbered fifty acres instead of ten, the farmsteads were more extended, the groups of cattle formed tribes hereabout; there only families. These myriads of cows stretching under her eyes from the far east to the far west outnumbered any she had ever seen at one glance before. The green lea was speckled as thickly with them as a canvas by Van Alsloot or Sallaert with burghers. The ripe hue of the red and dun kine absorbed the evening sunlight, which the white-coated animals returned to the eye in rays almost dazzling, even at the distant elevation on which she stood. The bird's-eye perspective before her was not so luxuriantly beautiful, perhaps, as that other one which she knew so well; yet it was more cheering. It lacked the intensely blue atmosphere of the rival vale, and its heavy soils and scents; the new air was clear, bracing, ethereal. The river itself, which nourished the grass and cows of these renowned dairies, flowed not like the streams in Blackmoor. Those were slow, silent, often turbid; flowing over beds of mud into which the incautious wader might sink and vanish unawares. The Froom waters were clear as the pure River of Life shown to the Evangelist, rapid as the shadow of a cloud, with pebbly shallows that prattled to the sky all day long. There the water-flower was the lily; the crow-foot here. Either the change in the quality of the air from heavy to light, or the sense of being amid new scenes where there were no invidious eyes upon her, sent up her spirits wonderfully. Her hopes mingled with the sunshine in an ideal photosphere which surrounded her as she bounded along against the soft south wind. She heard a pleasant voice in every breeze, and in every bird's note seemed to lurk a joy. Her face had latterly changed with changing states of mind, continually fluctuating between beauty and ordinariness, according as the thoughts were gay or grave. One day she was pink and flawless; another pale and tragical. When she was pink she was feeling less than when pale; her more perfect beauty accorded with her less elevated mood; her more intense mood with her less perfect beauty. It was her best face physically that was now set against the south wind. The irresistible, universal, automatic tendency to find sweet pleasure somewhere, which pervades all life, from the meanest to the highest, had at length mastered Tess. Being even now only a young woman of twenty, one who mentally and sentimentally had not finished growing, it was impossible that any event should have left upon her an impression that was not in time capable of transmutation. And thus her spirits, and her thankfulness, and her hopes, rose higher and higher. She tried several ballads, but found them inadequate; till, recollecting the psalter that her eyes had so often wandered over of a Sunday morning before she had eaten of the tree of knowledge, she chanted: "O ye Sun and Moon ... O ye Stars ... ye Green Things upon the Earth ... ye Fowls of the Air ... Beasts and Cattle ... Children of Men ... bless ye the Lord, praise Him and magnify Him for ever!" She suddenly stopped and murmured: "But perhaps I don't quite know the Lord as yet." And probably the half-unconscious rhapsody was a Fetishistic utterance in a Monotheistic setting; women whose chief companions are the forms and forces of outdoor Nature retain in their souls far more of the Pagan fantasy of their remote forefathers than of the systematized religion taught their race at later date. However, Tess found at least approximate expression for her feelings in the old _Benedicite_ that she had lisped from infancy; and it was enough. Such high contentment with such a slight initial performance as that of having started towards a means of independent living was a part of the Durbeyfield temperament. Tess really wished to walk uprightly, while her father did nothing of the kind; but she resembled him in being content with immediate and small achievements, and in having no mind for laborious effort towards such petty social advancement as could alone be effected by a family so heavily handicapped as the once powerful d'Urbervilles were now. There was, it might be said, the energy of her mother's unexpended family, as well as the natural energy of Tess's years, rekindled after the experience which had so overwhelmed her for the time. Let the truth be told--women do as a rule live through such humiliations, and regain their spirits, and again look about them with an interested eye. While there's life there's hope is a conviction not so entirely unknown to the "betrayed" as some amiable theorists would have us believe. Tess Durbeyfield, then, in good heart, and full of zest for life, descended the Egdon slopes lower and lower towards the dairy of her pilgrimage. The marked difference, in the final particular, between the rival vales now showed itself. The secret of Blackmoor was best discovered from the heights around; to read aright the valley before her it was necessary to descend into its midst. When Tess had accomplished this feat she found herself to be standing on a carpeted level, which stretched to the east and west as far as the eye could reach. The river had stolen from the higher tracts and brought in particles to the vale all this horizontal land; and now, exhausted, aged, and attenuated, lay serpentining along through the midst of its former spoils. Not quite sure of her direction, Tess stood still upon the hemmed expanse of verdant flatness, like a fly on a billiard-table of indefinite length, and of no more consequence to the surroundings than that fly. The sole effect of her presence upon the placid valley so far had been to excite the mind of a solitary heron, which, after descending to the ground not far from her path, stood with neck erect, looking at her. Suddenly there arose from all parts of the lowland a prolonged and repeated call--"Waow! waow! waow!" From the furthest east to the furthest west the cries spread as if by contagion, accompanied in some cases by the barking of a dog. It was not the expression of the valley's consciousness that beautiful Tess had arrived, but the ordinary announcement of milking-time--half-past four o'clock, when the dairymen set about getting in the cows. The red and white herd nearest at hand, which had been phlegmatically waiting for the call, now trooped towards the steading in the background, their great bags of milk swinging under them as they walked. Tess followed slowly in their rear, and entered the barton by the open gate through which they had entered before her. Long thatched sheds stretched round the enclosure, their slopes encrusted with vivid green moss, and their eaves supported by wooden posts rubbed to a glossy smoothness by the flanks of infinite cows and calves of bygone years, now passed to an oblivion almost inconceivable in its profundity. Between the post were ranged the milchers, each exhibiting herself at the present moment to a whimsical eye in the rear as a circle on two stalks, down the centre of which a switch moved pendulum-wise; while the sun, lowering itself behind this patient row, threw their shadows accurately inwards upon the wall. Thus it threw shadows of these obscure and homely figures every evening with as much care over each contour as if it had been the profile of a court beauty on a palace wall; copied them as diligently as it had copied Olympian shapes on marble _facades_ long ago, or the outline of Alexander, Caesar, and the Pharaohs. They were the less restful cows that were stalled. Those that would stand still of their own will were milked in the middle of the yard, where many of such better behaved ones stood waiting now--all prime milchers, such as were seldom seen out of this valley, and not always within it; nourished by the succulent feed which the water-meads supplied at this prime season of the year. Those of them that were spotted with white reflected the sunshine in dazzling brilliancy, and the polished brass knobs of their horns glittered with something of military display. Their large-veined udders hung ponderous as sandbags, the teats sticking out like the legs of a gipsy's crock; and as each animal lingered for her turn to arrive the milk oozed forth and fell in drops to the ground.

Chapter 16

https://web.archive.org/web/20210410060617/https://www.gradesaver.com/tess-of-the-durbervilles/study-guide/summary-phase-3-chapters-16-24

Tess leaves home for the second time, deciding that were she to remain, her younger siblings would probably gain less good by her precepts than harm by her example. On the way to Talbothays, Tess passes Kingsbere, the area in which her ancestors lay entombed. She dismisses ideas about her ancestors, realizing that she has as much of her mother as her father in her. Tess arrives at the dairy around milking time, half-past four in the morning.

Upon leaving Marlott, Tess Durbeyfield once again confronts the ancestors whose discovery by her father prompted Tess to be sent to find ruin with Alec d'Urberville. However, while she was once intrigued by the idea that she may find fortune and security with the d'Urbervilles, by this point in her life she has rejected such unrealistic dreams. Her journey to the dairy contrasts with her first journey out of Marlott, for in this instance Tess goes to perform hard manual labor, yet nevertheless appears more calm and confident on her second journey than her more leisurely first

novelguide

all_chapterized_books/161-chapters/02.txt

finished_summaries/novelguide/Sense and Sensibility/section_1_part_2.txt

Sense and Sensibility.chapter ii

chapter ii

{"name": "Chapter II", "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20201020004256/https://www.novelguide.com/sense-and-sensibility/summaries/volume1-chapter1-11", "summary": "John ponders how much money to give the Dashwood women. He feels at first that three thousand pounds is a reasonable amount. His wife, however, is unwilling to see her herself and her child lose any money. She takes advantage of the fact that Henry Dashwood did not specify an exact sum in order to whittle down John's intended gift of three thousand pounds to nothing. She persuades John that Henry Dashwood intended John to give no money to the Dashwood women, and that John can discharge his duty to them, if indeed he has any, by doing them the occasional neighborly act", "analysis": ""}

Mrs. John Dashwood now installed herself mistress of Norland; and her mother and sisters-in-law were degraded to the condition of visitors. As such, however, they were treated by her with quiet civility; and by her husband with as much kindness as he could feel towards anybody beyond himself, his wife, and their child. He really pressed them, with some earnestness, to consider Norland as their home; and, as no plan appeared so eligible to Mrs. Dashwood as remaining there till she could accommodate herself with a house in the neighbourhood, his invitation was accepted. A continuance in a place where everything reminded her of former delight, was exactly what suited her mind. In seasons of cheerfulness, no temper could be more cheerful than hers, or possess, in a greater degree, that sanguine expectation of happiness which is happiness itself. But in sorrow she must be equally carried away by her fancy, and as far beyond consolation as in pleasure she was beyond alloy. Mrs. John Dashwood did not at all approve of what her husband intended to do for his sisters. To take three thousand pounds from the fortune of their dear little boy would be impoverishing him to the most dreadful degree. She begged him to think again on the subject. How could he answer it to himself to rob his child, and his only child too, of so large a sum? And what possible claim could the Miss Dashwoods, who were related to him only by half blood, which she considered as no relationship at all, have on his generosity to so large an amount. It was very well known that no affection was ever supposed to exist between the children of any man by different marriages; and why was he to ruin himself, and their poor little Harry, by giving away all his money to his half sisters? "It was my father's last request to me," replied her husband, "that I should assist his widow and daughters." "He did not know what he was talking of, I dare say; ten to one but he was light-headed at the time. Had he been in his right senses, he could not have thought of such a thing as begging you to give away half your fortune from your own child." "He did not stipulate for any particular sum, my dear Fanny; he only requested me, in general terms, to assist them, and make their situation more comfortable than it was in his power to do. Perhaps it would have been as well if he had left it wholly to myself. He could hardly suppose I should neglect them. But as he required the promise, I could not do less than give it; at least I thought so at the time. The promise, therefore, was given, and must be performed. Something must be done for them whenever they leave Norland and settle in a new home." "Well, then, LET something be done for them; but THAT something need not be three thousand pounds. Consider," she added, "that when the money is once parted with, it never can return. Your sisters will marry, and it will be gone for ever. If, indeed, it could be restored to our poor little boy--" "Why, to be sure," said her husband, very gravely, "that would make great difference. The time may come when Harry will regret that so large a sum was parted with. If he should have a numerous family, for instance, it would be a very convenient addition." "To be sure it would." "Perhaps, then, it would be better for all parties, if the sum were diminished one half.--Five hundred pounds would be a prodigious increase to their fortunes!" "Oh! beyond anything great! What brother on earth would do half so much for his sisters, even if REALLY his sisters! And as it is--only half blood!--But you have such a generous spirit!" "I would not wish to do any thing mean," he replied. "One had rather, on such occasions, do too much than too little. No one, at least, can think I have not done enough for them: even themselves, they can hardly expect more." "There is no knowing what THEY may expect," said the lady, "but we are not to think of their expectations: the question is, what you can afford to do." "Certainly--and I think I may afford to give them five hundred pounds a-piece. As it is, without any addition of mine, they will each have about three thousand pounds on their mother's death--a very comfortable fortune for any young woman." "To be sure it is; and, indeed, it strikes me that they can want no addition at all. They will have ten thousand pounds divided amongst them. If they marry, they will be sure of doing well, and if they do not, they may all live very comfortably together on the interest of ten thousand pounds." "That is very true, and, therefore, I do not know whether, upon the whole, it would not be more advisable to do something for their mother while she lives, rather than for them--something of the annuity kind I mean.--My sisters would feel the good effects of it as well as herself. A hundred a year would make them all perfectly comfortable." His wife hesitated a little, however, in giving her consent to this plan. "To be sure," said she, "it is better than parting with fifteen hundred pounds at once. But, then, if Mrs. Dashwood should live fifteen years we shall be completely taken in." "Fifteen years! my dear Fanny; her life cannot be worth half that purchase." "Certainly not; but if you observe, people always live for ever when there is an annuity to be paid them; and she is very stout and healthy, and hardly forty. An annuity is a very serious business; it comes over and over every year, and there is no getting rid of it. You are not aware of what you are doing. I have known a great deal of the trouble of annuities; for my mother was clogged with the payment of three to old superannuated servants by my father's will, and it is amazing how disagreeable she found it. Twice every year these annuities were to be paid; and then there was the trouble of getting it to them; and then one of them was said to have died, and afterwards it turned out to be no such thing. My mother was quite sick of it. Her income was not her own, she said, with such perpetual claims on it; and it was the more unkind in my father, because, otherwise, the money would have been entirely at my mother's disposal, without any restriction whatever. It has given me such an abhorrence of annuities, that I am sure I would not pin myself down to the payment of one for all the world." "It is certainly an unpleasant thing," replied Mr. Dashwood, "to have those kind of yearly drains on one's income. One's fortune, as your mother justly says, is NOT one's own. To be tied down to the regular payment of such a sum, on every rent day, is by no means desirable: it takes away one's independence." "Undoubtedly; and after all you have no thanks for it. They think themselves secure, you do no more than what is expected, and it raises no gratitude at all. If I were you, whatever I did should be done at my own discretion entirely. I would not bind myself to allow them any thing yearly. It may be very inconvenient some years to spare a hundred, or even fifty pounds from our own expenses." "I believe you are right, my love; it will be better that there should be no annuity in the case; whatever I may give them occasionally will be of far greater assistance than a yearly allowance, because they would only enlarge their style of living if they felt sure of a larger income, and would not be sixpence the richer for it at the end of the year. It will certainly be much the best way. A present of fifty pounds, now and then, will prevent their ever being distressed for money, and will, I think, be amply discharging my promise to my father." "To be sure it will. Indeed, to say the truth, I am convinced within myself that your father had no idea of your giving them any money at all. The assistance he thought of, I dare say, was only such as might be reasonably expected of you; for instance, such as looking out for a comfortable small house for them, helping them to move their things, and sending them presents of fish and game, and so forth, whenever they are in season. I'll lay my life that he meant nothing farther; indeed, it would be very strange and unreasonable if he did. Do but consider, my dear Mr. Dashwood, how excessively comfortable your mother-in-law and her daughters may live on the interest of seven thousand pounds, besides the thousand pounds belonging to each of the girls, which brings them in fifty pounds a year a-piece, and, of course, they will pay their mother for their board out of it. Altogether, they will have five hundred a-year amongst them, and what on earth can four women want for more than that?--They will live so cheap! Their housekeeping will be nothing at all. They will have no carriage, no horses, and hardly any servants; they will keep no company, and can have no expenses of any kind! Only conceive how comfortable they will be! Five hundred a year! I am sure I cannot imagine how they will spend half of it; and as to your giving them more, it is quite absurd to think of it. They will be much more able to give YOU something." "Upon my word," said Mr. Dashwood, "I believe you are perfectly right. My father certainly could mean nothing more by his request to me than what you say. I clearly understand it now, and I will strictly fulfil my engagement by such acts of assistance and kindness to them as you have described. When my mother removes into another house my services shall be readily given to accommodate her as far as I can. Some little present of furniture too may be acceptable then." "Certainly," returned Mrs. John Dashwood. "But, however, ONE thing must be considered. When your father and mother moved to Norland, though the furniture of Stanhill was sold, all the china, plate, and linen was saved, and is now left to your mother. Her house will therefore be almost completely fitted up as soon as she takes it." "That is a material consideration undoubtedly. A valuable legacy indeed! And yet some of the plate would have been a very pleasant addition to our own stock here." "Yes; and the set of breakfast china is twice as handsome as what belongs to this house. A great deal too handsome, in my opinion, for any place THEY can ever afford to live in. But, however, so it is. Your father thought only of THEM. And I must say this: that you owe no particular gratitude to him, nor attention to his wishes; for we very well know that if he could, he would have left almost everything in the world to THEM." This argument was irresistible. It gave to his intentions whatever of decision was wanting before; and he finally resolved, that it would be absolutely unnecessary, if not highly indecorous, to do more for the widow and children of his father, than such kind of neighbourly acts as his own wife pointed out.

Chapter II

https://web.archive.org/web/20201020004256/https://www.novelguide.com/sense-and-sensibility/summaries/volume1-chapter1-11

John ponders how much money to give the Dashwood women. He feels at first that three thousand pounds is a reasonable amount. His wife, however, is unwilling to see her herself and her child lose any money. She takes advantage of the fact that Henry Dashwood did not specify an exact sum in order to whittle down John's intended gift of three thousand pounds to nothing. She persuades John that Henry Dashwood intended John to give no money to the Dashwood women, and that John can discharge his duty to them, if indeed he has any, by doing them the occasional neighborly act

gradesaver

all_chapterized_books/151-chapters/2.txt

finished_summaries/gradesaver/The Rime of the Ancient Mariner/section_1_part_0.txt

The Rime of the Ancient Mariner.part 2

part 2

{"name": "Part 2", "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20210422155712/https://www.gradesaver.com/the-rime-of-the-ancient-mariner/study-guide/summary-part-2", "summary": "The ship sailed northward into the Pacific Ocean, and although the sun shone during the day and the wind remained strong, the mist held fast. The other sailors were angry with the Ancient Mariner for killing the Albatross, which they believed had saved them from the icy world by summoning the wind: \"Ah wretch! Said they, the bird to slay / That made the breeze to blow!\" Then the mist disappeared and the sun shone particularly brightly, \"like God's own head.\" The sailors suddenly changed their opinion. They decided that the Albatross must have brought the must, and praise the Ancient Mariner for having killed it and rid them of the mist: \"Twas right, said they, such birds to slay, / That bring the fog and mist.\" The ship sailed along merrily until it entered an uncharted part of the ocean, and the wind disappeared. The ship could not move, and sat \"As idle as a painted ship / Upon a painted ocean.\" Then the sun became unbearably hot just as the sailors ran out of water, leading up to the most famous lines in the poem: \"Water, water, every where, / And all the boards did shrink; / Water, water, every where, / Nor any drop to drink.\" The ocean became a horrifying place; the water churned with \"slimy\" creatures, and at night, eerie fires seemed to burn on the ocean's surface. Some of the sailors dreamed that an evil spirit had followed them from the icy world, and they all suffered from a thirst so terrible that they could not speak. To brand the Ancient Mariner for his crime and place the guilt on him and him alone, the sailors hung the Albatross's dead carcass around his neck.", "analysis": "Coleridge introduces the idea of responsibility in Part 2. The sailors have an urge to pin whatever happens to them on the Ancient Mariner, since he killed the Albatross for no good reason. It seems more important to them to make him claim responsibility for their fate than what their fate actually is; first, they curse him for making the wind disappear, and then they praise him for making the mist disappear. Coleridge may be poking fun at allegory in this section. He told reviewers after the poem's release that he did not intend for it to have a moral, even though when reading the poem, one is hard-pressed not to discern a moral message. By having the sailors switch from blame to praise and back to blame again, Coleridge mocks those quick to judge. To go back to the preface, the sailors represent those too eager to discern the \"certain\" from the \"uncertain\", preferring to see things in black-and-white terms. The major theme of liminality emerges more fully in Part 2. In literature - and especially Romantic literature - a liminal space is where plot twists occur or things begin to go awry. The Romantic hero, although he begins confident and with a clear mission, stumbles into a bewildering space where he struggles, and from which he emerges wizened and saddened. Traditionally these places are borderlines, such as the edge of a forest or a shoreline. Recall from Part 1 that the ship's course is sunny and smooth until it crosses the equator and the storm begins. The equator is the boundary between the earth's hemispheres, and is therefore an extreme example of a liminal space. The icy world or \"rime\" itself is also a compelling liminal space. At first it seems to be the epitome of the temporal; there are no visible creatures there besides the sailors, whose senses it assaults with huge icy forms, terrifying sounds, and bewildering echoes. But it is equally a spiritual place, the dwelling of a very powerful spirit who wreaks havoc on the sailors to punish the Ancient Mariner for killing its beloved Albatross. The icy world represents a tenuous balance between the temporal and spiritual. The physicality of the icy world represents its tenuousness; in it, water exists in all its three phases: ice, water, and mist. The boundaries between the temporal and the spiritual, what Burnet calls the \"certain and uncertain\" in the epigraph, are as indistinct there as the physical state of water. It is not necessarily the loudness, coldness, or desolateness of the icy world that makes it so terrifying. Rather, it is the fact that nothing there is easily definable. In light of the epigraph, it represents the balance that one must seek between the \"certain and uncertain,\" which will ultimately lead to the truth. However, the icy world as a symbol suggests that this path to enlightenment is equally fascinating and terrifying. The most famous lines in \"The Rime of the Ancient Mariner\" are unquestionably: \"Water, water, every where, / Nor any drop to drink.\" The sailors are punished for the Ancient Mariner's mistake with deprivation made worse by the fact that what they need so badly - water - is all around them, but is entirely undrinkable. Since the poem's publication, these lines have come into common usage to refer to situations in which one is surrounded by the thing one desires, but is denied it nevertheless. In light of the epigraph, the Ancient Mariner shoots the Albatross because he, like humans throughout time, wants to learn about the spiritual world. The Albatross is an animal, but it is akin to a spirit, and its murder wreaks spiritual havoc on the sailors. We are given no reason why the Ancient Mariner shoots the Albatross, and he does so without premeditation. It is as though he needs to bring the beauty of the spiritual world down to the temporal world in order to understand it. He takes the bird out of the air and onto the deck, where it proves to be mortal indeed. After that, the spiritual world begins to punish the Ancient Mariner and the other sailors by making all elements of the temporal world painful. They are thirsty and sunburned, cannot sail for lack of wind, and are threatened by creatures and strange lights in the water. The sailors add to the Ancient Mariner's physical punishment when they hang the Albatross around his neck, giving him a physical burden to remind him of the spiritual burden of sin he carries. They too punish him physically for his spiritual depravity."}

PART THE SECOND. The Sun now rose upon the right: Out of the sea came he, Still hid in mist, and on the left Went down into the sea. And the good south wind still blew behind But no sweet bird did follow, Nor any day for food or play Came to the mariners' hollo! And I had done an hellish thing, And it would work 'em woe: For all averred, I had killed the bird That made the breeze to blow. Ah wretch! said they, the bird to slay That made the breeze to blow! Nor dim nor red, like God's own head, The glorious Sun uprist: Then all averred, I had killed the bird That brought the fog and mist. 'Twas right, said they, such birds to slay, That bring the fog and mist. The fair breeze blew, the white foam flew, The furrow followed free: We were the first that ever burst Into that silent sea. Down dropt the breeze, the sails dropt down, 'Twas sad as sad could be; And we did speak only to break The silence of the sea! All in a hot and copper sky, The bloody Sun, at noon, Right up above the mast did stand, No bigger than the Moon. Day after day, day after day, We stuck, nor breath nor motion; As idle as a painted ship Upon a painted ocean. Water, water, every where, And all the boards did shrink; Water, water, every where, Nor any drop to drink. The very deep did rot: O Christ! That ever this should be! Yea, slimy things did crawl with legs Upon the slimy sea. About, about, in reel and rout The death-fires danced at night; The water, like a witch's oils, Burnt green, and blue and white. And some in dreams assured were Of the spirit that plagued us so: Nine fathom deep he had followed us From the land of mist and snow. And every tongue, through utter drought, Was withered at the root; We could not speak, no more than if We had been choked with soot. Ah! well a-day! what evil looks Had I from old and young! Instead of the cross, the Albatross About my neck was hung.

Part 2

https://web.archive.org/web/20210422155712/https://www.gradesaver.com/the-rime-of-the-ancient-mariner/study-guide/summary-part-2

The ship sailed northward into the Pacific Ocean, and although the sun shone during the day and the wind remained strong, the mist held fast. The other sailors were angry with the Ancient Mariner for killing the Albatross, which they believed had saved them from the icy world by summoning the wind: "Ah wretch! Said they, the bird to slay / That made the breeze to blow!" Then the mist disappeared and the sun shone particularly brightly, "like God's own head." The sailors suddenly changed their opinion. They decided that the Albatross must have brought the must, and praise the Ancient Mariner for having killed it and rid them of the mist: "Twas right, said they, such birds to slay, / That bring the fog and mist." The ship sailed along merrily until it entered an uncharted part of the ocean, and the wind disappeared. The ship could not move, and sat "As idle as a painted ship / Upon a painted ocean." Then the sun became unbearably hot just as the sailors ran out of water, leading up to the most famous lines in the poem: "Water, water, every where, / And all the boards did shrink; / Water, water, every where, / Nor any drop to drink." The ocean became a horrifying place; the water churned with "slimy" creatures, and at night, eerie fires seemed to burn on the ocean's surface. Some of the sailors dreamed that an evil spirit had followed them from the icy world, and they all suffered from a thirst so terrible that they could not speak. To brand the Ancient Mariner for his crime and place the guilt on him and him alone, the sailors hung the Albatross's dead carcass around his neck.

Coleridge introduces the idea of responsibility in Part 2. The sailors have an urge to pin whatever happens to them on the Ancient Mariner, since he killed the Albatross for no good reason. It seems more important to them to make him claim responsibility for their fate than what their fate actually is; first, they curse him for making the wind disappear, and then they praise him for making the mist disappear. Coleridge may be poking fun at allegory in this section. He told reviewers after the poem's release that he did not intend for it to have a moral, even though when reading the poem, one is hard-pressed not to discern a moral message. By having the sailors switch from blame to praise and back to blame again, Coleridge mocks those quick to judge. To go back to the preface, the sailors represent those too eager to discern the "certain" from the "uncertain", preferring to see things in black-and-white terms. The major theme of liminality emerges more fully in Part 2. In literature - and especially Romantic literature - a liminal space is where plot twists occur or things begin to go awry. The Romantic hero, although he begins confident and with a clear mission, stumbles into a bewildering space where he struggles, and from which he emerges wizened and saddened. Traditionally these places are borderlines, such as the edge of a forest or a shoreline. Recall from Part 1 that the ship's course is sunny and smooth until it crosses the equator and the storm begins. The equator is the boundary between the earth's hemispheres, and is therefore an extreme example of a liminal space. The icy world or "rime" itself is also a compelling liminal space. At first it seems to be the epitome of the temporal; there are no visible creatures there besides the sailors, whose senses it assaults with huge icy forms, terrifying sounds, and bewildering echoes. But it is equally a spiritual place, the dwelling of a very powerful spirit who wreaks havoc on the sailors to punish the Ancient Mariner for killing its beloved Albatross. The icy world represents a tenuous balance between the temporal and spiritual. The physicality of the icy world represents its tenuousness; in it, water exists in all its three phases: ice, water, and mist. The boundaries between the temporal and the spiritual, what Burnet calls the "certain and uncertain" in the epigraph, are as indistinct there as the physical state of water. It is not necessarily the loudness, coldness, or desolateness of the icy world that makes it so terrifying. Rather, it is the fact that nothing there is easily definable. In light of the epigraph, it represents the balance that one must seek between the "certain and uncertain," which will ultimately lead to the truth. However, the icy world as a symbol suggests that this path to enlightenment is equally fascinating and terrifying. The most famous lines in "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner" are unquestionably: "Water, water, every where, / Nor any drop to drink." The sailors are punished for the Ancient Mariner's mistake with deprivation made worse by the fact that what they need so badly - water - is all around them, but is entirely undrinkable. Since the poem's publication, these lines have come into common usage to refer to situations in which one is surrounded by the thing one desires, but is denied it nevertheless. In light of the epigraph, the Ancient Mariner shoots the Albatross because he, like humans throughout time, wants to learn about the spiritual world. The Albatross is an animal, but it is akin to a spirit, and its murder wreaks spiritual havoc on the sailors. We are given no reason why the Ancient Mariner shoots the Albatross, and he does so without premeditation. It is as though he needs to bring the beauty of the spiritual world down to the temporal world in order to understand it. He takes the bird out of the air and onto the deck, where it proves to be mortal indeed. After that, the spiritual world begins to punish the Ancient Mariner and the other sailors by making all elements of the temporal world painful. They are thirsty and sunburned, cannot sail for lack of wind, and are threatened by creatures and strange lights in the water. The sailors add to the Ancient Mariner's physical punishment when they hang the Albatross around his neck, giving him a physical burden to remind him of the spiritual burden of sin he carries. They too punish him physically for his spiritual depravity.

gradesaver

all_chapterized_books/107-chapters/chapters_1_to_4.txt

finished_summaries/gradesaver/Far from the Madding Crowd/section_0_part_0.txt

Far from the Madding Crowd.chapters 1-4

chapters 1-4

{"name": "Chapters 1-4", "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20210108004047/https://www.gradesaver.com/far-from-the-madding-crowd/study-guide/summary-chapters-1-4", "summary": "The novel opens on a December afternoon with the introduction of a character named Gabriel Oak. Gabriel is an unassuming man in his late twenties who has risen from humble beginnings as a shepherd to work as a bailiff and now leases his own farm near the town of Norcombe, where he tends a flock of sheep. While Gabriel is out walking, he observes an attractive young woman riding on a wagon full of household items. He catches up to the wagon when the driver and the woman engage in a dispute about the rate they have to pay at a turnpike, and settles the dispute by paying the fare himself. That night, while staying in his hut and tending to his sheep, Gabriel sees an unexpected light and goes to investigate. Inside a nearby shed, he finds two women tending to a sick cow. Observing them, he realizes that the younger one is the same woman he encountered on the wagon. The next morning, he returns to the shed just as the young woman also returns, and brings her the hat she had lost in the windy night. Unfortunately, Gabriel also embarrasses the young woman by making it clear that he has seen her behaving playfully when she thought she was alone, and she reacts with scorn. A few days later, Gabriel finds himself in a dangerous situation when he falls asleep in his hut without opening the ventilation holes, risking suffocation. He awakens from unconsciousness to find the young woman. Having come to tend to her cow, she noticed something was wrong, and dragged him out of the hut. The young woman, who he later learns is named Bathsheba Everdene, behaves somewhat flirtatiously, and Gabriel becomes enamored with her. As the days pass, Gabriel becomes increasingly infatuated and decides to propose to Bathsheba. He goes to visit her at the home of her aunt, Mrs. Hurst, bringing with him a baby lamb as a gift. He shares his intention with Mrs. Hurst, who tells him that Bathsheba has many suitors. Gabriel is discouraged and decides to leave but Bathsheba comes chasing after him. He suggests they get married, indicating that he has bright financial prospects and would take good care of her, but Bathsheba explains that she can't marry him since she doesn't love him. Gabriel initially vows that he will love her forever, but when Bathsheba suggests it would be wise for him to marry a woman with money, he seems to agree with the idea. This annoys her, and the two part on awkward terms.", "analysis": "The novel's opening chapters quickly establish both the attraction and tensions between Bathsheba and Gabriel. The characters have occupied opposite class trajectories, since Gabriel has risen from a humble background to now leasing a farm and owning his own sheep, while Bathsheba has been well-educated and presumably comes from a good family, but now seems to be orphaned and reliant on the charity of her relatives. Bathsheba's high-spirited and somewhat inconsistent character is made clear from the beginning: when she thinks she is alone, she engages in playful acts like gazing at herself in the hand-mirror and laying flat on the back of her pony to avoid low-hanging branches. At the same time, she is easily embarrassed when it becomes clear that Gabriel has seen her engaging in these behaviors. While she does not seem to like having been caught in irreverent behavior, Bathsheba is clearly marked out as an unconventionally strong-willed and self-reliant woman. She refuses to comply with the demands of the toll gate-keeper, and she takes a hands-on approach to farm work. Gabriel seems to find the combination of her playfulness and competence deeply alluring, especially in contrast to his own somewhat serious demeanor. He is clearly intrigued by her from the first time he sees her, and after she rescues him, he becomes rapidly infatuated. The narrative and then Bathsheba herself both seem to raise the question of how profound Gabriel's love can be, given how little time the two have spent together when he proposes. He seems willing to assume that they will be compatible, and his explanation of why they should marry focuses on the material comforts he can offer her. Gabriel is clearly somewhat shy and insecure since he abandons hope of wooing Bathsheba as soon as he hears she has other suitors, but his promising prospects give him some confidence in believing he could be a good provider. He also seems fairly unromantic about his hopes, since he tells Bathsheba he would be happy to marry her even if she does not yet love him, but at the same time, he passionately declares he will never stop having feelings for her."}

DESCRIPTION OF FARMER OAK--AN INCIDENT When Farmer Oak smiled, the corners of his mouth spread till they were within an unimportant distance of his ears, his eyes were reduced to chinks, and diverging wrinkles appeared round them, extending upon his countenance like the rays in a rudimentary sketch of the rising sun. His Christian name was Gabriel, and on working days he was a young man of sound judgment, easy motions, proper dress, and general good character. On Sundays he was a man of misty views, rather given to postponing, and hampered by his best clothes and umbrella: upon the whole, one who felt himself to occupy morally that vast middle space of Laodicean neutrality which lay between the Communion people of the parish and the drunken section,--that is, he went to church, but yawned privately by the time the congregation reached the Nicene creed, and thought of what there would be for dinner when he meant to be listening to the sermon. Or, to state his character as it stood in the scale of public opinion, when his friends and critics were in tantrums, he was considered rather a bad man; when they were pleased, he was rather a good man; when they were neither, he was a man whose moral colour was a kind of pepper-and-salt mixture. Since he lived six times as many working-days as Sundays, Oak's appearance in his old clothes was most peculiarly his own--the mental picture formed by his neighbours in imagining him being always dressed in that way. He wore a low-crowned felt hat, spread out at the base by tight jamming upon the head for security in high winds, and a coat like Dr. Johnson's; his lower extremities being encased in ordinary leather leggings and boots emphatically large, affording to each foot a roomy apartment so constructed that any wearer might stand in a river all day long and know nothing of damp--their maker being a conscientious man who endeavoured to compensate for any weakness in his cut by unstinted dimension and solidity. Mr. Oak carried about him, by way of watch, what may be called a small silver clock; in other words, it was a watch as to shape and intention, and a small clock as to size. This instrument being several years older than Oak's grandfather, had the peculiarity of going either too fast or not at all. The smaller of its hands, too, occasionally slipped round on the pivot, and thus, though the minutes were told with precision, nobody could be quite certain of the hour they belonged to. The stopping peculiarity of his watch Oak remedied by thumps and shakes, and he escaped any evil consequences from the other two defects by constant comparisons with and observations of the sun and stars, and by pressing his face close to the glass of his neighbours' windows, till he could discern the hour marked by the green-faced timekeepers within. It may be mentioned that Oak's fob being difficult of access, by reason of its somewhat high situation in the waistband of his trousers (which also lay at a remote height under his waistcoat), the watch was as a necessity pulled out by throwing the body to one side, compressing the mouth and face to a mere mass of ruddy flesh on account of the exertion required, and drawing up the watch by its chain, like a bucket from a well. But some thoughtful persons, who had seen him walking across one of his fields on a certain December morning--sunny and exceedingly mild--might have regarded Gabriel Oak in other aspects than these. In his face one might notice that many of the hues and curves of youth had tarried on to manhood: there even remained in his remoter crannies some relics of the boy. His height and breadth would have been sufficient to make his presence imposing, had they been exhibited with due consideration. But there is a way some men have, rural and urban alike, for which the mind is more responsible than flesh and sinew: it is a way of curtailing their dimensions by their manner of showing them. And from a quiet modesty that would have become a vestal, which seemed continually to impress upon him that he had no great claim on the world's room, Oak walked unassumingly and with a faintly perceptible bend, yet distinct from a bowing of the shoulders. This may be said to be a defect in an individual if he depends for his valuation more upon his appearance than upon his capacity to wear well, which Oak did not. He had just reached the time of life at which "young" is ceasing to be the prefix of "man" in speaking of one. He was at the brightest period of masculine growth, for his intellect and his emotions were clearly separated: he had passed the time during which the influence of youth indiscriminately mingles them in the character of impulse, and he had not yet arrived at the stage wherein they become united again, in the character of prejudice, by the influence of a wife and family. In short, he was twenty-eight, and a bachelor. The field he was in this morning sloped to a ridge called Norcombe Hill. Through a spur of this hill ran the highway between Emminster and Chalk-Newton. Casually glancing over the hedge, Oak saw coming down the incline before him an ornamental spring waggon, painted yellow and gaily marked, drawn by two horses, a waggoner walking alongside bearing a whip perpendicularly. The waggon was laden with household goods and window plants, and on the apex of the whole sat a woman, young and attractive. Gabriel had not beheld the sight for more than half a minute, when the vehicle was brought to a standstill just beneath his eyes. "The tailboard of the waggon is gone, Miss," said the waggoner. "Then I heard it fall," said the girl, in a soft, though not particularly low voice. "I heard a noise I could not account for when we were coming up the hill." "I'll run back." "Do," she answered. The sensible horses stood--perfectly still, and the waggoner's steps sank fainter and fainter in the distance. The girl on the summit of the load sat motionless, surrounded by tables and chairs with their legs upwards, backed by an oak settle, and ornamented in front by pots of geraniums, myrtles, and cactuses, together with a caged canary--all probably from the windows of the house just vacated. There was also a cat in a willow basket, from the partly-opened lid of which she gazed with half-closed eyes, and affectionately surveyed the small birds around. The handsome girl waited for some time idly in her place, and the only sound heard in the stillness was the hopping of the canary up and down the perches of its prison. Then she looked attentively downwards. It was not at the bird, nor at the cat; it was at an oblong package tied in paper, and lying between them. She turned her head to learn if the waggoner were coming. He was not yet in sight; and her eyes crept back to the package, her thoughts seeming to run upon what was inside it. At length she drew the article into her lap, and untied the paper covering; a small swing looking-glass was disclosed, in which she proceeded to survey herself attentively. She parted her lips and smiled. It was a fine morning, and the sun lighted up to a scarlet glow the crimson jacket she wore, and painted a soft lustre upon her bright face and dark hair. The myrtles, geraniums, and cactuses packed around her were fresh and green, and at such a leafless season they invested the whole concern of horses, waggon, furniture, and girl with a peculiar vernal charm. What possessed her to indulge in such a performance in the sight of the sparrows, blackbirds, and unperceived farmer who were alone its spectators,--whether the smile began as a factitious one, to test her capacity in that art,--nobody knows; it ended certainly in a real smile. She blushed at herself, and seeing her reflection blush, blushed the more. The change from the customary spot and necessary occasion of such an act--from the dressing hour in a bedroom to a time of travelling out of doors--lent to the idle deed a novelty it did not intrinsically possess. The picture was a delicate one. Woman's prescriptive infirmity had stalked into the sunlight, which had clothed it in the freshness of an originality. A cynical inference was irresistible by Gabriel Oak as he regarded the scene, generous though he fain would have been. There was no necessity whatever for her looking in the glass. She did not adjust her hat, or pat her hair, or press a dimple into shape, or do one thing to signify that any such intention had been her motive in taking up the glass. She simply observed herself as a fair product of Nature in the feminine kind, her thoughts seeming to glide into far-off though likely dramas in which men would play a part--vistas of probable triumphs--the smiles being of a phase suggesting that hearts were imagined as lost and won. Still, this was but conjecture, and the whole series of actions was so idly put forth as to make it rash to assert that intention had any part in them at all. The waggoner's steps were heard returning. She put the glass in the paper, and the whole again into its place. When the waggon had passed on, Gabriel withdrew from his point of espial, and descending into the road, followed the vehicle to the turnpike-gate some way beyond the bottom of the hill, where the object of his contemplation now halted for the payment of toll. About twenty steps still remained between him and the gate, when he heard a dispute. It was a difference concerning twopence between the persons with the waggon and the man at the toll-bar. "Mis'ess's niece is upon the top of the things, and she says that's enough that I've offered ye, you great miser, and she won't pay any more." These were the waggoner's words. "Very well; then mis'ess's niece can't pass," said the turnpike-keeper, closing the gate. Oak looked from one to the other of the disputants, and fell into a reverie. There was something in the tone of twopence remarkably insignificant. Threepence had a definite value as money--it was an appreciable infringement on a day's wages, and, as such, a higgling matter; but twopence--"Here," he said, stepping forward and handing twopence to the gatekeeper; "let the young woman pass." He looked up at her then; she heard his words, and looked down. Gabriel's features adhered throughout their form so exactly to the middle line between the beauty of St. John and the ugliness of Judas Iscariot, as represented in a window of the church he attended, that not a single lineament could be selected and called worthy either of distinction or notoriety. The red-jacketed and dark-haired maiden seemed to think so too, for she carelessly glanced over him, and told her man to drive on. She might have looked her thanks to Gabriel on a minute scale, but she did not speak them; more probably she felt none, for in gaining her a passage he had lost her her point, and we know how women take a favour of that kind. The gatekeeper surveyed the retreating vehicle. "That's a handsome maid," he said to Oak. "But she has her faults," said Gabriel. "True, farmer." "And the greatest of them is--well, what it is always." "Beating people down? ay, 'tis so." "O no." "What, then?" Gabriel, perhaps a little piqued by the comely traveller's indifference, glanced back to where he had witnessed her performance over the hedge, and said, "Vanity." NIGHT--THE FLOCK--AN INTERIOR--ANOTHER INTERIOR It was nearly midnight on the eve of St. Thomas's, the shortest day in the year. A desolating wind wandered from the north over the hill whereon Oak had watched the yellow waggon and its occupant in the sunshine of a few days earlier. Norcombe Hill--not far from lonely Toller-Down--was one of the spots which suggest to a passer-by that he is in the presence of a shape approaching the indestructible as nearly as any to be found on earth. It was a featureless convexity of chalk and soil--an ordinary specimen of those smoothly-outlined protuberances of the globe which may remain undisturbed on some great day of confusion, when far grander heights and dizzy granite precipices topple down. The hill was covered on its northern side by an ancient and decaying plantation of beeches, whose upper verge formed a line over the crest, fringing its arched curve against the sky, like a mane. To-night these trees sheltered the southern slope from the keenest blasts, which smote the wood and floundered through it with a sound as of grumbling, or gushed over its crowning boughs in a weakened moan. The dry leaves in the ditch simmered and boiled in the same breezes, a tongue of air occasionally ferreting out a few, and sending them spinning across the grass. A group or two of the latest in date amongst the dead multitude had remained till this very mid-winter time on the twigs which bore them and in falling rattled against the trunks with smart taps. Between this half-wooded half-naked hill, and the vague still horizon that its summit indistinctly commanded, was a mysterious sheet of fathomless shade--the sounds from which suggested that what it concealed bore some reduced resemblance to features here. The thin grasses, more or less coating the hill, were touched by the wind in breezes of differing powers, and almost of differing natures--one rubbing the blades heavily, another raking them piercingly, another brushing them like a soft broom. The instinctive act of humankind was to stand and listen, and learn how the trees on the right and the trees on the left wailed or chaunted to each other in the regular antiphonies of a cathedral choir; how hedges and other shapes to leeward then caught the note, lowering it to the tenderest sob; and how the hurrying gust then plunged into the south, to be heard no more. The sky was clear--remarkably clear--and the twinkling of all the stars seemed to be but throbs of one body, timed by a common pulse. The North Star was directly in the wind's eye, and since evening the Bear had swung round it outwardly to the east, till he was now at a right angle with the meridian. A difference of colour in the stars--oftener read of than seen in England--was really perceptible here. The sovereign brilliancy of Sirius pierced the eye with a steely glitter, the star called Capella was yellow, Aldebaran and Betelgueux shone with a fiery red. To persons standing alone on a hill during a clear midnight such as this, the roll of the world eastward is almost a palpable movement. The sensation may be caused by the panoramic glide of the stars past earthly objects, which is perceptible in a few minutes of stillness, or by the better outlook upon space that a hill affords, or by the wind, or by the solitude; but whatever be its origin, the impression of riding along is vivid and abiding. The poetry of motion is a phrase much in use, and to enjoy the epic form of that gratification it is necessary to stand on a hill at a small hour of the night, and, having first expanded with a sense of difference from the mass of civilised mankind, who are dreamwrapt and disregardful of all such proceedings at this time, long and quietly watch your stately progress through the stars. After such a nocturnal reconnoitre it is hard to get back to earth, and to believe that the consciousness of such majestic speeding is derived from a tiny human frame. Suddenly an unexpected series of sounds began to be heard in this place up against the sky. They had a clearness which was to be found nowhere in the wind, and a sequence which was to be found nowhere in nature. They were the notes of Farmer Oak's flute. The tune was not floating unhindered into the open air: it seemed muffled in some way, and was altogether too curtailed in power to spread high or wide. It came from the direction of a small dark object under the plantation hedge--a shepherd's hut--now presenting an outline to which an uninitiated person might have been puzzled to attach either meaning or use. The image as a whole was that of a small Noah's Ark on a small Ararat, allowing the traditionary outlines and general form of the Ark which are followed by toy-makers--and by these means are established in men's imaginations among their firmest, because earliest impressions--to pass as an approximate pattern. The hut stood on little wheels, which raised its floor about a foot from the ground. Such shepherds' huts are dragged into the fields when the lambing season comes on, to shelter the shepherd in his enforced nightly attendance. It was only latterly that people had begun to call Gabriel "Farmer" Oak. During the twelvemonth preceding this time he had been enabled by sustained efforts of industry and chronic good spirits to lease the small sheep-farm of which Norcombe Hill was a portion, and stock it with two hundred sheep. Previously he had been a bailiff for a short time, and earlier still a shepherd only, having from his childhood assisted his father in tending the flocks of large proprietors, till old Gabriel sank to rest. This venture, unaided and alone, into the paths of farming as master and not as man, with an advance of sheep not yet paid for, was a critical juncture with Gabriel Oak, and he recognised his position clearly. The first movement in his new progress was the lambing of his ewes, and sheep having been his speciality from his youth, he wisely refrained from deputing the task of tending them at this season to a hireling or a novice. The wind continued to beat about the corners of the hut, but the flute-playing ceased. A rectangular space of light appeared in the side of the hut, and in the opening the outline of Farmer Oak's figure. He carried a lantern in his hand, and closing the door behind him, came forward and busied himself about this nook of the field for nearly twenty minutes, the lantern light appearing and disappearing here and there, and brightening him or darkening him as he stood before or behind it. Oak's motions, though they had a quiet-energy, were slow, and their deliberateness accorded well with his occupation. Fitness being the basis of beauty, nobody could have denied that his steady swings and turns in and about the flock had elements of grace. Yet, although if occasion demanded he could do or think a thing with as mercurial a dash as can the men of towns who are more to the manner born, his special power, morally, physically, and mentally, was static, owing little or nothing to momentum as a rule. A close examination of the ground hereabout, even by the wan starlight only, revealed how a portion of what would have been casually called a wild slope had been appropriated by Farmer Oak for his great purpose this winter. Detached hurdles thatched with straw were stuck into the ground at various scattered points, amid and under which the whitish forms of his meek ewes moved and rustled. The ring of the sheep-bell, which had been silent during his absence, recommenced, in tones that had more mellowness than clearness, owing to an increasing growth of surrounding wool. This continued till Oak withdrew again from the flock. He returned to the hut, bringing in his arms a new-born lamb, consisting of four legs large enough for a full-grown sheep, united by a seemingly inconsiderable membrane about half the substance of the legs collectively, which constituted the animal's entire body just at present. The little speck of life he placed on a wisp of hay before the small stove, where a can of milk was simmering. Oak extinguished the lantern by blowing into it and then pinching the snuff, the cot being lighted by a candle suspended by a twisted wire. A rather hard couch, formed of a few corn sacks thrown carelessly down, covered half the floor of this little habitation, and here the young man stretched himself along, loosened his woollen cravat, and closed his eyes. In about the time a person unaccustomed to bodily labour would have decided upon which side to lie, Farmer Oak was asleep. The inside of the hut, as it now presented itself, was cosy and alluring, and the scarlet handful of fire in addition to the candle, reflecting its own genial colour upon whatever it could reach, flung associations of enjoyment even over utensils and tools. In the corner stood the sheep-crook, and along a shelf at one side were ranged bottles and canisters of the simple preparations pertaining to ovine surgery and physic; spirits of wine, turpentine, tar, magnesia, ginger, and castor-oil being the chief. On a triangular shelf across the corner stood bread, bacon, cheese, and a cup for ale or cider, which was supplied from a flagon beneath. Beside the provisions lay the flute, whose notes had lately been called forth by the lonely watcher to beguile a tedious hour. The house was ventilated by two round holes, like the lights of a ship's cabin, with wood slides. The lamb, revived by the warmth began to bleat, and the sound entered Gabriel's ears and brain with an instant meaning, as expected sounds will. Passing from the profoundest sleep to the most alert wakefulness with the same ease that had accompanied the reverse operation, he looked at his watch, found that the hour-hand had shifted again, put on his hat, took the lamb in his arms, and carried it into the darkness. After placing the little creature with its mother, he stood and carefully examined the sky, to ascertain the time of night from the altitudes of the stars. The Dog-star and Aldebaran, pointing to the restless Pleiades, were half-way up the Southern sky, and between them hung Orion, which gorgeous constellation never burnt more vividly than now, as it soared forth above the rim of the landscape. Castor and Pollux with their quiet shine were almost on the meridian: the barren and gloomy Square of Pegasus was creeping round to the north-west; far away through the plantation Vega sparkled like a lamp suspended amid the leafless trees, and Cassiopeia's chair stood daintily poised on the uppermost boughs. "One o'clock," said Gabriel. Being a man not without a frequent consciousness that there was some charm in this life he led, he stood still after looking at the sky as a useful instrument, and regarded it in an appreciative spirit, as a work of art superlatively beautiful. For a moment he seemed impressed with the speaking loneliness of the scene, or rather with the complete abstraction from all its compass of the sights and sounds of man. Human shapes, interferences, troubles, and joys were all as if they were not, and there seemed to be on the shaded hemisphere of the globe no sentient being save himself; he could fancy them all gone round to the sunny side. Occupied thus, with eyes stretched afar, Oak gradually perceived that what he had previously taken to be a star low down behind the outskirts of the plantation was in reality no such thing. It was an artificial light, almost close at hand. To find themselves utterly alone at night where company is desirable and expected makes some people fearful; but a case more trying by far to the nerves is to discover some mysterious companionship when intuition, sensation, memory, analogy, testimony, probability, induction--every kind of evidence in the logician's list--have united to persuade consciousness that it is quite in isolation. Farmer Oak went towards the plantation and pushed through its lower boughs to the windy side. A dim mass under the slope reminded him that a shed occupied a place here, the site being a cutting into the slope of the hill, so that at its back part the roof was almost level with the ground. In front it was formed of board nailed to posts and covered with tar as a preservative. Through crevices in the roof and side spread streaks and dots of light, a combination of which made the radiance that had attracted him. Oak stepped up behind, where, leaning down upon the roof and putting his eye close to a hole, he could see into the interior clearly. The place contained two women and two cows. By the side of the latter a steaming bran-mash stood in a bucket. One of the women was past middle age. Her companion was apparently young and graceful; he could form no decided opinion upon her looks, her position being almost beneath his eye, so that he saw her in a bird's-eye view, as Milton's Satan first saw Paradise. She wore no bonnet or hat, but had enveloped herself in a large cloak, which was carelessly flung over her head as a covering. "There, now we'll go home," said the elder of the two, resting her knuckles upon her hips, and looking at their goings-on as a whole. "I do hope Daisy will fetch round again now. I have never been more frightened in my life, but I don't mind breaking my rest if she recovers." The young woman, whose eyelids were apparently inclined to fall together on the smallest provocation of silence, yawned without parting her lips to any inconvenient extent, whereupon Gabriel caught the infection and slightly yawned in sympathy. "I wish we were rich enough to pay a man to do these things," she said. "As we are not, we must do them ourselves," said the other; "for you must help me if you stay." "Well, my hat is gone, however," continued the younger. "It went over the hedge, I think. The idea of such a slight wind catching it." The cow standing erect was of the Devon breed, and was encased in a tight warm hide of rich Indian red, as absolutely uniform from eyes to tail as if the animal had been dipped in a dye of that colour, her long back being mathematically level. The other was spotted, grey and white. Beside her Oak now noticed a little calf about a day old, looking idiotically at the two women, which showed that it had not long been accustomed to the phenomenon of eyesight, and often turning to the lantern, which it apparently mistook for the moon, inherited instinct having as yet had little time for correction by experience. Between the sheep and the cows Lucina had been busy on Norcombe Hill lately. "I think we had better send for some oatmeal," said the elder woman; "there's no more bran." "Yes, aunt; and I'll ride over for it as soon as it is light." "But there's no side-saddle." "I can ride on the other: trust me." Oak, upon hearing these remarks, became more curious to observe her features, but this prospect being denied him by the hooding effect of the cloak, and by his aerial position, he felt himself drawing upon his fancy for their details. In making even horizontal and clear inspections we colour and mould according to the wants within us whatever our eyes bring in. Had Gabriel been able from the first to get a distinct view of her countenance, his estimate of it as very handsome or slightly so would have been as his soul required a divinity at the moment or was ready supplied with one. Having for some time known the want of a satisfactory form to fill an increasing void within him, his position moreover affording the widest scope for his fancy, he painted her a beauty. By one of those whimsical coincidences in which Nature, like a busy mother, seems to spare a moment from her unremitting labours to turn and make her children smile, the girl now dropped the cloak, and forth tumbled ropes of black hair over a red jacket. Oak knew her instantly as the heroine of the yellow waggon, myrtles, and looking-glass: prosily, as the woman who owed him twopence. They placed the calf beside its mother again, took up the lantern, and went out, the light sinking down the hill till it was no more than a nebula. Gabriel Oak returned to his flock. A GIRL ON HORSEBACK--CONVERSATION The sluggish day began to break. Even its position terrestrially is one of the elements of a new interest, and for no particular reason save that the incident of the night had occurred there Oak went again into the plantation. Lingering and musing here, he heard the steps of a horse at the foot of the hill, and soon there appeared in view an auburn pony with a girl on its back, ascending by the path leading past the cattle-shed. She was the young woman of the night before. Gabriel instantly thought of the hat she had mentioned as having lost in the wind; possibly she had come to look for it. He hastily scanned the ditch and after walking about ten yards along it found the hat among the leaves. Gabriel took it in his hand and returned to his hut. Here he ensconced himself, and peeped through the loophole in the direction of the rider's approach. She came up and looked around--then on the other side of the hedge. Gabriel was about to advance and restore the missing article when an unexpected performance induced him to suspend the action for the present. The path, after passing the cowshed, bisected the plantation. It was not a bridle-path--merely a pedestrian's track, and the boughs spread horizontally at a height not greater than seven feet above the ground, which made it impossible to ride erect beneath them. The girl, who wore no riding-habit, looked around for a moment, as if to assure herself that all humanity was out of view, then dexterously dropped backwards flat upon the pony's back, her head over its tail, her feet against its shoulders, and her eyes to the sky. The rapidity of her glide into this position was that of a kingfisher--its noiselessness that of a hawk. Gabriel's eyes had scarcely been able to follow her. The tall lank pony seemed used to such doings, and ambled along unconcerned. Thus she passed under the level boughs. The performer seemed quite at home anywhere between a horse's head and its tail, and the necessity for this abnormal attitude having ceased with the passage of the plantation, she began to adopt another, even more obviously convenient than the first. She had no side-saddle, and it was very apparent that a firm seat upon the smooth leather beneath her was unattainable sideways. Springing to her accustomed perpendicular like a bowed sapling, and satisfying herself that nobody was in sight, she seated herself in the manner demanded by the saddle, though hardly expected of the woman, and trotted off in the direction of Tewnell Mill. Oak was amused, perhaps a little astonished, and hanging up the hat in his hut, went again among his ewes. An hour passed, the girl returned, properly seated now, with a bag of bran in front of her. On nearing the cattle-shed she was met by a boy bringing a milking-pail, who held the reins of the pony whilst she slid off. The boy led away the horse, leaving the pail with the young woman. Soon soft spirts alternating with loud spirts came in regular succession from within the shed, the obvious sounds of a person milking a cow. Gabriel took the lost hat in his hand, and waited beside the path she would follow in leaving the hill. She came, the pail in one hand, hanging against her knee. The left arm was extended as a balance, enough of it being shown bare to make Oak wish that the event had happened in the summer, when the whole would have been revealed. There was a bright air and manner about her now, by which she seemed to imply that the desirability of her existence could not be questioned; and this rather saucy assumption failed in being offensive because a beholder felt it to be, upon the whole, true. Like exceptional emphasis in the tone of a genius, that which would have made mediocrity ridiculous was an addition to recognised power. It was with some surprise that she saw Gabriel's face rising like the moon behind the hedge. The adjustment of the farmer's hazy conceptions of her charms to the portrait of herself she now presented him with was less a diminution than a difference. The starting-point selected by the judgment was her height. She seemed tall, but the pail was a small one, and the hedge diminutive; hence, making allowance for error by comparison with these, she could have been not above the height to be chosen by women as best. All features of consequence were severe and regular. It may have been observed by persons who go about the shires with eyes for beauty, that in Englishwoman a classically-formed face is seldom found to be united with a figure of the same pattern, the highly-finished features being generally too large for the remainder of the frame; that a graceful and proportionate figure of eight heads usually goes off into random facial curves. Without throwing a Nymphean tissue over a milkmaid, let it be said that here criticism checked itself as out of place, and looked at her proportions with a long consciousness of pleasure. From the contours of her figure in its upper part, she must have had a beautiful neck and shoulders; but since her infancy nobody had ever seen them. Had she been put into a low dress she would have run and thrust her head into a bush. Yet she was not a shy girl by any means; it was merely her instinct to draw the line dividing the seen from the unseen higher than they do it in towns. That the girl's thoughts hovered about her face and form as soon as she caught Oak's eyes conning the same page was natural, and almost certain. The self-consciousness shown would have been vanity if a little more pronounced, dignity if a little less. Rays of male vision seem to have a tickling effect upon virgin faces in rural districts; she brushed hers with her hand, as if Gabriel had been irritating its pink surface by actual touch, and the free air of her previous movements was reduced at the same time to a chastened phase of itself. Yet it was the man who blushed, the maid not at all. "I found a hat," said Oak. "It is mine," said she, and, from a sense of proportion, kept down to a small smile an inclination to laugh distinctly: "it flew away last night." "One o'clock this morning?" "Well--it was." She was surprised. "How did you know?" she said. "I was here." "You are Farmer Oak, are you not?" "That or thereabouts. I'm lately come to this place." "A large farm?" she inquired, casting her eyes round, and swinging back her hair, which was black in the shaded hollows of its mass; but it being now an hour past sunrise the rays touched its prominent curves with a colour of their own. "No; not large. About a hundred." (In speaking of farms the word "acres" is omitted by the natives, by analogy to such old expressions as "a stag of ten.") "I wanted my hat this morning," she went on. "I had to ride to Tewnell Mill." "Yes you had." "How do you know?" "I saw you." "Where?" she inquired, a misgiving bringing every muscle of her lineaments and frame to a standstill. "Here--going through the plantation, and all down the hill," said Farmer Oak, with an aspect excessively knowing with regard to some matter in his mind, as he gazed at a remote point in the direction named, and then turned back to meet his colloquist's eyes. A perception caused him to withdraw his own eyes from hers as suddenly as if he had been caught in a theft. Recollection of the strange antics she had indulged in when passing through the trees was succeeded in the girl by a nettled palpitation, and that by a hot face. It was a time to see a woman redden who was not given to reddening as a rule; not a point in the milkmaid but was of the deepest rose-colour. From the Maiden's Blush, through all varieties of the Provence down to the Crimson Tuscany, the countenance of Oak's acquaintance quickly graduated; whereupon he, in considerateness, turned away his head. The sympathetic man still looked the other way, and wondered when she would recover coolness sufficient to justify him in facing her again. He heard what seemed to be the flitting of a dead leaf upon the breeze, and looked. She had gone away. With an air between that of Tragedy and Comedy Gabriel returned to his work. Five mornings and evenings passed. The young woman came regularly to milk the healthy cow or to attend to the sick one, but never allowed her vision to stray in the direction of Oak's person. His want of tact had deeply offended her--not by seeing what he could not help, but by letting her know that he had seen it. For, as without law there is no sin, without eyes there is no indecorum; and she appeared to feel that Gabriel's espial had made her an indecorous woman without her own connivance. It was food for great regret with him; it was also a _contretemps_ which touched into life a latent heat he had experienced in that direction. The acquaintanceship might, however, have ended in a slow forgetting, but for an incident which occurred at the end of the same week. One afternoon it began to freeze, and the frost increased with evening, which drew on like a stealthy tightening of bonds. It was a time when in cottages the breath of the sleepers freezes to the sheets; when round the drawing-room fire of a thick-walled mansion the sitters' backs are cold, even whilst their faces are all aglow. Many a small bird went to bed supperless that night among the bare boughs. As the milking-hour drew near, Oak kept his usual watch upon the cowshed. At last he felt cold, and shaking an extra quantity of bedding round the yearling ewes he entered the hut and heaped more fuel upon the stove. The wind came in at the bottom of the door, and to prevent it Oak laid a sack there and wheeled the cot round a little more to the south. Then the wind spouted in at a ventilating hole--of which there was one on each side of the hut. Gabriel had always known that when the fire was lighted and the door closed one of these must be kept open--that chosen being always on the side away from the wind. Closing the slide to windward, he turned to open the other; on second thoughts the farmer considered that he would first sit down leaving both closed for a minute or two, till the temperature of the hut was a little raised. He sat down. His head began to ache in an unwonted manner, and, fancying himself weary by reason of the broken rests of the preceding nights, Oak decided to get up, open the slide, and then allow himself to fall asleep. He fell asleep, however, without having performed the necessary preliminary. How long he remained unconscious Gabriel never knew. During the first stages of his return to perception peculiar deeds seemed to be in course of enactment. His dog was howling, his head was aching fearfully--somebody was pulling him about, hands were loosening his neckerchief. On opening his eyes he found that evening had sunk to dusk in a strange manner of unexpectedness. The young girl with the remarkably pleasant lips and white teeth was beside him. More than this--astonishingly more--his head was upon her lap, his face and neck were disagreeably wet, and her fingers were unbuttoning his collar. "Whatever is the matter?" said Oak, vacantly. She seemed to experience mirth, but of too insignificant a kind to start enjoyment. "Nothing now," she answered, "since you are not dead. It is a wonder you were not suffocated in this hut of yours." "Ah, the hut!" murmured Gabriel. "I gave ten pounds for that hut. But I'll sell it, and sit under thatched hurdles as they did in old times, and curl up to sleep in a lock of straw! It played me nearly the same trick the other day!" Gabriel, by way of emphasis, brought down his fist upon the floor. "It was not exactly the fault of the hut," she observed in a tone which showed her to be that novelty among women--one who finished a thought before beginning the sentence which was to convey it. "You should, I think, have considered, and not have been so foolish as to leave the slides closed." "Yes I suppose I should," said Oak, absently. He was endeavouring to catch and appreciate the sensation of being thus with her, his head upon her dress, before the event passed on into the heap of bygone things. He wished she knew his impressions; but he would as soon have thought of carrying an odour in a net as of attempting to convey the intangibilities of his feeling in the coarse meshes of language. So he remained silent. She made him sit up, and then Oak began wiping his face and shaking himself like a Samson. "How can I thank 'ee?" he said at last, gratefully, some of the natural rusty red having returned to his face. "Oh, never mind that," said the girl, smiling, and allowing her smile to hold good for Gabriel's next remark, whatever that might prove to be. "How did you find me?" "I heard your dog howling and scratching at the door of the hut when I came to the milking (it was so lucky, Daisy's milking is almost over for the season, and I shall not come here after this week or the next). The dog saw me, and jumped over to me, and laid hold of my skirt. I came across and looked round the hut the very first thing to see if the slides were closed. My uncle has a hut like this one, and I have heard him tell his shepherd not to go to sleep without leaving a slide open. I opened the door, and there you were like dead. I threw the milk over you, as there was no water, forgetting it was warm, and no use." "I wonder if I should have died?" Gabriel said, in a low voice, which was rather meant to travel back to himself than to her. "Oh no!" the girl replied. She seemed to prefer a less tragic probability; to have saved a man from death involved talk that should harmonise with the dignity of such a deed--and she shunned it. "I believe you saved my life, Miss--I don't know your name. I know your aunt's, but not yours." "I would just as soon not tell it--rather not. There is no reason either why I should, as you probably will never have much to do with me." "Still, I should like to know." "You can inquire at my aunt's--she will tell you." "My name is Gabriel Oak." "And mine isn't. You seem fond of yours in speaking it so decisively, Gabriel Oak." "You see, it is the only one I shall ever have, and I must make the most of it." "I always think mine sounds odd and disagreeable." "I should think you might soon get a new one." "Mercy!--how many opinions you keep about you concerning other people, Gabriel Oak." "Well, Miss--excuse the words--I thought you would like them. But I can't match you, I know, in mapping out my mind upon my tongue. I never was very clever in my inside. But I thank you. Come, give me your hand." She hesitated, somewhat disconcerted at Oak's old-fashioned earnest conclusion to a dialogue lightly carried on. "Very well," she said, and gave him her hand, compressing her lips to a demure impassivity. He held it but an instant, and in his fear of being too demonstrative, swerved to the opposite extreme, touching her fingers with the lightness of a small-hearted person. "I am sorry," he said the instant after. "What for?" "Letting your hand go so quick." "You may have it again if you like; there it is." She gave him her hand again. Oak held it longer this time--indeed, curiously long. "How soft it is--being winter time, too--not chapped or rough or anything!" he said. "There--that's long enough," said she, though without pulling it away. "But I suppose you are thinking you would like to kiss it? You may if you want to." "I wasn't thinking of any such thing," said Gabriel, simply; "but I will--" "That you won't!" She snatched back her hand. Gabriel felt himself guilty of another want of tact. "Now find out my name," she said, teasingly; and withdrew. GABRIEL'S RESOLVE--THE VISIT--THE MISTAKE The only superiority in women that is tolerable to the rival sex is, as a rule, that of the unconscious kind; but a superiority which recognizes itself may sometimes please by suggesting possibilities of capture to the subordinated man. This well-favoured and comely girl soon made appreciable inroads upon the emotional constitution of young Farmer Oak. Love, being an extremely exacting usurer (a sense of exorbitant profit, spiritually, by an exchange of hearts, being at the bottom of pure passions, as that of exorbitant profit, bodily or materially, is at the bottom of those of lower atmosphere), every morning Oak's feelings were as sensitive as the money-market in calculations upon his chances. His dog waited for his meals in a way so like that in which Oak waited for the girl's presence, that the farmer was quite struck with the resemblance, felt it lowering, and would not look at the dog. However, he continued to watch through the hedge for her regular coming, and thus his sentiments towards her were deepened without any corresponding effect being produced upon herself. Oak had nothing finished and ready to say as yet, and not being able to frame love phrases which end where they begin; passionate tales-- --Full of sound and fury --Signifying nothing-- he said no word at all. By making inquiries he found that the girl's name was Bathsheba Everdene, and that the cow would go dry in about seven days. He dreaded the eighth day. At last the eighth day came. The cow had ceased to give milk for that year, and Bathsheba Everdene came up the hill no more. Gabriel had reached a pitch of existence he never could have anticipated a short time before. He liked saying "Bathsheba" as a private enjoyment instead of whistling; turned over his taste to black hair, though he had sworn by brown ever since he was a boy, isolated himself till the space he filled in the public eye was contemptibly small. Love is a possible strength in an actual weakness. Marriage transforms a distraction into a support, the power of which should be, and happily often is, in direct proportion to the degree of imbecility it supplants. Oak began now to see light in this direction, and said to himself, "I'll make her my wife, or upon my soul I shall be good for nothing!" All this while he was perplexing himself about an errand on which he might consistently visit the cottage of Bathsheba's aunt. He found his opportunity in the death of a ewe, mother of a living lamb. On a day which had a summer face and a winter constitution--a fine January morning, when there was just enough blue sky visible to make cheerfully-disposed people wish for more, and an occasional gleam of silvery sunshine, Oak put the lamb into a respectable Sunday basket, and stalked across the fields to the house of Mrs. Hurst, the aunt--George, the dog walking behind, with a countenance of great concern at the serious turn pastoral affairs seemed to be taking. Gabriel had watched the blue wood-smoke curling from the chimney with strange meditation. At evening he had fancifully traced it down the chimney to the spot of its origin--seen the hearth and Bathsheba beside it--beside it in her out-door dress; for the clothes she had worn on the hill were by association equally with her person included in the compass of his affection; they seemed at this early time of his love a necessary ingredient of the sweet mixture called Bathsheba Everdene. He had made a toilet of a nicely-adjusted kind--of a nature between the carefully neat and the carelessly ornate--of a degree between fine-market-day and wet-Sunday selection. He thoroughly cleaned his silver watch-chain with whiting, put new lacing straps to his boots, looked to the brass eyelet-holes, went to the inmost heart of the plantation for a new walking-stick, and trimmed it vigorously on his way back; took a new handkerchief from the bottom of his clothes-box, put on the light waistcoat patterned all over with sprigs of an elegant flower uniting the beauties of both rose and lily without the defects of either, and used all the hair-oil he possessed upon his usually dry, sandy, and inextricably curly hair, till he had deepened it to a splendidly novel colour, between that of guano and Roman cement, making it stick to his head like mace round a nutmeg, or wet seaweed round a boulder after the ebb. Nothing disturbed the stillness of the cottage save the chatter of a knot of sparrows on the eaves; one might fancy scandal and rumour to be no less the staple topic of these little coteries on roofs than of those under them. It seemed that the omen was an unpropitious one, for, as the rather untoward commencement of Oak's overtures, just as he arrived by the garden gate, he saw a cat inside, going into various arched shapes and fiendish convulsions at the sight of his dog George. The dog took no notice, for he had arrived at an age at which all superfluous barking was cynically avoided as a waste of breath--in fact, he never barked even at the sheep except to order, when it was done with an absolutely neutral countenance, as a sort of Commination-service, which, though offensive, had to be gone through once now and then to frighten the flock for their own good. A voice came from behind some laurel-bushes into which the cat had run: "Poor dear! Did a nasty brute of a dog want to kill it;--did he, poor dear!" "I beg your pardon," said Oak to the voice, "but George was walking on behind me with a temper as mild as milk." Almost before he had ceased speaking, Oak was seized with a misgiving as to whose ear was the recipient of his answer. Nobody appeared, and he heard the person retreat among the bushes. Gabriel meditated, and so deeply that he brought small furrows into his forehead by sheer force of reverie. Where the issue of an interview is as likely to be a vast change for the worse as for the better, any initial difference from expectation causes nipping sensations of failure. Oak went up to the door a little abashed: his mental rehearsal and the reality had had no common grounds of opening. Bathsheba's aunt was indoors. "Will you tell Miss Everdene that somebody would be glad to speak to her?" said Mr. Oak. (Calling one's self merely Somebody, without giving a name, is not to be taken as an example of the ill-breeding of the rural world: it springs from a refined modesty, of which townspeople, with their cards and announcements, have no notion whatever.) Bathsheba was out. The voice had evidently been hers. "Will you come in, Mr. Oak?" "Oh, thank 'ee," said Gabriel, following her to the fireplace. "I've brought a lamb for Miss Everdene. I thought she might like one to rear; girls do." "She might," said Mrs. Hurst, musingly; "though she's only a visitor here. If you will wait a minute, Bathsheba will be in." "Yes, I will wait," said Gabriel, sitting down. "The lamb isn't really the business I came about, Mrs. Hurst. In short, I was going to ask her if she'd like to be married." "And were you indeed?" "Yes. Because if she would, I should be very glad to marry her. D'ye know if she's got any other young man hanging about her at all?" "Let me think," said Mrs. Hurst, poking the fire superfluously.... "Yes--bless you, ever so many young men. You see, Farmer Oak, she's so good-looking, and an excellent scholar besides--she was going to be a governess once, you know, only she was too wild. Not that her young men ever come here--but, Lord, in the nature of women, she must have a dozen!" "That's unfortunate," said Farmer Oak, contemplating a crack in the stone floor with sorrow. "I'm only an every-day sort of man, and my only chance was in being the first comer ... Well, there's no use in my waiting, for that was all I came about: so I'll take myself off home-along, Mrs. Hurst." When Gabriel had gone about two hundred yards along the down, he heard a "hoi-hoi!" uttered behind him, in a piping note of more treble quality than that in which the exclamation usually embodies itself when shouted across a field. He looked round, and saw a girl racing after him, waving a white handkerchief. Oak stood still--and the runner drew nearer. It was Bathsheba Everdene. Gabriel's colour deepened: hers was already deep, not, as it appeared, from emotion, but from running. "Farmer Oak--I--" she said, pausing for want of breath pulling up in front of him with a slanted face and putting her hand to her side. "I have just called to see you," said Gabriel, pending her further speech. "Yes--I know that," she said panting like a robin, her face red and moist from her exertions, like a peony petal before the sun dries off the dew. "I didn't know you had come to ask to have me, or I should have come in from the garden instantly. I ran after you to say--that my aunt made a mistake in sending you away from courting me--" Gabriel expanded. "I'm sorry to have made you run so fast, my dear," he said, with a grateful sense of favours to come. "Wait a bit till you've found your breath." "--It was quite a mistake--aunt's telling you I had a young man already," Bathsheba went on. "I haven't a sweetheart at all--and I never had one, and I thought that, as times go with women, it was SUCH a pity to send you away thinking that I had several." "Really and truly I am glad to hear that!" said Farmer Oak, smiling one of his long special smiles, and blushing with gladness. He held out his hand to take hers, which, when she had eased her side by pressing it there, was prettily extended upon her bosom to still her loud-beating heart. Directly he seized it she put it behind her, so that it slipped through his fingers like an eel. "I have a nice snug little farm," said Gabriel, with half a degree less assurance than when he had seized her hand. "Yes; you have." "A man has advanced me money to begin with, but still, it will soon be paid off, and though I am only an every-day sort of man, I have got on a little since I was a boy." Gabriel uttered "a little" in a tone to show her that it was the complacent form of "a great deal." He continued: "When we be married, I am quite sure I can work twice as hard as I do now." He went forward and stretched out his arm again. Bathsheba had overtaken him at a point beside which stood a low stunted holly bush, now laden with red berries. Seeing his advance take the form of an attitude threatening a possible enclosure, if not compression, of her person, she edged off round the bush. "Why, Farmer Oak," she said, over the top, looking at him with rounded eyes, "I never said I was going to marry you." "Well--that IS a tale!" said Oak, with dismay. "To run after anybody like this, and then say you don't want him!" "What I meant to tell you was only this," she said eagerly, and yet half conscious of the absurdity of the position she had made for herself--"that nobody has got me yet as a sweetheart, instead of my having a dozen, as my aunt said; I HATE to be thought men's property in that way, though possibly I shall be had some day. Why, if I'd wanted you I shouldn't have run after you like this; 'twould have been the FORWARDEST thing! But there was no harm in hurrying to correct a piece of false news that had been told you." "Oh, no--no harm at all." But there is such a thing as being too generous in expressing a judgment impulsively, and Oak added with a more appreciative sense of all the circumstances--"Well, I am not quite certain it was no harm." "Indeed, I hadn't time to think before starting whether I wanted to marry or not, for you'd have been gone over the hill." "Come," said Gabriel, freshening again; "think a minute or two. I'll wait a while, Miss Everdene. Will you marry me? Do, Bathsheba. I love you far more than common!" "I'll try to think," she observed, rather more timorously; "if I can think out of doors; my mind spreads away so." "But you can give a guess." "Then give me time." Bathsheba looked thoughtfully into the distance, away from the direction in which Gabriel stood. "I can make you happy," said he to the back of her head, across the bush. "You shall have a piano in a year or two--farmers' wives are getting to have pianos now--and I'll practise up the flute right well to play with you in the evenings." "Yes; I should like that." "And have one of those little ten-pound gigs for market--and nice flowers, and birds--cocks and hens I mean, because they be useful," continued Gabriel, feeling balanced between poetry and practicality. "I should like it very much." "And a frame for cucumbers--like a gentleman and lady." "Yes." "And when the wedding was over, we'd have it put in the newspaper list of marriages." "Dearly I should like that!" "And the babies in the births--every man jack of 'em! And at home by the fire, whenever you look up, there I shall be--and whenever I look up there will be you." "Wait, wait, and don't be improper!" Her countenance fell, and she was silent awhile. He regarded the red berries between them over and over again, to such an extent, that holly seemed in his after life to be a cypher signifying a proposal of marriage. Bathsheba decisively turned to him. "No; 'tis no use," she said. "I don't want to marry you." "Try." "I have tried hard all the time I've been thinking; for a marriage would be very nice in one sense. People would talk about me, and think I had won my battle, and I should feel triumphant, and all that, But a husband--" "Well!" "Why, he'd always be there, as you say; whenever I looked up, there he'd be." "Of course he would--I, that is." "Well, what I mean is that I shouldn't mind being a bride at a wedding, if I could be one without having a husband. But since a woman can't show off in that way by herself, I shan't marry--at least yet." "That's a terrible wooden story!" At this criticism of her statement Bathsheba made an addition to her dignity by a slight sweep away from him. "Upon my heart and soul, I don't know what a maid can say stupider than that," said Oak. "But dearest," he continued in a palliative voice, "don't be like it!" Oak sighed a deep honest sigh--none the less so in that, being like the sigh of a pine plantation, it was rather noticeable as a disturbance of the atmosphere. "Why won't you have me?" he appealed, creeping round the holly to reach her side. "I cannot," she said, retreating. "But why?" he persisted, standing still at last in despair of ever reaching her, and facing over the bush. "Because I don't love you." "Yes, but--" She contracted a yawn to an inoffensive smallness, so that it was hardly ill-mannered at all. "I don't love you," she said. "But I love you--and, as for myself, I am content to be liked." "Oh Mr. Oak--that's very fine! You'd get to despise me." "Never," said Mr Oak, so earnestly that he seemed to be coming, by the force of his words, straight through the bush and into her arms. "I shall do one thing in this life--one thing certain--that is, love you, and long for you, and KEEP WANTING YOU till I die." His voice had a genuine pathos now, and his large brown hands perceptibly trembled. "It seems dreadfully wrong not to have you when you feel so much!" she said with a little distress, and looking hopelessly around for some means of escape from her moral dilemma. "How I wish I hadn't run after you!" However she seemed to have a short cut for getting back to cheerfulness, and set her face to signify archness. "It wouldn't do, Mr Oak. I want somebody to tame me; I am too independent; and you would never be able to, I know." Oak cast his eyes down the field in a way implying that it was useless to attempt argument. "Mr. Oak," she said, with luminous distinctness and common sense, "you are better off than I. I have hardly a penny in the world--I am staying with my aunt for my bare sustenance. I am better educated than you--and I don't love you a bit: that's my side of the case. Now yours: you are a farmer just beginning; and you ought in common prudence, if you marry at all (which you should certainly not think of doing at present), to marry a woman with money, who would stock a larger farm for you than you have now." Gabriel looked at her with a little surprise and much admiration. "That's the very thing I had been thinking myself!" he naively said. Farmer Oak had one-and-a-half Christian characteristics too many to succeed with Bathsheba: his humility, and a superfluous moiety of honesty. Bathsheba was decidedly disconcerted. "Well, then, why did you come and disturb me?" she said, almost angrily, if not quite, an enlarging red spot rising in each cheek. "I can't do what I think would be--would be--" "Right?" "No: wise." "You have made an admission NOW, Mr. Oak," she exclaimed, with even more hauteur, and rocking her head disdainfully. "After that, do you think I could marry you? Not if I know it." He broke in passionately. "But don't mistake me like that! Because I am open enough to own what every man in my shoes would have thought of, you make your colours come up your face, and get crabbed with me. That about your not being good enough for me is nonsense. You speak like a lady--all the parish notice it, and your uncle at Weatherbury is, I have heerd, a large farmer--much larger than ever I shall be. May I call in the evening, or will you walk along with me o' Sundays? I don't want you to make-up your mind at once, if you'd rather not." "No--no--I cannot. Don't press me any more--don't. I don't love you--so 'twould be ridiculous," she said, with a laugh. No man likes to see his emotions the sport of a merry-go-round of skittishness. "Very well," said Oak, firmly, with the bearing of one who was going to give his days and nights to Ecclesiastes for ever. "Then I'll ask you no more."

Chapters 1-4

https://web.archive.org/web/20210108004047/https://www.gradesaver.com/far-from-the-madding-crowd/study-guide/summary-chapters-1-4

The novel opens on a December afternoon with the introduction of a character named Gabriel Oak. Gabriel is an unassuming man in his late twenties who has risen from humble beginnings as a shepherd to work as a bailiff and now leases his own farm near the town of Norcombe, where he tends a flock of sheep. While Gabriel is out walking, he observes an attractive young woman riding on a wagon full of household items. He catches up to the wagon when the driver and the woman engage in a dispute about the rate they have to pay at a turnpike, and settles the dispute by paying the fare himself. That night, while staying in his hut and tending to his sheep, Gabriel sees an unexpected light and goes to investigate. Inside a nearby shed, he finds two women tending to a sick cow. Observing them, he realizes that the younger one is the same woman he encountered on the wagon. The next morning, he returns to the shed just as the young woman also returns, and brings her the hat she had lost in the windy night. Unfortunately, Gabriel also embarrasses the young woman by making it clear that he has seen her behaving playfully when she thought she was alone, and she reacts with scorn. A few days later, Gabriel finds himself in a dangerous situation when he falls asleep in his hut without opening the ventilation holes, risking suffocation. He awakens from unconsciousness to find the young woman. Having come to tend to her cow, she noticed something was wrong, and dragged him out of the hut. The young woman, who he later learns is named Bathsheba Everdene, behaves somewhat flirtatiously, and Gabriel becomes enamored with her. As the days pass, Gabriel becomes increasingly infatuated and decides to propose to Bathsheba. He goes to visit her at the home of her aunt, Mrs. Hurst, bringing with him a baby lamb as a gift. He shares his intention with Mrs. Hurst, who tells him that Bathsheba has many suitors. Gabriel is discouraged and decides to leave but Bathsheba comes chasing after him. He suggests they get married, indicating that he has bright financial prospects and would take good care of her, but Bathsheba explains that she can't marry him since she doesn't love him. Gabriel initially vows that he will love her forever, but when Bathsheba suggests it would be wise for him to marry a woman with money, he seems to agree with the idea. This annoys her, and the two part on awkward terms.

The novel's opening chapters quickly establish both the attraction and tensions between Bathsheba and Gabriel. The characters have occupied opposite class trajectories, since Gabriel has risen from a humble background to now leasing a farm and owning his own sheep, while Bathsheba has been well-educated and presumably comes from a good family, but now seems to be orphaned and reliant on the charity of her relatives. Bathsheba's high-spirited and somewhat inconsistent character is made clear from the beginning: when she thinks she is alone, she engages in playful acts like gazing at herself in the hand-mirror and laying flat on the back of her pony to avoid low-hanging branches. At the same time, she is easily embarrassed when it becomes clear that Gabriel has seen her engaging in these behaviors. While she does not seem to like having been caught in irreverent behavior, Bathsheba is clearly marked out as an unconventionally strong-willed and self-reliant woman. She refuses to comply with the demands of the toll gate-keeper, and she takes a hands-on approach to farm work. Gabriel seems to find the combination of her playfulness and competence deeply alluring, especially in contrast to his own somewhat serious demeanor. He is clearly intrigued by her from the first time he sees her, and after she rescues him, he becomes rapidly infatuated. The narrative and then Bathsheba herself both seem to raise the question of how profound Gabriel's love can be, given how little time the two have spent together when he proposes. He seems willing to assume that they will be compatible, and his explanation of why they should marry focuses on the material comforts he can offer her. Gabriel is clearly somewhat shy and insecure since he abandons hope of wooing Bathsheba as soon as he hears she has other suitors, but his promising prospects give him some confidence in believing he could be a good provider. He also seems fairly unromantic about his hopes, since he tells Bathsheba he would be happy to marry her even if she does not yet love him, but at the same time, he passionately declares he will never stop having feelings for her.

shmoop

all_chapterized_books/107-chapters/37.txt

finished_summaries/shmoop/Far From the Madding Crowd/section_36_part_0.txt

Far From the Madding Crowd.chapter 37

chapter 37

{"name": "Chapter 37", "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20201219162644/https://www.shmoop.com/study-guides/literature/far-from-the-madding-crowd/summary/chapter-37", "summary": "Well this is just great: now there's thunder, and lighting shooting through the sky, as Gabriel Oak tries to keep the farm's hay and barley from being ruined by rain. He suddenly hears a voice from the darkness and realizes that it's Bathsheba's. She has come to help him out. They are both worried by the lightning, which seems to be striking all around them. In the heat of the moment, Bathsheba tells Gabriel that she wants him to know she travelled to Bath with the full intention of breaking off her attachment to Sergeant Troy. But one thing led to another and they got married. Eventually, Bathsheba has done everything she can, and it's time for her to go. She thanks Gabriel a thousand times over for his devotion and goes.", "analysis": ""}

THE STORM--THE TWO TOGETHER A light flapped over the scene, as if reflected from phosphorescent wings crossing the sky, and a rumble filled the air. It was the first move of the approaching storm. The second peal was noisy, with comparatively little visible lightning. Gabriel saw a candle shining in Bathsheba's bedroom, and soon a shadow swept to and fro upon the blind. Then there came a third flash. Manoeuvres of a most extraordinary kind were going on in the vast firmamental hollows overhead. The lightning now was the colour of silver, and gleamed in the heavens like a mailed army. Rumbles became rattles. Gabriel from his elevated position could see over the landscape at least half-a-dozen miles in front. Every hedge, bush, and tree was distinct as in a line engraving. In a paddock in the same direction was a herd of heifers, and the forms of these were visible at this moment in the act of galloping about in the wildest and maddest confusion, flinging their heels and tails high into the air, their heads to earth. A poplar in the immediate foreground was like an ink stroke on burnished tin. Then the picture vanished, leaving the darkness so intense that Gabriel worked entirely by feeling with his hands. He had stuck his ricking-rod, or poniard, as it was indifferently called--a long iron lance, polished by handling--into the stack, used to support the sheaves instead of the support called a groom used on houses. A blue light appeared in the zenith, and in some indescribable manner flickered down near the top of the rod. It was the fourth of the larger flashes. A moment later and there was a smack--smart, clear, and short. Gabriel felt his position to be anything but a safe one, and he resolved to descend. Not a drop of rain had fallen as yet. He wiped his weary brow, and looked again at the black forms of the unprotected stacks. Was his life so valuable to him after all? What were his prospects that he should be so chary of running risk, when important and urgent labour could not be carried on without such risk? He resolved to stick to the stack. However, he took a precaution. Under the staddles was a long tethering chain, used to prevent the escape of errant horses. This he carried up the ladder, and sticking his rod through the clog at one end, allowed the other end of the chain to trail upon the ground. The spike attached to it he drove in. Under the shadow of this extemporized lightning-conductor he felt himself comparatively safe. Before Oak had laid his hands upon his tools again out leapt the fifth flash, with the spring of a serpent and the shout of a fiend. It was green as an emerald, and the reverberation was stunning. What was this the light revealed to him? In the open ground before him, as he looked over the ridge of the rick, was a dark and apparently female form. Could it be that of the only venturesome woman in the parish--Bathsheba? The form moved on a step: then he could see no more. "Is that you, ma'am?" said Gabriel to the darkness. "Who is there?" said the voice of Bathsheba. "Gabriel. I am on the rick, thatching." "Oh, Gabriel!--and are you? I have come about them. The weather awoke me, and I thought of the corn. I am so distressed about it--can we save it anyhow? I cannot find my husband. Is he with you?" "He is not here." "Do you know where he is?" "Asleep in the barn." "He promised that the stacks should be seen to, and now they are all neglected! Can I do anything to help? Liddy is afraid to come out. Fancy finding you here at such an hour! Surely I can do something?" "You can bring up some reed-sheaves to me, one by one, ma'am; if you are not afraid to come up the ladder in the dark," said Gabriel. "Every moment is precious now, and that would save a good deal of time. It is not very dark when the lightning has been gone a bit." "I'll do anything!" she said, resolutely. She instantly took a sheaf upon her shoulder, clambered up close to his heels, placed it behind the rod, and descended for another. At her third ascent the rick suddenly brightened with the brazen glare of shining majolica--every knot in every straw was visible. On the slope in front of him appeared two human shapes, black as jet. The rick lost its sheen--the shapes vanished. Gabriel turned his head. It had been the sixth flash which had come from the east behind him, and the two dark forms on the slope had been the shadows of himself and Bathsheba. Then came the peal. It hardly was credible that such a heavenly light could be the parent of such a diabolical sound. "How terrible!" she exclaimed, and clutched him by the sleeve. Gabriel turned, and steadied her on her aerial perch by holding her arm. At the same moment, while he was still reversed in his attitude, there was more light, and he saw, as it were, a copy of the tall poplar tree on the hill drawn in black on the wall of the barn. It was the shadow of that tree, thrown across by a secondary flash in the west. The next flare came. Bathsheba was on the ground now, shouldering another sheaf, and she bore its dazzle without flinching--thunder and all--and again ascended with the load. There was then a silence everywhere for four or five minutes, and the crunch of the spars, as Gabriel hastily drove them in, could again be distinctly heard. He thought the crisis of the storm had passed. But there came a burst of light. "Hold on!" said Gabriel, taking the sheaf from her shoulder, and grasping her arm again. Heaven opened then, indeed. The flash was almost too novel for its inexpressibly dangerous nature to be at once realized, and they could only comprehend the magnificence of its beauty. It sprang from east, west, north, south, and was a perfect dance of death. The forms of skeletons appeared in the air, shaped with blue fire for bones--dancing, leaping, striding, racing around, and mingling altogether in unparalleled confusion. With these were intertwined undulating snakes of green, and behind these was a broad mass of lesser light. Simultaneously came from every part of the tumbling sky what may be called a shout; since, though no shout ever came near it, it was more of the nature of a shout than of anything else earthly. In the meantime one of the grisly forms had alighted upon the point of Gabriel's rod, to run invisibly down it, down the chain, and into the earth. Gabriel was almost blinded, and he could feel Bathsheba's warm arm tremble in his hand--a sensation novel and thrilling enough; but love, life, everything human, seemed small and trifling in such close juxtaposition with an infuriated universe. Oak had hardly time to gather up these impressions into a thought, and to see how strangely the red feather of her hat shone in this light, when the tall tree on the hill before mentioned seemed on fire to a white heat, and a new one among these terrible voices mingled with the last crash of those preceding. It was a stupefying blast, harsh and pitiless, and it fell upon their ears in a dead, flat blow, without that reverberation which lends the tones of a drum to more distant thunder. By the lustre reflected from every part of the earth and from the wide domical scoop above it, he saw that the tree was sliced down the whole length of its tall, straight stem, a huge riband of bark being apparently flung off. The other portion remained erect, and revealed the bared surface as a strip of white down the front. The lightning had struck the tree. A sulphurous smell filled the air; then all was silent, and black as a cave in Hinnom. "We had a narrow escape!" said Gabriel, hurriedly. "You had better go down." Bathsheba said nothing; but he could distinctly hear her rhythmical pants, and the recurrent rustle of the sheaf beside her in response to her frightened pulsations. She descended the ladder, and, on second thoughts, he followed her. The darkness was now impenetrable by the sharpest vision. They both stood still at the bottom, side by side. Bathsheba appeared to think only of the weather--Oak thought only of her just then. At last he said-- "The storm seems to have passed now, at any rate." "I think so too," said Bathsheba. "Though there are multitudes of gleams, look!" The sky was now filled with an incessant light, frequent repetition melting into complete continuity, as an unbroken sound results from the successive strokes on a gong. "Nothing serious," said he. "I cannot understand no rain falling. But Heaven be praised, it is all the better for us. I am now going up again." "Gabriel, you are kinder than I deserve! I will stay and help you yet. Oh, why are not some of the others here!" "They would have been here if they could," said Oak, in a hesitating way. "O, I know it all--all," she said, adding slowly: "They are all asleep in the barn, in a drunken sleep, and my husband among them. That's it, is it not? Don't think I am a timid woman and can't endure things." "I am not certain," said Gabriel. "I will go and see." He crossed to the barn, leaving her there alone. He looked through the chinks of the door. All was in total darkness, as he had left it, and there still arose, as at the former time, the steady buzz of many snores. He felt a zephyr curling about his cheek, and turned. It was Bathsheba's breath--she had followed him, and was looking into the same chink. He endeavoured to put off the immediate and painful subject of their thoughts by remarking gently, "If you'll come back again, miss--ma'am, and hand up a few more; it would save much time." Then Oak went back again, ascended to the top, stepped off the ladder for greater expedition, and went on thatching. She followed, but without a sheaf. "Gabriel," she said, in a strange and impressive voice. Oak looked up at her. She had not spoken since he left the barn. The soft and continual shimmer of the dying lightning showed a marble face high against the black sky of the opposite quarter. Bathsheba was sitting almost on the apex of the stack, her feet gathered up beneath her, and resting on the top round of the ladder. "Yes, mistress," he said. "I suppose you thought that when I galloped away to Bath that night it was on purpose to be married?" "I did at last--not at first," he answered, somewhat surprised at the abruptness with which this new subject was broached. "And others thought so, too?" "Yes." "And you blamed me for it?" "Well--a little." "I thought so. Now, I care a little for your good opinion, and I want to explain something--I have longed to do it ever since I returned, and you looked so gravely at me. For if I were to die--and I may die soon--it would be dreadful that you should always think mistakenly of me. Now, listen." Gabriel ceased his rustling. "I went to Bath that night in the full intention of breaking off my engagement to Mr. Troy. It was owing to circumstances which occurred after I got there that--that we were married. Now, do you see the matter in a new light?" "I do--somewhat." "I must, I suppose, say more, now that I have begun. And perhaps it's no harm, for you are certainly under no delusion that I ever loved you, or that I can have any object in speaking, more than that object I have mentioned. Well, I was alone in a strange city, and the horse was lame. And at last I didn't know what to do. I saw, when it was too late, that scandal might seize hold of me for meeting him alone in that way. But I was coming away, when he suddenly said he had that day seen a woman more beautiful than I, and that his constancy could not be counted on unless I at once became his.... And I was grieved and troubled--" She cleared her voice, and waited a moment, as if to gather breath. "And then, between jealousy and distraction, I married him!" she whispered with desperate impetuosity. Gabriel made no reply. "He was not to blame, for it was perfectly true about--about his seeing somebody else," she quickly added. "And now I don't wish for a single remark from you upon the subject--indeed, I forbid it. I only wanted you to know that misunderstood bit of my history before a time comes when you could never know it.--You want some more sheaves?" She went down the ladder, and the work proceeded. Gabriel soon perceived a languor in the movements of his mistress up and down, and he said to her, gently as a mother-- "I think you had better go indoors now, you are tired. I can finish the rest alone. If the wind does not change the rain is likely to keep off." "If I am useless I will go," said Bathsheba, in a flagging cadence. "But O, if your life should be lost!" "You are not useless; but I would rather not tire you longer. You have done well." "And you better!" she said, gratefully. "Thank you for your devotion, a thousand times, Gabriel! Goodnight--I know you are doing your very best for me." She diminished in the gloom, and vanished, and he heard the latch of the gate fall as she passed through. He worked in a reverie now, musing upon her story, and upon the contradictoriness of that feminine heart which had caused her to speak more warmly to him to-night than she ever had done whilst unmarried and free to speak as warmly as she chose. He was disturbed in his meditation by a grating noise from the coach-house. It was the vane on the roof turning round, and this change in the wind was the signal for a disastrous rain.

Chapter 37

https://web.archive.org/web/20201219162644/https://www.shmoop.com/study-guides/literature/far-from-the-madding-crowd/summary/chapter-37

Well this is just great: now there's thunder, and lighting shooting through the sky, as Gabriel Oak tries to keep the farm's hay and barley from being ruined by rain. He suddenly hears a voice from the darkness and realizes that it's Bathsheba's. She has come to help him out. They are both worried by the lightning, which seems to be striking all around them. In the heat of the moment, Bathsheba tells Gabriel that she wants him to know she travelled to Bath with the full intention of breaking off her attachment to Sergeant Troy. But one thing led to another and they got married. Eventually, Bathsheba has done everything she can, and it's time for her to go. She thanks Gabriel a thousand times over for his devotion and goes.

shmoop

all_chapterized_books/1526-chapters/9.txt

finished_summaries/shmoop/Twelfth Night, or What You Will/section_8_part_0.txt

Twelfth Night, or What You Will.act 2.scene 4

act 2, scene 4

{"name": "Act 2, Scene 4", "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20210415161814/https://www.shmoop.com/study-guides/literature/twelfth-night/summary/act-2-scene-4", "summary": "Back at Orsino's court, the Duke orders his band to play a song he heard the night before. Curio says sorry, but Feste's not here to sing it. He must be over at Olivia's house because he used to work for Olivia's dad when he was alive. Duke Orsino tells Curio to find Feste, who happens to be roaming around somewhere in the Duke's pad. Orsino then turns to \"Cesario\" and gives \"him\" some friendly advice, man-to-man, about love. Orsino says if \"Cesario\" ever falls in love, he should be reminded of the Duke, who--like all true lovers--is unable to do anything but think of the one he adores. Orsino suspects that \"Cesario\" is in love and \"Cesario\" admits that yes, \"he\" is in love with someone who looks like the Duke and is about the same age. Orsino assumes \"Cesario's\" in love with an older woman, so he tells \"Cesario\" it's not a good idea for men to marry older women. \"Cesario\" should marry a sweet young thing because women age fast, which makes them less attractive to their husbands. Women are also not as attractive after they're no longer virgins. Viola's sad response tells us that she worries about aging and becoming less attractive to a potential husband. Feste enters and sings a song for the Duke about a man who is \"slain\" by a \"cruel maid.\" Orsino gives Feste some money for his trouble and says it's late--he wants to go to bed. Feste makes a crack about how moody the Duke's behavior is before leaving. Orsino sends everyone away, except \"Cesario.\" He tells \"Cesario\" to go see Olivia again and try one more time to tell her how much Orsino loves her. \"Cesario\" doesn't think it will work. Olivia has already said she can't love him, but Orsino won't accept that answer. \"Cesario\" says, but wait--if some woman other than Olivia loved you, you wouldn't love her back, right? Because you love Olivia and no one else. Pah! Orsino says no woman could possibly resist the level of passion he feels. Love works differently for women, and no woman is capable of being so in love as the Duke--his love is like the ocean, etc., etc. \"Cesario\" disagrees and says that women are just as capable of love as men. \"He\" tells the story of his \"father's daughter\" who once loved a man but never told him. Instead she loved him from a distance, feeling incredibly sad but graciously accepting her fate. That sounds horrible to us, but \"Cesario\" says that's true love--truer, in fact, than the love of men who are loud about declaring their love but not as faithful with their actions. When Orsino asks what happened to \"Cesario's\" sister, \"Cesario\" cryptically replies that \"he\" doesn't know, even though he is the only daughter and the only son in \"his\" father's house. If Orsino were paying attention, he might understand that Viola has just outed herself. But he's still focused on Olivia. Plus, Viola changes the subject FAST. She says, \"Did you want me to give this jewel to Olivia?\" before he can react to her strange statement, and off they go.", "analysis": ""}

SCENE IV. A Room in the DUKE'S Palace. [Enter DUKE, VIOLA, CURIO, and others.] DUKE. Give me some music:--Now, good morrow, friends:-- Now, good Cesario, but that piece of song, That old and antique song we heard last night; Methought it did relieve my passion much; More than light airs and recollected terms Of these most brisk and giddy-paced times:-- Come, but one verse. CURIO. He is not here, so please your lordship, that should sing it. DUKE. Who was it? CURIO. Feste, the jester, my lord; a fool that the Lady Olivia's father took much delight in: he is about the house. DUKE. Seek him out, and play the tune the while. [Exit CURIO. Music.] Come hither, boy. If ever thou shalt love, In the sweet pangs of it remember me: For, such as I am, all true lovers are; Unstaid and skittish in all motions else, Save in the constant image of the creature That is belov'd.--How dost thou like this tune? VIOLA. It gives a very echo to the seat Where Love is throned. DUKE. Thou dost speak masterly: My life upon't, young though thou art, thine eye Hath stayed upon some favour that it loves; Hath it not, boy? VIOLA. A little, by your favour. DUKE. What kind of woman is't? VIOLA. Of your complexion. DUKE. She is not worth thee, then. What years, i' faith? VIOLA. About your years, my lord. DUKE. Too old, by heaven! Let still the woman take An elder than herself; so wears she to him, So sways she level in her husband's heart. For, boy, however we do praise ourselves, Our fancies are more giddy and unfirm, More longing, wavering, sooner lost and won, Than women's are. VIOLA. I think it well, my lord. DUKE. Then let thy love be younger than thyself, Or thy affection cannot hold the bent: For women are as roses, whose fair flower, Being once display'd, doth fall that very hour. VIOLA. And so they are: alas, that they are so; To die, even when they to perfection grow! [Re-enter CURIO and CLOWN.] DUKE. O, fellow, come, the song we had last night:-- Mark it, Cesario; it is old and plain: The spinsters and the knitters in the sun, And the free maids, that weave their thread with bones, Do use to chant it: it is silly sooth, And dallies with the innocence of love Like the old age. CLOWN. Are you ready, sir? DUKE. Ay; pr'ythee, sing. [Music] CLOWN. SONG Come away, come away, death. And in sad cypress let me be laid; Fly away, fly away, breath; I am slain by a fair cruel maid. My shroud of white, stuck all with yew, O, prepare it! My part of death no one so true Did share it. Not a flower, not a flower sweet, On my black coffin let there be strown: Not a friend, not a friend greet My poor corpse where my bones shall be thrown: A thousand thousand sighs to save, Lay me, O, where Sad true lover never find my grave, To weep there! DUKE. There's for thy pains. CLOWN. No pains, sir; I take pleasure in singing, sir. DUKE. I'll pay thy pleasure, then. CLOWN. Truly, sir, and pleasure will be paid one time or another. DUKE. Give me now leave to leave thee. CLOWN. Now the melancholy god protect thee; and the tailor make thy doublet of changeable taffeta, for thy mind is a very opal!--I would have men of such constancy put to sea, that their business might be everything, and their intent everywhere; for that's it that always makes a good voyage of nothing.--Farewell. [Exit CLOWN.] DUKE. Let all the rest give place.-- [Exeunt CURIO and Attendants.] Once more, Cesario, Get thee to yond same sovereign cruelty: Tell her my love, more noble than the world, Prizes not quantity of dirty lands; The parts that fortune hath bestow'd upon her, Tell her, I hold as giddily as fortune; But 'tis that miracle and queen of gems That Nature pranks her in attracts my soul. VIOLA. But if she cannot love you, sir? DUKE. I cannot be so answer'd. VIOLA. 'Sooth, but you must. Say that some lady, as perhaps there is, Hath for your love as great a pang of heart As you have for Olivia: you cannot love her; You tell her so. Must she not then be answer'd? DUKE. There is no woman's sides Can bide the beating of so strong a passion As love doth give my heart: no woman's heart So big to hold so much; they lack retention. Alas, their love may be called appetite,-- No motion of the liver, but the palate,-- That suffer surfeit, cloyment, and revolt; But mine is all as hungry as the sea, And can digest as much: make no compare Between that love a woman can bear me And that I owe Olivia. VIOLA. Ay, but I know,-- DUKE. What dost thou know? VIOLA. Too well what love women to men may owe. In faith, they are as true of heart as we. My father had a daughter loved a man, As it might be perhaps, were I a woman, I should your lordship. DUKE. And what's her history? VIOLA. A blank, my lord. She never told her love, But let concealment, like a worm i' the bud, Feed on her damask cheek: she pined in thought; And with a green and yellow melancholy, She sat like patience on a monument, Smiling at grief. Was not this love, indeed? We men may say more, swear more; but indeed, Our shows are more than will; for still we prove Much in our vows, but little in our love. DUKE. But died thy sister of her love, my boy? VIOLA. I am all the daughters of my father's house, And all the brothers too;--and yet I know not.-- Sir, shall I to this lady? DUKE. Ay, that's the theme. To her in haste: give her this jewel; say My love can give no place, bide no denay. [Exeunt.]

Act 2, Scene 4

https://web.archive.org/web/20210415161814/https://www.shmoop.com/study-guides/literature/twelfth-night/summary/act-2-scene-4

Back at Orsino's court, the Duke orders his band to play a song he heard the night before. Curio says sorry, but Feste's not here to sing it. He must be over at Olivia's house because he used to work for Olivia's dad when he was alive. Duke Orsino tells Curio to find Feste, who happens to be roaming around somewhere in the Duke's pad. Orsino then turns to "Cesario" and gives "him" some friendly advice, man-to-man, about love. Orsino says if "Cesario" ever falls in love, he should be reminded of the Duke, who--like all true lovers--is unable to do anything but think of the one he adores. Orsino suspects that "Cesario" is in love and "Cesario" admits that yes, "he" is in love with someone who looks like the Duke and is about the same age. Orsino assumes "Cesario's" in love with an older woman, so he tells "Cesario" it's not a good idea for men to marry older women. "Cesario" should marry a sweet young thing because women age fast, which makes them less attractive to their husbands. Women are also not as attractive after they're no longer virgins. Viola's sad response tells us that she worries about aging and becoming less attractive to a potential husband. Feste enters and sings a song for the Duke about a man who is "slain" by a "cruel maid." Orsino gives Feste some money for his trouble and says it's late--he wants to go to bed. Feste makes a crack about how moody the Duke's behavior is before leaving. Orsino sends everyone away, except "Cesario." He tells "Cesario" to go see Olivia again and try one more time to tell her how much Orsino loves her. "Cesario" doesn't think it will work. Olivia has already said she can't love him, but Orsino won't accept that answer. "Cesario" says, but wait--if some woman other than Olivia loved you, you wouldn't love her back, right? Because you love Olivia and no one else. Pah! Orsino says no woman could possibly resist the level of passion he feels. Love works differently for women, and no woman is capable of being so in love as the Duke--his love is like the ocean, etc., etc. "Cesario" disagrees and says that women are just as capable of love as men. "He" tells the story of his "father's daughter" who once loved a man but never told him. Instead she loved him from a distance, feeling incredibly sad but graciously accepting her fate. That sounds horrible to us, but "Cesario" says that's true love--truer, in fact, than the love of men who are loud about declaring their love but not as faithful with their actions. When Orsino asks what happened to "Cesario's" sister, "Cesario" cryptically replies that "he" doesn't know, even though he is the only daughter and the only son in "his" father's house. If Orsino were paying attention, he might understand that Viola has just outed herself. But he's still focused on Olivia. Plus, Viola changes the subject FAST. She says, "Did you want me to give this jewel to Olivia?" before he can react to her strange statement, and off they go.

novelguide

all_chapterized_books/110-chapters/59.txt

finished_summaries/novelguide/Tess of the d'Urbervilles/section_7_part_6.txt

Tess of the d'Urbervilles.chapter lviii

chapter lviii

{"name": "Chapter LVIII", "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20210213065711/https://www.novelguide.com/tess-of-the-durbervilles/summaries/phase7-chapter53-59", "summary": "It begins to rain and the couple remains blissfully alone in the deserted mansion for five days. When the weather clears the housekeeper returns and spies them asleep. They leave and arrive in the dark at Stonehenge, the ancient sacred site. Tess lies on a rock that Angel declares to be an altar and begs him to marry Liza-Lu after her death. Angel remains quiet and Tess sleeps. He awakes to the sound of the authorities surrounding them and asks them not to wake her. She wakes, relieved that soon she will be dead: \"I am ready\"", "analysis": ""}

The night was strangely solemn and still. In the small hours she whispered to him the whole story of how he had walked in his sleep with her in his arms across the Froom stream, at the imminent risk of both their lives, and laid her down in the stone coffin at the ruined abbey. He had never known of that till now. "Why didn't you tell me next day?" he said. "It might have prevented much misunderstanding and woe." "Don't think of what's past!" said she. "I am not going to think outside of now. Why should we! Who knows what to-morrow has in store?" But it apparently had no sorrow. The morning was wet and foggy, and Clare, rightly informed that the caretaker only opened the windows on fine days, ventured to creep out of their chamber and explore the house, leaving Tess asleep. There was no food on the premises, but there was water, and he took advantage of the fog to emerge from the mansion and fetch tea, bread, and butter from a shop in a little place two miles beyond, as also a small tin kettle and spirit-lamp, that they might get fire without smoke. His re-entry awoke her; and they breakfasted on what he had brought. They were indisposed to stir abroad, and the day passed, and the night following, and the next, and next; till, almost without their being aware, five days had slipped by in absolute seclusion, not a sight or sound of a human being disturbing their peacefulness, such as it was. The changes of the weather were their only events, the birds of the New Forest their only company. By tacit consent they hardly once spoke of any incident of the past subsequent to their wedding-day. The gloomy intervening time seemed to sink into chaos, over which the present and prior times closed as if it never had been. Whenever he suggested that they should leave their shelter, and go forwards towards Southampton or London, she showed a strange unwillingness to move. "Why should we put an end to all that's sweet and lovely!" she deprecated. "What must come will come." And, looking through the shutter-chink: "All is trouble outside there; inside here content." He peeped out also. It was quite true; within was affection, union, error forgiven: outside was the inexorable. "And--and," she said, pressing her cheek against his, "I fear that what you think of me now may not last. I do not wish to outlive your present feeling for me. I would rather not. I would rather be dead and buried when the time comes for you to despise me, so that it may never be known to me that you despised me." "I cannot ever despise you." "I also hope that. But considering what my life has been, I cannot see why any man should, sooner or later, be able to help despising me.... How wickedly mad I was! Yet formerly I never could bear to hurt a fly or a worm, and the sight of a bird in a cage used often to make me cry." They remained yet another day. In the night the dull sky cleared, and the result was that the old caretaker at the cottage awoke early. The brilliant sunrise made her unusually brisk; she decided to open the contiguous mansion immediately, and to air it thoroughly on such a day. Thus it occurred that, having arrived and opened the lower rooms before six o'clock, she ascended to the bedchambers, and was about to turn the handle of the one wherein they lay. At that moment she fancied she could hear the breathing of persons within. Her slippers and her antiquity had rendered her progress a noiseless one so far, and she made for instant retreat; then, deeming that her hearing might have deceived her, she turned anew to the door and softly tried the handle. The lock was out of order, but a piece of furniture had been moved forward on the inside, which prevented her opening the door more than an inch or two. A stream of morning light through the shutter-chink fell upon the faces of the pair, wrapped in profound slumber, Tess's lips being parted like a half-opened flower near his cheek. The caretaker was so struck with their innocent appearance, and with the elegance of Tess's gown hanging across a chair, her silk stockings beside it, the pretty parasol, and the other habits in which she had arrived because she had none else, that her first indignation at the effrontery of tramps and vagabonds gave way to a momentary sentimentality over this genteel elopement, as it seemed. She closed the door, and withdrew as softly as she had come, to go and consult with her neighbours on the odd discovery. Not more than a minute had elapsed after her withdrawal when Tess woke, and then Clare. Both had a sense that something had disturbed them, though they could not say what; and the uneasy feeling which it engendered grew stronger. As soon as he was dressed he narrowly scanned the lawn through the two or three inches of shutter-chink. "I think we will leave at once," said he. "It is a fine day. And I cannot help fancying somebody is about the house. At any rate, the woman will be sure to come to-day." She passively assented, and putting the room in order, they took up the few articles that belonged to them, and departed noiselessly. When they had got into the Forest she turned to take a last look at the house. "Ah, happy house--goodbye!" she said. "My life can only be a question of a few weeks. Why should we not have stayed there?" "Don't say it, Tess! We shall soon get out of this district altogether. We'll continue our course as we've begun it, and keep straight north. Nobody will think of looking for us there. We shall be looked for at the Wessex ports if we are sought at all. When we are in the north we will get to a port and away." Having thus persuaded her, the plan was pursued, and they kept a bee-line northward. Their long repose at the manor-house lent them walking power now; and towards mid-day they found that they were approaching the steepled city of Melchester, which lay directly in their way. He decided to rest her in a clump of trees during the afternoon, and push onward under cover of darkness. At dusk Clare purchased food as usual, and their night march began, the boundary between Upper and Mid-Wessex being crossed about eight o'clock. To walk across country without much regard to roads was not new to Tess, and she showed her old agility in the performance. The intercepting city, ancient Melchester, they were obliged to pass through in order to take advantage of the town bridge for crossing a large river that obstructed them. It was about midnight when they went along the deserted streets, lighted fitfully by the few lamps, keeping off the pavement that it might not echo their footsteps. The graceful pile of cathedral architecture rose dimly on their left hand, but it was lost upon them now. Once out of the town they followed the turnpike-road, which after a few miles plunged across an open plain. Though the sky was dense with cloud, a diffused light from some fragment of a moon had hitherto helped them a little. But the moon had now sunk, the clouds seemed to settle almost on their heads, and the night grew as dark as a cave. However, they found their way along, keeping as much on the turf as possible that their tread might not resound, which it was easy to do, there being no hedge or fence of any kind. All around was open loneliness and black solitude, over which a stiff breeze blew. They had proceeded thus gropingly two or three miles further when on a sudden Clare became conscious of some vast erection close in his front, rising sheer from the grass. They had almost struck themselves against it. "What monstrous place is this?" said Angel. "It hums," said she. "Hearken!" He listened. The wind, playing upon the edifice, produced a booming tune, like the note of some gigantic one-stringed harp. No other sound came from it, and lifting his hand and advancing a step or two, Clare felt the vertical surface of the structure. It seemed to be of solid stone, without joint or moulding. Carrying his fingers onward he found that what he had come in contact with was a colossal rectangular pillar; by stretching out his left hand he could feel a similar one adjoining. At an indefinite height overhead something made the black sky blacker, which had the semblance of a vast architrave uniting the pillars horizontally. They carefully entered beneath and between; the surfaces echoed their soft rustle; but they seemed to be still out of doors. The place was roofless. Tess drew her breath fearfully, and Angel, perplexed, said-- "What can it be?" Feeling sideways they encountered another tower-like pillar, square and uncompromising as the first; beyond it another and another. The place was all doors and pillars, some connected above by continuous architraves. "A very Temple of the Winds," he said. The next pillar was isolated; others composed a trilithon; others were prostrate, their flanks forming a causeway wide enough for a carriage; and it was soon obvious that they made up a forest of monoliths grouped upon the grassy expanse of the plain. The couple advanced further into this pavilion of the night till they stood in its midst. "It is Stonehenge!" said Clare. "The heathen temple, you mean?" "Yes. Older than the centuries; older than the d'Urbervilles! Well, what shall we do, darling? We may find shelter further on." But Tess, really tired by this time, flung herself upon an oblong slab that lay close at hand, and was sheltered from the wind by a pillar. Owing to the action of the sun during the preceding day, the stone was warm and dry, in comforting contrast to the rough and chill grass around, which had damped her skirts and shoes. "I don't want to go any further, Angel," she said, stretching out her hand for his. "Can't we bide here?" "I fear not. This spot is visible for miles by day, although it does not seem so now." "One of my mother's people was a shepherd hereabouts, now I think of it. And you used to say at Talbothays that I was a heathen. So now I am at home." He knelt down beside her outstretched form, and put his lips upon hers. "Sleepy are you, dear? I think you are lying on an altar." "I like very much to be here," she murmured. "It is so solemn and lonely--after my great happiness--with nothing but the sky above my face. It seems as if there were no folk in the world but we two; and I wish there were not--except 'Liza-Lu." Clare though she might as well rest here till it should get a little lighter, and he flung his overcoat upon her, and sat down by her side. "Angel, if anything happens to me, will you watch over 'Liza-Lu for my sake?" she asked, when they had listened a long time to the wind among the pillars. "I will." "She is so good and simple and pure. O, Angel--I wish you would marry her if you lose me, as you will do shortly. O, if you would!" "If I lose you I lose all! And she is my sister-in-law." "That's nothing, dearest. People marry sister-laws continually about Marlott; and 'Liza-Lu is so gentle and sweet, and she is growing so beautiful. O, I could share you with her willingly when we are spirits! If you would train her and teach her, Angel, and bring her up for your own self! ... She had all the best of me without the bad of me; and if she were to become yours it would almost seem as if death had not divided us... Well, I have said it. I won't mention it again." She ceased, and he fell into thought. In the far north-east sky he could see between the pillars a level streak of light. The uniform concavity of black cloud was lifting bodily like the lid of a pot, letting in at the earth's edge the coming day, against which the towering monoliths and trilithons began to be blackly defined. "Did they sacrifice to God here?" asked she. "No," said he. "Who to?" "I believe to the sun. That lofty stone set away by itself is in the direction of the sun, which will presently rise behind it." "This reminds me, dear," she said. "You remember you never would interfere with any belief of mine before we were married? But I knew your mind all the same, and I thought as you thought--not from any reasons of my own, but because you thought so. Tell me now, Angel, do you think we shall meet again after we are dead? I want to know." He kissed her to avoid a reply at such a time. "O, Angel--I fear that means no!" said she, with a suppressed sob. "And I wanted so to see you again--so much, so much! What--not even you and I, Angel, who love each other so well?" Like a greater than himself, to the critical question at the critical time he did not answer; and they were again silent. In a minute or two her breathing became more regular, her clasp of his hand relaxed, and she fell asleep. The band of silver paleness along the east horizon made even the distant parts of the Great Plain appear dark and near; and the whole enormous landscape bore that impress of reserve, taciturnity, and hesitation which is usual just before day. The eastward pillars and their architraves stood up blackly against the light, and the great flame-shaped Sun-stone beyond them; and the Stone of Sacrifice midway. Presently the night wind died out, and the quivering little pools in the cup-like hollows of the stones lay still. At the same time something seemed to move on the verge of the dip eastward--a mere dot. It was the head of a man approaching them from the hollow beyond the Sun-stone. Clare wished they had gone onward, but in the circumstances decided to remain quiet. The figure came straight towards the circle of pillars in which they were. He heard something behind him, the brush of feet. Turning, he saw over the prostrate columns another figure; then before he was aware, another was at hand on the right, under a trilithon, and another on the left. The dawn shone full on the front of the man westward, and Clare could discern from this that he was tall, and walked as if trained. They all closed in with evident purpose. Her story then was true! Springing to his feet, he looked around for a weapon, loose stone, means of escape, anything. By this time the nearest man was upon him. "It is no use, sir," he said. "There are sixteen of us on the Plain, and the whole country is reared." "Let her finish her sleep!" he implored in a whisper of the men as they gathered round. When they saw where she lay, which they had not done till then, they showed no objection, and stood watching her, as still as the pillars around. He went to the stone and bent over her, holding one poor little hand; her breathing now was quick and small, like that of a lesser creature than a woman. All waited in the growing light, their faces and hands as if they were silvered, the remainder of their figures dark, the stones glistening green-gray, the Plain still a mass of shade. Soon the light was strong, and a ray shone upon her unconscious form, peering under her eyelids and waking her. "What is it, Angel?" she said, starting up. "Have they come for me?" "Yes, dearest," he said. "They have come." "It is as it should be," she murmured. "Angel, I am almost glad--yes, glad! This happiness could not have lasted. It was too much. I have had enough; and now I shall not live for you to despise me!" She stood up, shook herself, and went forward, neither of the men having moved. "I am ready," she said quietly.

Chapter LVIII

https://web.archive.org/web/20210213065711/https://www.novelguide.com/tess-of-the-durbervilles/summaries/phase7-chapter53-59

It begins to rain and the couple remains blissfully alone in the deserted mansion for five days. When the weather clears the housekeeper returns and spies them asleep. They leave and arrive in the dark at Stonehenge, the ancient sacred site. Tess lies on a rock that Angel declares to be an altar and begs him to marry Liza-Lu after her death. Angel remains quiet and Tess sleeps. He awakes to the sound of the authorities surrounding them and asks them not to wake her. She wakes, relieved that soon she will be dead: "I am ready"

sparknotes

all_chapterized_books/28054-chapters/31.txt

finished_summaries/sparknotes/The Brothers Karamazov/section_4_part_7.txt

The Brothers Karamazov.book 4.chapter 7

book 4, chapter 7

{"name": "book 4, Chapter 7", "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20210305110438/https://www.sparknotes.com/lit/brothersk/section5/", "summary": "And in the Fresh Air The captain is at first overjoyed at the prospect of 200 rubles. But after some consideration, he proudly throws the money to the ground, explaining that if he accepted it, his son would never be able to admire or respect him. Alyosha sets out to return the money to Katerina.", "analysis": "Book IV: Strains, Chapters 1-7 Alyosha and Zosima are extremely similar characters. Alyosha possesses Zosima's ability to ascertain a great deal about a person's inner self through simple observation. Alyosha also practices Zosima's -lesson of not judging other people. Finally, Alyosha's interaction with his father shows his ability to feel empathy for people's shortcomings while at the same time refraining from apologizing for their failings. His willingness to declare that his father is twisted illustrates his honesty and integrity, as well as his intricate understanding of human character--Alyosha draws a distinction between evil and immorality. His immediate understanding of Ivan and Katerina's relationship, his respect for the captain, and his sense that there is more to Ilyusha than violence and hostility all attest to his ability to quickly understand other people, a skill he learns from Zosima. Dostoevsky links this capability to moral purity throughout the novel, implying that the more honest and simple a person's faith is, the more easily that person will understand fellow human beings. The conflict between faith and doubt that pervades The Brothers Karamazov shows the detrimental effects of skepticism on the human character. For Dostoevsky, faith essentially represents a positive commitment to the truth, while doubt represents the suspicion that what poses as the truth is really a lie. As a result, a religious man like Zosima is capable of immediately perceiving the truth about others, whereas an irreligious man like Fyodor Pavlovich is consumed with suspicion and mistrust. Fyodor Pavlovich illustrates this difference in his suspicion that Ivan's attempt to seduce Katerina is actually a plot to keep Grushenka from marrying Fyodor Pavlovich. Fyodor Pavlovich himself is so dishonest that he assumes everyone around him is equally dishonest, and as a result, his lack of self-respect translates into as a lack of respect for the rest of humanity. This breakdown is what Zosima means when he says that the man who is dishonest with himself is incapable of love. Whereas Alyosha and Zosima love humankind because of their faith, the doubt that Ivan and Katerina feel makes them fatalistic. They see human nature as unchangeable, and therefore view people's lives as predetermined. Ivan sees Katerina's need to humiliate herself before Dmitri as a necessary part of her personality, and with that knowledge, he is paralyzed to act on his love for her, which he pridefully scorns as irrelevant. Katerina, who has been deeply hurt by Dmitri, has a corresponding sense that other people will disappoint her and cause her pain, and this sense manifests itself in her haughty desire to be made a martyr by the inevitable betrayals of those around her. She is unable to accept happiness as a possible outcome in her life, and as a result, she embraces humiliation and pain. Thus, she is just as paralyzed as Ivan, similarly unable to act on her feelings. In both of their cases, Dostoevsky shows how a kernel of doubt can spread through a person's character, transforming itself into a defensive pride that renders the person unable to be honest, happy, or capable of pursuing happiness"}

Chapter VII. And In The Open Air "The air is fresh, but in my apartment it is not so in any sense of the word. Let us walk slowly, sir. I should be glad of your kind interest." "I too have something important to say to you," observed Alyosha, "only I don't know how to begin." "To be sure you must have business with me. You would never have looked in upon me without some object. Unless you come simply to complain of the boy, and that's hardly likely. And, by the way, about the boy: I could not explain to you in there, but here I will describe that scene to you. My tow was thicker a week ago--I mean my beard. That's the nickname they give to my beard, the schoolboys most of all. Well, your brother Dmitri Fyodorovitch was pulling me by my beard, I'd done nothing, he was in a towering rage and happened to come upon me. He dragged me out of the tavern into the market-place; at that moment the boys were coming out of school, and with them Ilusha. As soon as he saw me in such a state he rushed up to me. 'Father,' he cried, 'father!' He caught hold of me, hugged me, tried to pull me away, crying to my assailant, 'Let go, let go, it's my father, forgive him!'--yes, he actually cried 'forgive him.' He clutched at that hand, that very hand, in his little hands and kissed it.... I remember his little face at that moment, I haven't forgotten it and I never shall!" "I swear," cried Alyosha, "that my brother will express his most deep and sincere regret, even if he has to go down on his knees in that same market-place.... I'll make him or he is no brother of mine!" "Aha, then it's only a suggestion! And it does not come from him but simply from the generosity of your own warm heart. You should have said so. No, in that case allow me to tell you of your brother's highly chivalrous soldierly generosity, for he did give expression to it at the time. He left off dragging me by my beard and released me: 'You are an officer,' he said, 'and I am an officer, if you can find a decent man to be your second send me your challenge. I will give satisfaction, though you are a scoundrel.' That's what he said. A chivalrous spirit indeed! I retired with Ilusha, and that scene is a family record imprinted for ever on Ilusha's soul. No, it's not for us to claim the privileges of noblemen. Judge for yourself. You've just been in our mansion, what did you see there? Three ladies, one a cripple and weak-minded, another a cripple and hunchback and the third not crippled but far too clever. She is a student, dying to get back to Petersburg, to work for the emancipation of the Russian woman on the banks of the Neva. I won't speak of Ilusha, he is only nine. I am alone in the world, and if I die, what will become of all of them? I simply ask you that. And if I challenge him and he kills me on the spot, what then? What will become of them? And worse still, if he doesn't kill me but only cripples me: I couldn't work, but I should still be a mouth to feed. Who would feed it and who would feed them all? Must I take Ilusha from school and send him to beg in the streets? That's what it means for me to challenge him to a duel. It's silly talk and nothing else." "He will beg your forgiveness, he will bow down at your feet in the middle of the market-place," cried Alyosha again, with glowing eyes. "I did think of prosecuting him," the captain went on, "but look in our code, could I get much compensation for a personal injury? And then Agrafena Alexandrovna(3) sent for me and shouted at me: 'Don't dare to dream of it! If you proceed against him, I'll publish it to all the world that he beat you for your dishonesty, and then you will be prosecuted.' I call God to witness whose was the dishonesty and by whose commands I acted, wasn't it by her own and Fyodor Pavlovitch's? 'And what's more,' she went on, 'I'll dismiss you for good and you'll never earn another penny from me. I'll speak to my merchant too' (that's what she calls her old man) 'and he will dismiss you!' And if he dismisses me, what can I earn then from any one? Those two are all I have to look to, for your Fyodor Pavlovitch has not only given over employing me, for another reason, but he means to make use of papers I've signed to go to law against me. And so I kept quiet, and you have seen our retreat. But now let me ask you: did Ilusha hurt your finger much? I didn't like to go into it in our mansion before him." "Yes, very much, and he was in a great fury. He was avenging you on me as a Karamazov, I see that now. But if only you had seen how he was throwing stones at his school-fellows! It's very dangerous. They might kill him. They are children and stupid. A stone may be thrown and break somebody's head." "That's just what has happened. He has been bruised by a stone to-day. Not on the head but on the chest, just above the heart. He came home crying and groaning and now he is ill." "And you know he attacks them first. He is bitter against them on your account. They say he stabbed a boy called Krassotkin with a pen-knife not long ago." "I've heard about that too, it's dangerous. Krassotkin is an official here, we may hear more about it." "I would advise you," Alyosha went on warmly, "not to send him to school at all for a time till he is calmer ... and his anger is passed." "Anger!" the captain repeated, "that's just what it is. He is a little creature, but it's a mighty anger. You don't know all, sir. Let me tell you more. Since that incident all the boys have been teasing him about the 'wisp of tow.' Schoolboys are a merciless race, individually they are angels, but together, especially in schools, they are often merciless. Their teasing has stirred up a gallant spirit in Ilusha. An ordinary boy, a weak son, would have submitted, have felt ashamed of his father, sir, but he stood up for his father against them all. For his father and for truth and justice. For what he suffered when he kissed your brother's hand and cried to him 'Forgive father, forgive him,'--that only God knows--and I, his father. For our children--not your children, but ours--the children of the poor gentlemen looked down upon by every one--know what justice means, sir, even at nine years old. How should the rich know? They don't explore such depths once in their lives. But at that moment in the square when he kissed his hand, at that moment my Ilusha had grasped all that justice means. That truth entered into him and crushed him for ever, sir," the captain said hotly again with a sort of frenzy, and he struck his right fist against his left palm as though he wanted to show how "the truth" crushed Ilusha. "That very day, sir, he fell ill with fever and was delirious all night. All that day he hardly said a word to me, but I noticed he kept watching me from the corner, though he turned to the window and pretended to be learning his lessons. But I could see his mind was not on his lessons. Next day I got drunk to forget my troubles, sinful man as I am, and I don't remember much. Mamma began crying, too--I am very fond of mamma--well, I spent my last penny drowning my troubles. Don't despise me for that, sir, in Russia men who drink are the best. The best men amongst us are the greatest drunkards. I lay down and I don't remember about Ilusha, though all that day the boys had been jeering at him at school. 'Wisp of tow,' they shouted, 'your father was pulled out of the tavern by his wisp of tow, you ran by and begged forgiveness.' " "On the third day when he came back from school, I saw he looked pale and wretched. 'What is it?' I asked. He wouldn't answer. Well, there's no talking in our mansion without mamma and the girls taking part in it. What's more, the girls had heard about it the very first day. Varvara had begun snarling. 'You fools and buffoons, can you ever do anything rational?' 'Quite so,' I said, 'can we ever do anything rational?' For the time I turned it off like that. So in the evening I took the boy out for a walk, for you must know we go for a walk every evening, always the same way, along which we are going now--from our gate to that great stone which lies alone in the road under the hurdle, which marks the beginning of the town pasture. A beautiful and lonely spot, sir. Ilusha and I walked along hand in hand as usual. He has a little hand, his fingers are thin and cold--he suffers with his chest, you know. 'Father,' said he, 'father!' 'Well?' said I. I saw his eyes flashing. 'Father, how he treated you then!' 'It can't be helped, Ilusha,' I said. 'Don't forgive him, father, don't forgive him! At school they say that he has paid you ten roubles for it.' 'No, Ilusha,' said I, 'I would not take money from him for anything.' Then he began trembling all over, took my hand in both his and kissed it again. 'Father,' he said, 'father, challenge him to a duel, at school they say you are a coward and won't challenge him, and that you'll accept ten roubles from him.' 'I can't challenge him to a duel, Ilusha,' I answered. And I told briefly what I've just told you. He listened. 'Father,' he said, 'anyway don't forgive it. When I grow up I'll call him out myself and kill him.' His eyes shone and glowed. And of course I am his father, and I had to put in a word: 'It's a sin to kill,' I said, 'even in a duel.' 'Father,' he said, 'when I grow up, I'll knock him down, knock the sword out of his hand, I'll fall on him, wave my sword over him and say: "I could kill you, but I forgive you, so there!" ' You see what the workings of his little mind have been during these two days; he must have been planning that vengeance all day, and raving about it at night. "But he began to come home from school badly beaten, I found out about it the day before yesterday, and you are right, I won't send him to that school any more. I heard that he was standing up against all the class alone and defying them all, that his heart was full of resentment, of bitterness--I was alarmed about him. We went for another walk. 'Father,' he asked, 'are the rich people stronger than any one else on earth?' 'Yes, Ilusha,' I said, 'there are no people on earth stronger than the rich.' 'Father,' he said, 'I will get rich, I will become an officer and conquer everybody. The Tsar will reward me, I will come back here and then no one will dare--' Then he was silent and his lips still kept trembling. 'Father,' he said, 'what a horrid town this is.' 'Yes, Ilusha,' I said, 'it isn't a very nice town.' 'Father, let us move into another town, a nice one,' he said, 'where people don't know about us.' 'We will move, we will, Ilusha,' said I, 'only I must save up for it.' I was glad to be able to turn his mind from painful thoughts, and we began to dream of how we would move to another town, how we would buy a horse and cart. 'We will put mamma and your sisters inside, we will cover them up and we'll walk, you shall have a lift now and then, and I'll walk beside, for we must take care of our horse, we can't all ride. That's how we'll go.' He was enchanted at that, most of all at the thought of having a horse and driving him. For of course a Russian boy is born among horses. We chattered a long while. Thank God, I thought, I have diverted his mind and comforted him. "That was the day before yesterday, in the evening, but last night everything was changed. He had gone to school in the morning, he came back depressed, terribly depressed. In the evening I took him by the hand and we went for a walk; he would not talk. There was a wind blowing and no sun, and a feeling of autumn; twilight was coming on. We walked along, both of us depressed. 'Well, my boy,' said I, 'how about our setting off on our travels?' I thought I might bring him back to our talk of the day before. He didn't answer, but I felt his fingers trembling in my hand. Ah, I thought, it's a bad job; there's something fresh. We had reached the stone where we are now. I sat down on the stone. And in the air there were lots of kites flapping and whirling. There were as many as thirty in sight. Of course, it's just the season for the kites. 'Look, Ilusha,' said I, 'it's time we got out our last year's kite again. I'll mend it, where have you put it away?' My boy made no answer. He looked away and turned sideways to me. And then a gust of wind blew up the sand. He suddenly fell on me, threw both his little arms round my neck and held me tight. You know, when children are silent and proud, and try to keep back their tears when they are in great trouble and suddenly break down, their tears fall in streams. With those warm streams of tears, he suddenly wetted my face. He sobbed and shook as though he were in convulsions, and squeezed up against me as I sat on the stone. 'Father,' he kept crying, 'dear father, how he insulted you!' And I sobbed too. We sat shaking in each other's arms. 'Ilusha,' I said to him, 'Ilusha darling.' No one saw us then. God alone saw us, I hope He will record it to my credit. You must thank your brother, Alexey Fyodorovitch. No, sir, I won't thrash my boy for your satisfaction." He had gone back to his original tone of resentful buffoonery. Alyosha felt though that he trusted him, and that if there had been some one else in his, Alyosha's place, the man would not have spoken so openly and would not have told what he had just told. This encouraged Alyosha, whose heart was trembling on the verge of tears. "Ah, how I would like to make friends with your boy!" he cried. "If you could arrange it--" "Certainly, sir," muttered the captain. "But now listen to something quite different!" Alyosha went on. "I have a message for you. That same brother of mine, Dmitri, has insulted his betrothed, too, a noble-hearted girl of whom you have probably heard. I have a right to tell you of her wrong; I ought to do so, in fact, for hearing of the insult done to you and learning all about your unfortunate position, she commissioned me at once--just now--to bring you this help from her--but only from her alone, not from Dmitri, who has abandoned her. Nor from me, his brother, nor from any one else, but from her, only from her! She entreats you to accept her help.... You have both been insulted by the same man. She thought of you only when she had just received a similar insult from him--similar in its cruelty, I mean. She comes like a sister to help a brother in misfortune.... She told me to persuade you to take these two hundred roubles from her, as from a sister, knowing that you are in such need. No one will know of it, it can give rise to no unjust slander. There are the two hundred roubles, and I swear you must take them unless--unless all men are to be enemies on earth! But there are brothers even on earth.... You have a generous heart ... you must see that, you must," and Alyosha held out two new rainbow-colored hundred-rouble notes. They were both standing at the time by the great stone close to the fence, and there was no one near. The notes seemed to produce a tremendous impression on the captain. He started, but at first only from astonishment. Such an outcome of their conversation was the last thing he expected. Nothing could have been farther from his dreams than help from any one--and such a sum! He took the notes, and for a minute he was almost unable to answer, quite a new expression came into his face. "That for me? So much money--two hundred roubles! Good heavens! Why, I haven't seen so much money for the last four years! Mercy on us! And she says she is a sister.... And is that the truth?" "I swear that all I told you is the truth," cried Alyosha. The captain flushed red. "Listen, my dear, listen. If I take it, I shan't be behaving like a scoundrel? In your eyes, Alexey Fyodorovitch, I shan't be a scoundrel? No, Alexey Fyodorovitch, listen, listen," he hurried, touching Alyosha with both his hands. "You are persuading me to take it, saying that it's a sister sends it, but inwardly, in your heart won't you feel contempt for me if I take it, eh?" "No, no, on my salvation I swear I shan't! And no one will ever know but me--I, you and she, and one other lady, her great friend." "Never mind the lady! Listen, Alexey Fyodorovitch, at a moment like this you must listen, for you can't understand what these two hundred roubles mean to me now." The poor fellow went on rising gradually into a sort of incoherent, almost wild enthusiasm. He was thrown off his balance and talked extremely fast, as though afraid he would not be allowed to say all he had to say. "Besides its being honestly acquired from a 'sister,' so highly respected and revered, do you know that now I can look after mamma and Nina, my hunchback angel daughter? Doctor Herzenstube came to me in the kindness of his heart and was examining them both for a whole hour. 'I can make nothing of it,' said he, but he prescribed a mineral water which is kept at a chemist's here. He said it would be sure to do her good, and he ordered baths, too, with some medicine in them. The mineral water costs thirty copecks, and she'd need to drink forty bottles perhaps; so I took the prescription and laid it on the shelf under the ikons, and there it lies. And he ordered hot baths for Nina with something dissolved in them, morning and evening. But how can we carry out such a cure in our mansion, without servants, without help, without a bath, and without water? Nina is rheumatic all over, I don't think I told you that. All her right side aches at night, she is in agony, and, would you believe it, the angel bears it without groaning for fear of waking us. We eat what we can get, and she'll only take the leavings, what you'd scarcely give to a dog. 'I am not worth it, I am taking it from you, I am a burden on you,' that's what her angel eyes try to express. We wait on her, but she doesn't like it. 'I am a useless cripple, no good to any one.' As though she were not worth it, when she is the saving of all of us with her angelic sweetness. Without her, without her gentle word it would be hell among us! She softens even Varvara. And don't judge Varvara harshly either, she is an angel too, she, too, has suffered wrong. She came to us for the summer, and she brought sixteen roubles she had earned by lessons and saved up, to go back with to Petersburg in September, that is now. But we took her money and lived on it, so now she has nothing to go back with. Though indeed she couldn't go back, for she has to work for us like a slave. She is like an overdriven horse with all of us on her back. She waits on us all, mends and washes, sweeps the floor, puts mamma to bed. And mamma is capricious and tearful and insane! And now I can get a servant with this money, you understand, Alexey Fyodorovitch, I can get medicines for the dear creatures, I can send my student to Petersburg, I can buy beef, I can feed them properly. Good Lord, but it's a dream!" Alyosha was delighted that he had brought him such happiness and that the poor fellow had consented to be made happy. "Stay, Alexey Fyodorovitch, stay," the captain began to talk with frenzied rapidity, carried away by a new day-dream. "Do you know that Ilusha and I will perhaps really carry out our dream. We will buy a horse and cart, a black horse, he insists on its being black, and we will set off as we pretended the other day. I have an old friend, a lawyer in K. province, and I heard through a trustworthy man that if I were to go he'd give me a place as clerk in his office, so, who knows, maybe he would. So I'd just put mamma and Nina in the cart, and Ilusha could drive, and I'd walk, I'd walk.... Why, if I only succeed in getting one debt paid that's owing me, I should have perhaps enough for that too!" "There would be enough!" cried Alyosha. "Katerina Ivanovna will send you as much more as you need, and you know, I have money too, take what you want, as you would from a brother, from a friend, you can give it back later.... (You'll get rich, you'll get rich!) And you know you couldn't have a better idea than to move to another province! It would be the saving of you, especially of your boy--and you ought to go quickly, before the winter, before the cold. You must write to us when you are there, and we will always be brothers.... No, it's not a dream!" Alyosha could have hugged him, he was so pleased. But glancing at him he stopped short. The man was standing with his neck outstretched and his lips protruding, with a pale and frenzied face. His lips were moving as though trying to articulate something; no sound came, but still his lips moved. It was uncanny. "What is it?" asked Alyosha, startled. "Alexey Fyodorovitch ... I ... you," muttered the captain, faltering, looking at him with a strange, wild, fixed stare, and an air of desperate resolution. At the same time there was a sort of grin on his lips. "I ... you, sir ... wouldn't you like me to show you a little trick I know?" he murmured, suddenly, in a firm rapid whisper, his voice no longer faltering. "What trick?" "A pretty trick," whispered the captain. His mouth was twisted on the left side, his left eye was screwed up. He still stared at Alyosha. "What is the matter? What trick?" Alyosha cried, now thoroughly alarmed. "Why, look," squealed the captain suddenly, and showing him the two notes which he had been holding by one corner between his thumb and forefinger during the conversation, he crumpled them up savagely and squeezed them tight in his right hand. "Do you see, do you see?" he shrieked, pale and infuriated. And suddenly flinging up his hand, he threw the crumpled notes on the sand. "Do you see?" he shrieked again, pointing to them. "Look there!" And with wild fury he began trampling them under his heel, gasping and exclaiming as he did so: "So much for your money! So much for your money! So much for your money! So much for your money!" Suddenly he darted back and drew himself up before Alyosha, and his whole figure expressed unutterable pride. "Tell those who sent you that the wisp of tow does not sell his honor," he cried, raising his arm in the air. Then he turned quickly and began to run; but he had not run five steps before he turned completely round and kissed his hand to Alyosha. He ran another five paces and then turned round for the last time. This time his face was not contorted with laughter, but quivering all over with tears. In a tearful, faltering, sobbing voice he cried: "What should I say to my boy if I took money from you for our shame?" And then he ran on without turning. Alyosha looked after him, inexpressibly grieved. Oh, he saw that till the very last moment the man had not known he would crumple up and fling away the notes. He did not turn back. Alyosha knew he would not. He would not follow him and call him back, he knew why. When he was out of sight, Alyosha picked up the two notes. They were very much crushed and crumpled, and had been pressed into the sand, but were uninjured and even rustled like new ones when Alyosha unfolded them and smoothed them out. After smoothing them out, he folded them up, put them in his pocket and went to Katerina Ivanovna to report on the success of her commission.

book 4, Chapter 7

https://web.archive.org/web/20210305110438/https://www.sparknotes.com/lit/brothersk/section5/

And in the Fresh Air The captain is at first overjoyed at the prospect of 200 rubles. But after some consideration, he proudly throws the money to the ground, explaining that if he accepted it, his son would never be able to admire or respect him. Alyosha sets out to return the money to Katerina.

Book IV: Strains, Chapters 1-7 Alyosha and Zosima are extremely similar characters. Alyosha possesses Zosima's ability to ascertain a great deal about a person's inner self through simple observation. Alyosha also practices Zosima's -lesson of not judging other people. Finally, Alyosha's interaction with his father shows his ability to feel empathy for people's shortcomings while at the same time refraining from apologizing for their failings. His willingness to declare that his father is twisted illustrates his honesty and integrity, as well as his intricate understanding of human character--Alyosha draws a distinction between evil and immorality. His immediate understanding of Ivan and Katerina's relationship, his respect for the captain, and his sense that there is more to Ilyusha than violence and hostility all attest to his ability to quickly understand other people, a skill he learns from Zosima. Dostoevsky links this capability to moral purity throughout the novel, implying that the more honest and simple a person's faith is, the more easily that person will understand fellow human beings. The conflict between faith and doubt that pervades The Brothers Karamazov shows the detrimental effects of skepticism on the human character. For Dostoevsky, faith essentially represents a positive commitment to the truth, while doubt represents the suspicion that what poses as the truth is really a lie. As a result, a religious man like Zosima is capable of immediately perceiving the truth about others, whereas an irreligious man like Fyodor Pavlovich is consumed with suspicion and mistrust. Fyodor Pavlovich illustrates this difference in his suspicion that Ivan's attempt to seduce Katerina is actually a plot to keep Grushenka from marrying Fyodor Pavlovich. Fyodor Pavlovich himself is so dishonest that he assumes everyone around him is equally dishonest, and as a result, his lack of self-respect translates into as a lack of respect for the rest of humanity. This breakdown is what Zosima means when he says that the man who is dishonest with himself is incapable of love. Whereas Alyosha and Zosima love humankind because of their faith, the doubt that Ivan and Katerina feel makes them fatalistic. They see human nature as unchangeable, and therefore view people's lives as predetermined. Ivan sees Katerina's need to humiliate herself before Dmitri as a necessary part of her personality, and with that knowledge, he is paralyzed to act on his love for her, which he pridefully scorns as irrelevant. Katerina, who has been deeply hurt by Dmitri, has a corresponding sense that other people will disappoint her and cause her pain, and this sense manifests itself in her haughty desire to be made a martyr by the inevitable betrayals of those around her. She is unable to accept happiness as a possible outcome in her life, and as a result, she embraces humiliation and pain. Thus, she is just as paralyzed as Ivan, similarly unable to act on her feelings. In both of their cases, Dostoevsky shows how a kernel of doubt can spread through a person's character, transforming itself into a defensive pride that renders the person unable to be honest, happy, or capable of pursuing happiness

shmoop

all_chapterized_books/1130-chapters/27.txt

finished_summaries/shmoop/The Tragedy of Antony and Cleopatra/section_26_part_0.txt

The Tragedy of Antony and Cleopatra.act iv.scene ii

act iv, scene ii

{"name": "Act IV, Scene ii", "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20210116191009/https://www.shmoop.com/study-guides/literature/antony-cleopatra/summary/act-iv-scene-ii", "summary": "Antony receives news that Caesar won't fight him man-to-man. Enobarbus proposes it's because Caesar thinks his fortunes are about twenty times better than Antony's, making it an unfair fight. Antony promises to throw himself into the next day's battle whole-heartedly. Antony gathers all of his men and praises them in a way that makes it seem like he's saying goodbye to them once and for all. Enobarbus and Cleopatra speak to each other in whispers, wondering what the dickens Antony is doing. The way Antony thanks his soldiers for their good fight makes it seem like he expects death and defeat in the next day's battle. Not much of a morale booster. Eventually, even Enobarbus is in tears, as are the soldiers. Antony chides them, claiming he didn't mean to be a drama queen. He just wanted to comfort them and convince them they should make this night a great one. Interestingly, he says he expects out of tomorrow \"victorious life death and honor.\" Either way, Antony is in a bad way, and like many men in a bad way, he instructs them all feast so they can drown their dark thoughts with drinking.", "analysis": ""}

SCENE II. Alexandria. CLEOPATRA's palace Enter ANTONY, CLEOPATRA, ENOBARBUS, CHARMIAN, IRAS, ALEXAS, with others ANTONY. He will not fight with me, Domitius? ENOBARBUS. No. ANTONY. Why should he not? ENOBARBUS. He thinks, being twenty times of better fortune, He is twenty men to one. ANTONY. To-morrow, soldier, By sea and land I'll fight. Or I will live, Or bathe my dying honour in the blood Shall make it live again. Woo't thou fight well? ENOBARBUS. I'll strike, and cry 'Take all.' ANTONY. Well said; come on. Call forth my household servants; let's to-night Be bounteous at our meal. Enter three or four servitors Give me thy hand, Thou has been rightly honest. So hast thou; Thou, and thou, and thou. You have serv'd me well, And kings have been your fellows. CLEOPATRA. [Aside to ENOBARBUS] What means this? ENOBARBUS. [Aside to CLEOPATRA] 'Tis one of those odd tricks which sorrow shoots Out of the mind. ANTONY. And thou art honest too. I wish I could be made so many men, And all of you clapp'd up together in An Antony, that I might do you service So good as you have done. SERVANT. The gods forbid! ANTONY. Well, my good fellows, wait on me to-night. Scant not my cups, and make as much of me As when mine empire was your fellow too, And suffer'd my command. CLEOPATRA. [Aside to ENOBARBUS] What does he mean? ENOBARBUS. [Aside to CLEOPATRA] To make his followers weep. ANTONY. Tend me to-night; May be it is the period of your duty. Haply you shall not see me more; or if, A mangled shadow. Perchance to-morrow You'll serve another master. I look on you As one that takes his leave. Mine honest friends, I turn you not away; but, like a master Married to your good service, stay till death. Tend me to-night two hours, I ask no more, And the gods yield you for't! ENOBARBUS. What mean you, sir, To give them this discomfort? Look, they weep; And I, an ass, am onion-ey'd. For shame! Transform us not to women. ANTONY. Ho, ho, ho! Now the witch take me if I meant it thus! Grace grow where those drops fall! My hearty friends, You take me in too dolorous a sense; For I spake to you for your comfort, did desire you To burn this night with torches. Know, my hearts, I hope well of to-morrow, and will lead you Where rather I'll expect victorious life Than death and honour. Let's to supper, come, And drown consideration. Exeunt ACT_4|SC_3

Act IV, Scene ii

https://web.archive.org/web/20210116191009/https://www.shmoop.com/study-guides/literature/antony-cleopatra/summary/act-iv-scene-ii

Antony receives news that Caesar won't fight him man-to-man. Enobarbus proposes it's because Caesar thinks his fortunes are about twenty times better than Antony's, making it an unfair fight. Antony promises to throw himself into the next day's battle whole-heartedly. Antony gathers all of his men and praises them in a way that makes it seem like he's saying goodbye to them once and for all. Enobarbus and Cleopatra speak to each other in whispers, wondering what the dickens Antony is doing. The way Antony thanks his soldiers for their good fight makes it seem like he expects death and defeat in the next day's battle. Not much of a morale booster. Eventually, even Enobarbus is in tears, as are the soldiers. Antony chides them, claiming he didn't mean to be a drama queen. He just wanted to comfort them and convince them they should make this night a great one. Interestingly, he says he expects out of tomorrow "victorious life death and honor." Either way, Antony is in a bad way, and like many men in a bad way, he instructs them all feast so they can drown their dark thoughts with drinking.

gradesaver

all_chapterized_books/11012-chapters/chapters_1_to_2.txt

finished_summaries/gradesaver/The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man/section_0_part_0.txt

The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man.chapters 1-2

chapters 1-2

{"name": "Chapters I-II", "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20180424054150/http://www.gradesaver.com/the-autobiography-of-an-excolored-man/study-guide/summary-chapters-i-ii", "summary": "The first-person narrator, whose name the reader does not know , begins by explaining that he Is going to divulge his greatest secret, a painful and fascinating secret that he has kept for years. He describes his early childhood growing up in a small town in Georgia right after the Civil War. His earliest memories are punctuated by his father's infrequent visits. He remembers that his father once gave him a small coin with a hole bored through it that he still wears around his neck. One day, the narrator's mother takes him to Connecticut, where she proceeds to raise him as a \"perfect little aristocrat\". She earns money by sewing. Early on, the narrator takes up the piano, imitating the songs his mother plays. He finds much joy in music, soon surpassing his mother and impressing his first teacher with his natural gift. He also embraces his school books and loves learning as much as he loves playing the piano. After a few pleasant years at a private school, the narrator's mother enrolls him in a public school. There, he makes a strong friend in \"Red Head\", or as he later calls him, \"Red\", an older and larger boy who has been held back from advancing in grades. Their friendship is cemented when the narrator saves Red from embarrassing himself during a spelling competition. The narrator feels that he \"benefit\" from Red's \"strength and faithfulness\" and Red, meanwhile, sees the mutual advantage of the narrator's \"wit and quickness\". The narrator mentions that he there are a few \"colored\" boys and girls in his school and class; one of them, nicknamed \"Shiny\" for his polished black skin and sparkling eyes, is the top pupil in the school. However, the white students taunt the African American students by calling them \"nigger\". One day, the narrator uses the word in his home and he is stunned at his mother's stinging rebuke. One day the principal of the school comes into the narrator's classroom and instructs the white students to stand. The narrator stands along with the rest of his white classmates, but is surprised when the principal tells him to sit down. The narrator is confused and shocked, overhearing other students saying they always knew he was \"colored\". When he is back at home, he studies his features in the mirror, understanding why his mother's friends always call him a \"pretty\" boy. Tormented, he implores his mother to tell him if he is a \"nigger\". Her eyes well with tears, but she tells him that he is not a \"nigger\". The narrator keeps pressing his mother and asks her if she is white and if he is white. She finally says no, but quickly adds that his father is a great man. The narrator wants to know more about his father and meet him but his mother says it is not the right time. The narrator later muses about the reveal of this great secret, \"perhaps it had to be done, but I have never forgiven the woman who did it so cruelly\". After that day, the narrator becomes keenly aware of the way people at school perceive him. He mentions that even decades later, he has never forgotten how it felt to experience the knowledge of his blackness. He believes he has passed into another world where the fact of his being \"colored\" permeates every thought and every experience of his life in the United States. His view is no longer that of \"a...citizen, or a man, not even a human being\" but of a \"colored man\". The narrator concludes that this division is what makes the \"colored\" people more mysterious to white Americans, while \"colored\" people understand whites, their oppressors, in a much deeper way. The narrator explains how this new awareness of his race changes his behavior towards other people, and not the other way around. He becomes \"reserved...suspicious\" and considers faithful Red as his only friend. He does not want to be grouped with the other students of color, even though he feels a sympathetic bond with Shiny. The narrator instead turns inward to his books and music, reading the Bible rigorously but not being impressed overall with books of theology. He takes lessons with the organist of the church he attends with his mother, and, at twelve, begins his lifelong career of impressing older listeners with his musical skill. He is praised for his ability to playing a piece of music with feeling and verve, and not in a rote or artificial manner. His affectations are pure and his ear is mature. The narrator continues through school, helping Red along with his studies so that they can remain together. During his third term, he falls in love with a young violinist, and even though he hates playing as an accompanist, he agrees to work with her. This brown-eyed girl is his first love \"and love her as only a boy loves\". One day, the narrator arrives home, in a hurry to get his music and get to his duet practice with the brown-eyed girl, when he realizes that something is different. An elegant, well-dressed visitor is there, smiling at the young narrator and leaning on the mantel. His mother tells her bewildered son that the elegant man is his father. The narrator is stunned, and although this man is who he pictured his father to be, he is nervous and tongue-tied. He feels like he cannot rise to the occasion and act as he should. After a bit of polite conversation, the narrator's mother, who is blissfully happy and full of smiles, asks her son to play something for his father. He plays Chopin passionately for his rapturous parents, but admits to the reader that his efforts are half-hearted. He asks if his father is staying, but the man replies that he is going to New York and will see him again soon. The narrator reveals that he only met his father once more after that. On his way to the rehearsal, the narrator's young mind races over the encounter. As an older man, the narrator understands that at the time his younger self could not conceive of his white father as truly different from him because \"he had only a faint knowledge of prejudice and had no idea at all how it ramified and affected our entire social organism.\" After the rehearsal, which is nearly cancelled because the brown-eyed girl is annoyed at his tardiness, he returns home to his darkened house and finds his mother singing softly to herself. She tells the narrator about his father: \"a great man, a fine gentleman\" who will make a great man out of him as well. Looking back years later, the narrator wonders if his mother was aware that she was speaking in half-truths. As this novel is structured as an autobiography, the narrator begins by describing his childhood, setting up the context that he grows up in and that develops his identity. Identity is one of the central themes of the text and will be discussed in later analyses, but it is clear that the narrator's childhood experiences are crucial to his later development. He grows up not knowing that he is \"colored\" and comes by this knowledge in a humiliating way. He does not know his father and spends his adult life consequently grappling with the notion of manhood and how it impacts his racial identity. Johnson also establishes that the narrator is brilliant and a gifted musician, which will later facilitate his forays into both sides of the racial divide as he attempts to reconcile the two. These early chapters also introduce one of the few characters with a name -Shiny- and present him as a foil for the narrator as a man who embodies a different, more authentic form of blackness. The novel's reissue during the the heyday of the Harlem Renaissance is not surprising given James Weldon Johnson's stature in the 1920s. He had made his name in music, arts and letters, diplomacy, and became a political leader as head of the NAACP. Even though The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man was first published in 1912, it contains themes of self-actualization, \"passing\", the cultural contributions of African-Americans, and common consciousness, all of which were ubiquitous features of Harlem Renaissance fiction. Like Johnson's narrator, Harlem Renaissance writers viewed their language as performative speech and strove to prove that they were worthy of equal stature in American society. In this novel, Johnson describes stereotypes and early characterizations of African Americans that Harlem Renaissance writers would later categorize within the \"Old Negro\" archetype. These literary tropes were largely negative and could be read as semiotic signs, which imparted meaning to readers. The \"Old Negro\" characters included: the tom, a docile servant named after Uncle Tom; the coon, a backward country type; the buck, a sexualized and savage man; the tragic mulatta, a mixed-race and sexually attractive female character; and the mammy, a large, loyal, female domestic servant. Other less common \"Old Negro\" characters included the concubine and the conjure woman. Harlem Renaissance writers directly counteracted these popular images and endeavored to replace them with positive and nuanced depictions of African Americans. This was not only to change white readers' opinion about African Americans but also to counteract the deleterious affect such representations had on African Americans themselves, who were wont to internalize the stereotypes. In contrast, the \"New Negro\", as touted by Renaissance writers, was characterized by self-respect, self-dependence, and racial pride. The Harlem Renaissance writers, a group which includes Johnson even though he wrote Autobiography a decade earlier, grappled with certain common questions. Since their artistic abilities possessed performative potential, they wondered what level of responsibility they must take for portraying the positive aspects of African American characters. Should they defend and glorify their characters or present an honest portrayal of their people, even if it was negative and sometimes verged into the territory of stereotypes? Should they appeal to an African American audience, even though the majority of book-readers were white? W.E.B. Du Bois famously noted that \"all art is propaganda and ever must be\", and Johnson was very much aware of this. In The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man, the relationship between Johnson and the character of the narrator is unclear. Literary critics have long debated which ideas and sentiments are actually the author's and which are the character's, trying to negotiate the degree to which Johnson himself ever felt the narrator's brand of self-hatred, racism, and naivete. The title of the novel further complicates the matter, since it is not really an autobiography, but is written as if it were, and was originally published anonymously. Meanwhile, the character of the narrator makes a point of keeping his racial identity a secret and refusing to divulge certain identifiable details about his life. In terms of structure and style, The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man is a veritable pastiche. It is structured as an autobiography but contains elements of the picaresque, psychological realism, social protest, parody, and the slave narrative. The novel's relationship to slave narratives, hitherto the primary literary mode utilized by African American writers, is noteworthy. Slave narratives, like those written by Frederick Douglass, Olaudah Equiano, and Harriet Jacobs, were all factual, written in the first person, and depicted the struggles of their protagonists using autobiographical terms. These narratives revealed their authors' dignity and resilience in the face of abject despair at the hands of their white masters in an overwhelmingly racist society. Slave narratives usually began with a recounting of the author's time in slavery followed by a description of his or her escape to freedom. Through this journey, each of the former slaves describes a transition to selfhood and enlightenment. Johnson's novel is similar in that it is told by a first-person narrator who is on a journey of realization, although it is fictional. The critic Donald C. Goellnicht pays particular attention to the scene where the narrator's father says goodbye to him and gives him the coin necklace. He reads this scene as a parallel to \"the auctioning off of the slave-owner's bastard children that is a common trope in the slave narratives. Having been auctioned off as a child, the narrator still maintains a misplaced desire for the coin that establishes his value -or, rather, his lack of value -as a human being.\" The coin represents the shackles of slavery and the narrator's enslavement to \"the system of private property ownership that was the basis of chattel slavery\". Some critics, however, describe The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man as a reverse slave narrative, in which the narrator actually cancels his selfhood. He is, critic Zoe Trodd writes, an \"unreliable narrator, with a void past and numerous shifting identities\" who \"narrates himself out of existence.\" Goellnicht offers arguments for this perspective as well, noting that in Johnson's novel, the reader \" a narrative in which the construction of a non-self...involv perverse blindness, voluntary invisibility, and self-enslavement\".", "analysis": ""}

I know that in writing the following pages I am divulging the great secret of my life, the secret which for some years I have guarded far more carefully than any of my earthly possessions; and it is a curious study to me to analyze the motives which prompt me to do it. I feel that I am led by the same impulse which forces the un-found-out criminal to take somebody into his confidence, although he knows that the act is likely, even almost certain, to lead to his undoing. I know that I am playing with fire, and I feel the thrill which accompanies that most fascinating pastime; and, back of it all, I think I find a sort of savage and diabolical desire to gather up all the little tragedies of my life, and turn them into a practical joke on society. And, too, I suffer a vague feeling of unsatisfaction, of regret, of almost remorse, from which I am seeking relief, and of which I shall speak in the last paragraph of this account. I was born in a little town of Georgia a few years after the close of the Civil War. I shall not mention the name of the town, because there are people still living there who could be connected with this narrative. I have only a faint recollection of the place of my birth. At times I can close my eyes and call up in a dreamlike way things that seem to have happened ages ago in some other world. I can see in this half vision a little house--I am quite sure it was not a large one--I can remember that flowers grew in the front yard, and that around each bed of flowers was a hedge of vari-colored glass bottles stuck in the ground neck down. I remember that once, while playing around in the sand, I became curious to know whether or not the bottles grew as the flowers did, and I proceeded to dig them up to find out; the investigation brought me a terrific spanking, which indelibly fixed the incident in my mind. I can remember, too, that behind the house was a shed under which stood two or three wooden wash-tubs. These tubs were the earliest aversion of my life, for regularly on certain evenings I was plunged into one of them and scrubbed until my skin ached. I can remember to this day the pain caused by the strong, rank soap's getting into my eyes. Back from the house a vegetable garden ran, perhaps seventy-five or one hundred feet; but to my childish fancy it was an endless territory. I can still recall the thrill of joy, excitement, and wonder it gave me to go on an exploring expedition through it, to find the blackberries, both ripe and green, that grew along the edge of the fence. I remember with what pleasure I used to arrive at, and stand before, a little enclosure in which stood a patient cow chewing her cud, how I would occasionally offer her through the bars a piece of my bread and molasses, and how I would jerk back my hand in half fright if she made any motion to accept my offer. I have a dim recollection of several people who moved in and about this little house, but I have a distinct mental image of only two: one, my mother; and the other, a tall man with a small, dark mustache. I remember that his shoes or boots were always shiny, and that he wore a gold chain and a great gold watch with which he was always willing to let me play. My admiration was almost equally divided between the watch and chain and the shoes. He used to come to the house evenings, perhaps two or three times a week; and it became my appointed duty whenever he came to bring him a pair of slippers and to put the shiny shoes in a particular corner; he often gave me in return for this service a bright coin, which my mother taught me to promptly drop in a little tin bank. I remember distinctly the last time this tall man came to the little house in Georgia; that evening before I went to bed he took me up in his arms and squeezed me very tightly; my mother stood behind his chair wiping tears from her eyes. I remember how I sat upon his knee and watched him laboriously drill a hole through a ten-dollar gold piece, and then tie the coin around my neck with a string. I have worn that gold piece around my neck the greater part of my life, and still possess it, but more than once I have wished that some other way had been found of attaching it to me besides putting a hole through it. On the day after the coin was put around my neck my mother and I started on what seemed to me an endless journey. I knelt on the seat and watched through the train window the corn and cotton fields pass swiftly by until I fell asleep. When I fully awoke, we were being driven through the streets of a large city--Savannah. I sat up and blinked at the bright lights. At Savannah we boarded a steamer which finally landed us in New York. From New York we went to a town in Connecticut, which became the home of my boyhood. My mother and I lived together in a little cottage which seemed to me to be fitted up almost luxuriously; there were horse-hair-covered chairs in the parlor, and a little square piano; there was a stairway with red carpet on it leading to a half second story; there were pictures on the walls, and a few books in a glass-doored case. My mother dressed me very neatly, and I developed that pride which well-dressed boys generally have. She was careful about my associates, and I myself was quite particular. As I look back now I can see that I was a perfect little aristocrat. My mother rarely went to anyone's house, but she did sewing, and there were a great many ladies coming to our cottage. If I was around they would generally call me, and ask me my name and age and tell my mother what a pretty boy I was. Some of them would pat me on the head and kiss me. My mother was kept very busy with her sewing; sometimes she would have another woman helping her. I think she must have derived a fair income from her work. I know, too, that at least once each month she received a letter; I used to watch for the postman, get the letter, and run to her with it; whether she was busy or not, she would take it and instantly thrust it into her bosom. I never saw her read one of these letters. I knew later that they contained money and what was to her more than money. As busy as she generally was, she found time, however, to teach me my letters and figures and how to spell a number of easy words. Always on Sunday evenings she opened the little square piano and picked out hymns. I can recall now that whenever she played hymns from the book her _tempo_ was always decidedly _largo_. Sometimes on other evenings, when she was not sewing, she would play simple accompaniments to some old Southern songs which she sang. In these songs she was freer, because she played them by ear. Those evenings on which she opened the little piano were the happiest hours of my childhood. Whenever she started toward the instrument, I used to follow her with all the interest and irrepressible joy that a pampered pet dog shows when a package is opened in which he knows there is a sweet bit for him. I used to stand by her side and often interrupt and annoy her by chiming in with strange harmonies which I found on either the high keys of the treble or the low keys of the bass. I remember that I had a particular fondness for the black keys. Always on such evenings, when the music was over, my mother would sit with me in her arms, often for a very long time. She would hold me close, softly crooning some old melody without words, all the while gently stroking her face against my head; many and many a night I thus fell asleep. I can see her now, her great dark eyes looking into the fire, to where? No one knew but her. The memory of that picture has more than once kept me from straying too far from the place of purity and safety in which her arms held me. At a very early age I began to thump on the piano alone, and it was not long before I was able to pick out a few tunes. When I was seven years old, I could play by ear all of the hymns and songs that my mother knew. I had also learned the names of the notes in both clefs, but I preferred not to be hampered by notes. About this time several ladies for whom my mother sewed heard me play and they persuaded her that I should at once be put under a teacher; so arrangements were made for me to study the piano with a lady who was a fairly good musician; at the same time arrangements were made for me to study my books with this lady's daughter. My music teacher had no small difficulty at first in pinning me down to the notes. If she played my lesson over for me, I invariably attempted to reproduce the required sounds without the slightest recourse to the written characters. Her daughter, my other teacher, also had her worries. She found that, in reading, whenever I came to words that were difficult or unfamiliar, I was prone to bring my imagination to the rescue and read from the picture. She has laughingly told me, since then, that I would sometimes substitute whole sentences and even paragraphs from what meaning I thought the illustrations conveyed. She said she not only was sometimes amused at the fresh treatment I would give an author's subject, but, when I gave some new and sudden turn to the plot of the story, often grew interested and even excited in listening to hear what kind of a denouement I would bring about. But I am sure this was not due to dullness, for I made rapid progress in both my music and my books. And so for a couple of years my life was divided between my music and my school books. Music took up the greater part of my time. I had no playmates, but amused myself with games--some of them my own invention--which could be played alone. I knew a few boys whom I had met at the church which I attended with my mother, but I had formed no close friendships with any of them. Then, when I was nine years old, my mother decided to enter me in the public school, so all at once I found myself thrown among a crowd of boys of all sizes and kinds; some of them seemed to me like savages. I shall never forget the bewilderment, the pain, the heart-sickness, of that first day at school. I seemed to be the only stranger in the place; every other boy seemed to know every other boy. I was fortunate enough, however, to be assigned to a teacher who knew me; my mother made her dresses. She was one of the ladies who used to pat me on the head and kiss me. She had the tact to address a few words directly to me; this gave me a certain sort of standing in the class and put me somewhat at ease. Within a few days I had made one staunch friend and was on fairly good terms with most of the boys. I was shy of the girls, and remained so; even now a word or look from a pretty woman sets me all a-tremble. This friend I bound to me with hooks of steel in a very simple way. He was a big awkward boy with a face full of freckles and a head full of very red hair. He was perhaps fourteen years of age; that is, four or five years older than any other boy in the class. This seniority was due to the fact that he had spent twice the required amount of time in several of the preceding classes. I had not been at school many hours before I felt that "Red Head"--as I involuntarily called him--and I were to be friends. I do not doubt that this feeling was strengthened by the fact that I had been quick enough to see that a big, strong boy was a friend to be desired at a public school; and, perhaps, in spite of his dullness, "Red Head" had been able to discern that I could be of service to him. At any rate there was a simultaneous mutual attraction. The teacher had strung the class promiscuously around the walls of the room for a sort of trial heat for places of rank; when the line was straightened out, I found that by skillful maneuvering I had placed myself third and had piloted "Red Head" to the place next to me. The teacher began by giving us to spell the words corresponding to our order in the line. "Spell _first_." "Spell _second_." "Spell _third_." I rattled off: "T-h-i-r-d, third," in a way which said: "Why don't you give us something hard?" As the words went down the line, I could see how lucky I had been to get a good place together with an easy word. As young as I was, I felt impressed with the unfairness of the whole proceeding when I saw the tailenders going down before _twelfth_ and _twentieth_, and I felt sorry for those who had to spell such words in order to hold a low position. "Spell _fourth_." "Red Head," with his hands clutched tightly behind his back, began bravely: "F-o-r-t-h." Like a flash a score of hands went up, and the teacher began saying: "No snapping of fingers, no snapping of fingers." This was the first word missed, and it seemed to me that some of the scholars were about to lose their senses; some were dancing up and down on one foot with a hand above their heads, the fingers working furiously, and joy beaming all over their faces; others stood still, their hands raised not so high, their fingers working less rapidly, and their faces expressing not quite so much happiness; there were still others who did not move or raise their hands, but stood with great wrinkles on their foreheads, looking very thoughtful. The whole thing was new to me, and I did not raise my hand, but slyly whispered the letter "u" to "Red Head" several times. "Second chance," said the teacher. The hands went down and the class became quiet. "Red Head," his face now red, after looking beseechingly at the ceiling, then pitiably at the floor, began very haltingly: "F-u--" Immediately an impulse to raise hands went through the class, but the teacher checked it, and poor "Red Head," though he knew that each letter he added only took him farther out of the way, went doggedly on and finished: "--r-t-h." The hand-raising was now repeated with more hubbub and excitement than at first. Those who before had not moved a finger were now waving their hands above their heads. "Red Head" felt that he was lost. He looked very big and foolish, and some of the scholars began to snicker. His helpless condition went straight to my heart, and gripped my sympathies. I felt that if he failed, it would in some way be my failure. I raised my hand, and, under cover of the excitement and the teacher's attempts to regain order, I hurriedly shot up into his ear twice, quite distinctly: "F-o-u-r-t-h, f-o-u-r-t-h." The teacher tapped on her desk and said: "Third and last chance." The hands came down, the silence became oppressive. "Red Head" began: "F--" Since that day I have waited anxiously for many a turn of the wheel of fortune, but never under greater tension than when I watched for the order in which those letters would fall from "Red's" lips--"o-u-r-t-h." A sigh of relief and disappointment went up from the class. Afterwards, through all our school days, "Red Head" shared my wit and quickness and I benefited by his strength and dogged faithfulness. There were some black and brown boys and girls in the school, and several of them were in my class. One of the boys strongly attracted my attention from the first day I saw him. His face was as black as night, but shone as though it were polished; he had sparkling eyes, and when he opened his mouth, he displayed glistening white teeth. It struck me at once as appropriate to call him "Shiny Face," or "Shiny Eyes," or "Shiny Teeth," and I spoke of him often by one of these names to the other boys. These terms were finally merged into "Shiny," and to that name he answered good-naturedly during the balance of his public school days. "Shiny" was considered without question to be the best speller, the best reader, the best penman--in a word, the best scholar, in the class. He was very quick to catch anything, but, nevertheless, studied hard; thus he possessed two powers very rarely combined in one boy. I saw him year after year, on up into the high school, win the majority of the prizes for punctuality, deportment, essay writing, and declamation. Yet it did not take me long to discover that, in spite of his standing as a scholar, he was in some way looked down upon. The other black boys and girls were still more looked down upon. Some of the boys often spoke of them as "niggers." Sometimes on the way home from school a crowd would walk behind them repeating: "_Nigger, nigger, never die, Black face and shiny eye_." On one such afternoon one of the black boys turned suddenly on his tormentors and hurled a slate; it struck one of the white boys in the mouth, cutting a slight gash in his lip. At sight of the blood the boy who had thrown the slate ran, and his companions quickly followed. We ran after them pelting them with stones until they separated in several directions. I was very much wrought up over the affair, and went home and told my mother how one of the "niggers" had struck a boy with a slate. I shall never forget how she turned on me. "Don't you ever use that word again," she said, "and don't you ever bother the colored children at school. You ought to be ashamed of yourself." I did hang my head in shame, not because she had convinced me that I had done wrong, but because I was hurt by the first sharp word she had ever given me. My school days ran along very pleasantly. I stood well in my studies, not always so well with regard to my behavior. I was never guilty of any serious misconduct, but my love of fun sometimes got me into trouble. I remember, however, that my sense of humor was so sly that most of the trouble usually fell on the head of the other fellow. My ability to play on the piano at school exercises was looked upon as little short of marvelous in a boy of my age. I was not chummy with many of my mates, but, on the whole, was about as popular as it is good for a boy to be. One day near the end of my second term at school the principal came into our room and, after talking to the teacher, for some reason said: "I wish all of the white scholars to stand for a moment." I rose with the others. The teacher looked at me and, calling my name, said: "You sit down for the present, and rise with the others." I did not quite understand her, and questioned: "Ma'm?" She repeated, with a softer tone in her voice: "You sit down now, and rise with the others." I sat down dazed. I saw and heard nothing. When the others were asked to rise, I did not know it. When school was dismissed, I went out in a kind of stupor. A few of the white boys jeered me, saying: "Oh, you're a nigger too." I heard some black children say: "We knew he was colored." "Shiny" said to them: "Come along, don't tease him," and thereby won my undying gratitude. I hurried on as fast as I could, and had gone some distance before I perceived that "Red Head" was walking by my side. After a while he said to me: "Le' me carry your books." I gave him my strap without being able to answer. When we got to my gate, he said as he handed me my books: "Say, you know my big red agate? I can't shoot with it any more. I'm going to bring it to school for you tomorrow." I took my books and ran into the house. As I passed through the hallway, I saw that my mother was busy with one of her customers; I rushed up into my own little room, shut the door, and went quickly to where my looking-glass hung on the wall. For an instant I was afraid to look, but when I did, I looked long and earnestly. I had often heard people say to my mother: "What a pretty boy you have!" I was accustomed to hear remarks about my beauty; but now, for the first time, I became conscious of it and recognized it. I noticed the ivory whiteness of my skin, the beauty of my mouth, the size and liquid darkness of my eyes, and how the long, black lashes that fringed and shaded them produced an effect that was strangely fascinating even to me. I noticed the softness and glossiness of my dark hair that fell in waves over my temples, making my forehead appear whiter than it really was. How long I stood there gazing at my image I do not know. When I came out and reached the head of the stairs, I heard the lady who had been with my mother going out. I ran downstairs and rushed to where my mother was sitting, with a piece of work in her hands. I buried my head in her lap and blurted out: "Mother, mother, tell me, am I a nigger?" I could not see her face, but I knew the piece of work dropped to the floor and I felt her hands on my head. I looked up into her face and repeated: "Tell me, mother, am I a nigger?" There were tears in her eyes and I could see that she was suffering for me. And then it was that I looked at her critically for the first time. I had thought of her in a childish way only as the most beautiful woman in the world; now I looked at her searching for defects. I could see that her skin was almost brown, that her hair was not so soft as mine, and that she did differ in some way from the other ladies who came to the house; yet, even so, I could see that she was very beautiful, more beautiful than any of them. She must have felt that I was examining her, for she hid her face in my hair and said with difficulty: "No, my darling, you are not a nigger." She went on: "You are as good as anybody; if anyone calls you a nigger, don't notice them." But the more she talked, the less was I reassured, and I stopped her by asking: "Well, mother, am I white? Are you white?" She answered tremblingly: "No, I am not white, but you--your father is one of the greatest men in the country--the best blood of the South is in you--" This suddenly opened up in my heart a fresh chasm of misgiving and fear, and I almost fiercely demanded: "Who is my father? Where is he?" She stroked my hair and said: "I'll tell you about him some day." I sobbed: "I want to know now." She answered: "No, not now." Perhaps it had to be done, but I have never forgiven the woman who did it so cruelly. It may be that she never knew that she gave me a sword-thrust that day in school which was years in healing. Since I have grown older I have often gone back and tried to analyze the change that came into my life after that fateful day in school. There did come a radical change, and, young as I was, I felt fully conscious of it, though I did not fully comprehend it. Like my first spanking, it is one of the few incidents in my life that I can remember clearly. In the life of everyone there is a limited number of unhappy experiences which are not written upon the memory, but stamped there with a die; and in long years after, they can be called up in detail, and every emotion that was stirred by them can be lived through anew; these are the tragedies of life. We may grow to include some of them among the trivial incidents of childhood--a broken toy, a promise made to us which was not kept, a harsh, heart-piercing word--but these, too, as well as the bitter experiences and disappointments of mature years, are the tragedies of life. And so I have often lived through that hour, that day, that week, in which was wrought the miracle of my transition from one world into another; for I did indeed pass into another world. From that time I looked out through other eyes, my thoughts were colored, my words dictated, my actions limited by one dominating, all-pervading idea which constantly increased in force and weight until I finally realized in it a great, tangible fact. And this is the dwarfing, warping, distorting influence which operates upon each and every colored man in the United States. He is forced to take his outlook on all things, not from the viewpoint of a citizen, or a man, or even a human being, but from the viewpoint of a _colored_ man. It is wonderful to me that the race has progressed so broadly as it has, since most of its thought and all of its activity must run through the narrow neck of this one funnel. And it is this, too, which makes the colored people of this country, in reality, a mystery to the whites. It is a difficult thing for a white man to learn what a colored man really thinks; because, generally, with the latter an additional and different light must be brought to bear on what he thinks; and his thoughts are often influenced by considerations so delicate and subtle that it would be impossible for him to confess or explain them to one of the opposite race. This gives to every colored man, in proportion to his intellectuality, a sort of dual personality; there is one phase of him which is disclosed only in the freemasonry of his own race. I have often watched with interest and sometimes with amazement even ignorant colored men under cover of broad grins and minstrel antics maintain this dualism in the presence of white men. I believe it to be a fact that the colored people of this country know and understand the white people better than the white people know and understand them. I now think that this change which came into my life was at first more subjective than objective. I do not think my friends at school changed so much toward me as I did toward them. I grew reserved, I might say suspicious. I grew constantly more and more afraid of laying myself open to some injury to my feelings or my pride. I frequently saw or fancied some slight where, I am sure, none was intended. On the other hand, my friends and teachers were, if anything different, more considerate of me; but I can remember that it was against this very attitude in particular that my sensitiveness revolted. "Red" was the only one who did not so wound me; up to this day I recall with a swelling heart his clumsy efforts to make me understand that nothing could change his love for me. I am sure that at this time the majority of my white schoolmates did not understand or appreciate any differences between me and themselves; but there were a few who had evidently received instructions at home on the matter, and more than once they displayed their knowledge in word and action. As the years passed, I noticed that the most innocent and ignorant among the others grew in wisdom. I myself would not have so clearly understood this difference had it not been for the presence of the other colored children at school; I had learned what their status was, and now I learned that theirs was mine. I had had no particular like or dislike for these black and brown boys and girls; in fact, with the exception of "Shiny," they had occupied very little of my thought; but I do know that when the blow fell, I had a very strong aversion to being classed with them. So I became something of a solitary. "Red" and I remained inseparable, and there was between "Shiny" and me a sort of sympathetic bond, but my intercourse with the others was never entirely free from a feeling of constraint. I must add, however, that this feeling was confined almost entirely to my intercourse with boys and girls of about my own age; I did not experience it with my seniors. And when I grew to manhood, I found myself freer with elderly white people than with those near my own age. I was now about eleven years old, but these emotions and impressions which I have just described could not have been stronger or more distinct at an older age. There were two immediate results of my forced loneliness: I began to find company in books, and greater pleasure in music. I made the former discovery through a big, gilt-bound, illustrated copy of the Bible, which used to lie in splendid neglect on the center table in our little parlor. On top of the Bible lay a photograph album. I had often looked at the pictures in the album, and one day, after taking the larger book down and opening it on the floor, I was overjoyed to find that it contained what seemed to be an inexhaustible supply of pictures. I looked at these pictures many times; in fact, so often that I knew the story of each one without having to read the subject, and then, somehow, I picked up the thread of history on which are strung the trials and tribulations of the Hebrew children; this I followed with feverish interest and excitement. For a long time King David, with Samson a close second, stood at the head of my list of heroes; he was not displaced until I came to know Robert the Bruce. I read a good portion of the Old Testament, all that part treating of wars and rumors of wars, and then started in on the New. I became interested in the life of Christ, but became impatient and disappointed when I found that, notwithstanding the great power he possessed, he did not make use of it when, in my judgment, he most needed to do so. And so my first general impression of the Bible was what my later impression has been of a number of modern books, that the authors put their best work in the first part, and grew either exhausted or careless toward the end. After reading the Bible, or those parts which held my attention, I began to explore the glass-doored bookcase which I have already mentioned. I found there _Pilgrim's Progress_, Peter Parley's _History of the United States_, Grimm's _Household Stories, Tales of a Grandfather_, a bound volume of an old English publication (I think it was called _The Mirror_), a little volume called _Familiar Science_, and somebody's _Natural Theology_, which last, of course, I could not read, but which, nevertheless, I tackled, with the result of gaining a permanent dislike for all kinds of theology. There were several other books of no particular name or merit, such as agents sell to people who know nothing of buying books. How my mother came by this little library which, considering all things, was so well suited to me I never sought to know. But she was far from being an ignorant woman and had herself, very likely, read the majority of these books, though I do not remember ever seeing her with a book in her hand, with the exception of the Episcopal Prayer book. At any rate she encouraged in me the habit of reading, and when I had about exhausted those books in the little library which interested me, she began to buy books for me. She also regularly gave me money to buy a weekly paper which was then very popular for boys. At this time I went in for music with an earnestness worthy of maturer years; a change of teachers was largely responsible for this. I began now to take lessons of the organist of the church which I attended with my mother; he was a good teacher and quite a thorough musician. He was so skillful in his instruction and filled me with such enthusiasm that my progress--these are his words--was marvelous. I remember that when I was barely twelve years old I appeared on a program with a number of adults at an entertainment given for some charitable purpose, and carried off the honors. I did more, I brought upon myself through the local newspapers the handicapping title of "infant prodigy." I can believe that I did astonish my audience, for I never played the piano like a child; that is, in the "one-two-three" style with accelerated motion. Neither did I depend upon mere brilliancy of technique, a trick by which children often surprise their listeners; but I always tried to interpret a piece of music; I always played with feeling. Very early I acquired that knack of using the pedals, which makes the piano a sympathetic, singing instrument, quite a different thing from the source of hard or blurred sounds it so generally is. I think this was due not entirely to natural artistic temperament, but largely to the fact that I did not begin to learn the piano by counting out exercises, but by trying to reproduce the quaint songs which my mother used to sing, with all their pathetic turns and cadences. Even at a tender age, in playing I helped to express what I felt by some of the mannerisms which I afterwards observed in great performers; I had not copied them. I have often heard people speak of the mannerisms of musicians as affectations adopted for mere effect; in some cases they may be so; but a true artist can no more play upon the piano or violin without putting his whole body in accord with the emotions he is striving to express than a swallow can fly without being graceful. Often when playing I could not keep the tears which formed in my eyes from rolling down my cheeks. Sometimes at the end or even in the midst of a composition, as big a boy as I was, I would jump from the piano, and throw myself sobbing into my mother's arms. She, by her caresses and often her tears, only encouraged these fits of sentimental hysteria. Of course, to counteract this tendency to temperamental excesses I should have been out playing ball or in swimming with other boys of my age; but my mother didn't know that. There was only once when she was really firm with me, making me do what she considered was best; I did not want to return to school after the unpleasant episode which I have related, and she was inflexible. I began my third term, and the days ran along as I have already indicated. I had been promoted twice, and had managed each time to pull "Red" along with me. I think the teachers came to consider me the only hope of his ever getting through school, and I believe they secretly conspired with me to bring about the desired end. At any rate, I know it became easier in each succeeding examination for me not only to assist "Red," but absolutely to do his work. It is strange how in some things honest people can be dishonest without the slightest compunction. I knew boys at school who were too honorable to tell a fib even when one would have been just the right thing, but could not resist the temptation to assist or receive assistance in an examination. I have long considered it the highest proof of honesty in a man to hand his street-car fare to the conductor who had overlooked it. One afternoon after school, during my third term, I rushed home in a great hurry to get my dinner and go to my music teacher's. I was never reluctant about going there, but on this particular afternoon I was impetuous. The reason of this was I had been asked to play the accompaniment for a young lady who was to play a violin solo at a concert given by the young people of the church, and on this afternoon we were to have our first rehearsal. At that time playing accompaniments was the only thing in music I did not enjoy; later this feeling grew into positive dislike. I have never been a really good accompanist because my ideas of interpretation were always too strongly individual. I constantly forced my _accelerandos_ and _rubatos_ upon the soloist, often throwing the duet entirely out of gear. Perhaps the reader has already guessed why I was so willing and anxious to play the accompaniment to this violin solo; if not--the violinist was a girl of seventeen or eighteen whom I had first heard play a short time before on a Sunday afternoon at a special service of some kind, and who had moved me to a degree which now I can hardly think of as possible. At present I do not think it was due to her wonderful playing, though I judge she must have been a very fair performer, but there was just the proper setting to produce the effect upon a boy such as I was; the half-dim church, the air of devotion on the part of the listeners, the heaving tremor of the organ under the clear wail of the violin, and she, her eyes almost closing, the escaping strands of her dark hair wildly framing her pale face, and her slender body swaying to the tones she called forth, all combined to fire my imagination and my heart with a passion, though boyish, yet strong and, somehow, lasting. I have tried to describe the scene; if I have succeeded, it is only half success, for words can only partially express what I wish to convey. Always in recalling that Sunday afternoon I am sub-conscious of a faint but distinct fragrance which, like some old memory-awakening perfume, rises and suffuses my whole imagination, inducing a state of reverie so airy as just to evade the powers of expression. She was my first love, and I loved her as only a boy loves. I dreamed of her, I built air castles for her, she was the incarnation of each beautiful heroine I knew; when I played the piano, it was to her, not even music furnished an adequate outlet for my passion; I bought a new note-book and, to sing her praises, made my first and last attempts at poetry. I remember one day at school, after we had given in our notebooks to have some exercises corrected, the teacher called me to her desk and said: "I couldn't correct your exercises because I found nothing in your book but a rhapsody on somebody's brown eyes." I had passed in the wrong note-book. I don't think I have felt greater embarrassment in my whole life than I did at that moment. I was ashamed not only that my teacher should see this nakedness of my heart, but that she should find out that I had any knowledge of such affairs. It did not then occur to me to be ashamed of the kind of poetry I had written. Of course, the reader must know that all of this adoration was in secret; next to my great love for this young lady was the dread that in some way she would find it out. I did not know what some men never find out, that the woman who cannot discern when she is loved has never lived. It makes me laugh to think how successful I was in concealing it all; within a short time after our duet all of the friends of my dear one were referring to me as her "little sweetheart," or her "little beau," and she laughingly encouraged it. This did not entirely satisfy me; I wanted to be taken seriously. I had definitely made up my mind that I should never love another woman, and that if she deceived me I should do something desperate--the great difficulty was to think of something sufficiently desperate--and the heartless jade, how she led me on! So I hurried home that afternoon, humming snatches of the violin part of the duet, my heart beating with pleasurable excitement over the fact that I was going to be near her, to have her attention placed directly upon me; that I was going to be of service to her, and in a way in which I could show myself to advantage--this last consideration has much to do with cheerful service----. The anticipation produced in me a sensation somewhat between bliss and fear. I rushed through the gate, took the three steps to the house at one bound, threw open the door, and was about to hang my cap on its accustomed peg of the hall rack when I noticed that that particular peg was occupied by a black derby hat. I stopped suddenly and gazed at this hat as though I had never seen an object of its description. I was still looking at it in open-eyed wonder when my mother, coming out of the parlor into the hallway, called me and said there was someone inside who wanted to see me. Feeling that I was being made a party to some kind of mystery, I went in with her, and there I saw a man standing leaning with one elbow on the mantel, his back partly turned toward the door. As I entered, he turned and I saw a tall, handsome, well-dressed gentleman of perhaps thirty-five; he advanced a step toward me with a smile on his face. I stopped and looked at him with the same feelings with which I had looked at the derby hat, except that they were greatly magnified. I looked at him from head to foot, but he was an absolute blank to me until my eyes rested on his slender, elegant polished shoes; then it seemed that indistinct and partly obliterated films of memory began, at first slowly, then rapidly, to unroll, forming a vague panorama of my childhood days in Georgia. My mother broke the spell by calling me by name and saying: "This is your father." "Father, father," that was the word which had been to me a source of doubt and perplexity ever since the interview with my mother on the subject. How often I had wondered about my father, who he was, what he was like, whether alive or dead, and, above all, why she would not tell me about him. More than once I had been on the point of recalling to her the promise she had made me, but I instinctively felt that she was happier for not telling me and that I was happier for not being told; yet I had not the slightest idea what the real truth was. And here he stood before me, just the kind of looking father I had wishfully pictured him to be; but I made no advance toward him; I stood there feeling embarrassed and foolish, not knowing what to say or do. I am not sure but that he felt pretty much the same. My mother stood at my side with one hand on my shoulder, almost pushing me forward, but I did not move. I can well remember the look of disappointment, even pain, on her face; and I can now understand that she could expect nothing else but that at the name "father" I should throw myself into his arms. But I could not rise to this dramatic, or, better, melodramatic, climax. Somehow I could not arouse any considerable feeling of need for a father. He broke the awkward tableau by saying: "Well, boy, aren't you glad to see me?" He evidently meant the words kindly enough, but I don't know what he could have said that would have had a worse effect; however, my good breeding came to my rescue, and I answered: "Yes, sir," and went to him and offered him my hand. He took my hand into one of his, and, with the other, stroked my head, saying that I had grown into a fine youngster. He asked me how old I was; which, of course, he must have done merely to say something more, or perhaps he did so as a test of my intelligence. I replied: "Twelve, sir." He then made the trite observation about the flight of time, and we lapsed into another awkward pause. My mother was all in smiles; I believe that was one of the happiest moments of her life. Either to put me more at ease or to show me off, she asked me to play something for my father. There is only one thing in the world that can make music, at all times and under all circumstances, up to its general standard; that is a hand-organ, or one of its variations. I went to the piano and played something in a listless, half-hearted way. I simply was not in the mood. I was wondering, while playing, when my mother would dismiss me and let me go; but my father was so enthusiastic in his praise that he touched my vanity--which was great--and more than that; he displayed that sincere appreciation which always arouses an artist to his best effort, and, too, in an unexplainable manner, makes him feel like shedding tears. I showed my gratitude by playing for him a Chopin waltz with all the feeling that was in me. When I had finished, my mother's eyes were glistening with tears; my father stepped across the room, seized me in his arms, and squeezed me to his breast. I am certain that for that moment he was proud to be my father. He sat and held me standing between his knees while he talked to my mother. I, in the mean time, examined him with more curiosity, perhaps, than politeness. I interrupted the conversation by asking: "Mother, is he going to stay with us now?" I found it impossible to frame the word "father"; it was too new to me; so I asked the question through my mother. Without waiting for her to speak, my father answered: "I've got to go back to New York this afternoon, but I'm coming to see you again." I turned abruptly and went over to my mother, and almost in a whisper reminded her that I had an appointment which I should not miss; to my pleasant surprise she said that she would give me something to eat at once so that I might go. She went out of the room and I began to gather from off the piano the music I needed. When I had finished, my father, who had been watching me, asked: "Are you going?" I replied: "Yes, sir, I've got to go to practice for a concert." He spoke some words of advice to me about being a good boy and taking care of my mother when I grew up, and added that he was going to send me something nice from New York. My mother called, and I said good-bye to him and went out. I saw him only once after that. I quickly swallowed down what my mother had put on the table for me, seized my cap and music, and hurried off to my teacher's house. On the way I could think of nothing but this new father, where he came from, where he had been, why he was here, and why he would not stay. In my mind I ran over the whole list of fathers I had become acquainted with in my reading, but I could not classify him. The thought did not cross my mind that he was different from me, and even if it had, the mystery would not thereby have been explained; for, notwithstanding my changed relations with most of my schoolmates, I had only a faint knowledge of prejudice and no idea at all how it ramified and affected our entire social organism. I felt, however, that there was something about the whole affair which had to be hid. When I arrived, I found that she of the brown eyes had been rehearsing with my teacher and was on the point of leaving. My teacher, with some expressions of surprise, asked why I was late, and I stammered out the first deliberate lie of which I have any recollection. I told him that when I reached home from school, I found my mother quite sick, and that I had stayed with her awhile before coming. Then unnecessarily and gratuitously--to give my words force of conviction, I suppose--I added: "I don't think she'll be with us very long." In speaking these words I must have been comical; for I noticed that my teacher, instead of showing signs of anxiety or sorrow, half hid a smile. But how little did I know that in that lie I was speaking a prophecy! She of the brown eyes unpacked her violin, and we went through the duet several times. I was soon lost to all other thoughts in the delights of music and love. I saw delights of love without reservation; for at no time of life is love so pure, so delicious, so poetic, so romantic, as it is in boyhood. A great deal has been said about the heart of a girl when she' stands "where the brook and river meet," but what she feels is negative; more interesting is the heart of a boy when just at the budding dawn of manhood he stands looking wide-eyed into the long vistas opening before him; when he first becomes conscious of the awakening and quickening of strange desires and unknown powers; when what he sees and feels is still shadowy and mystical enough to be intangible, and, so, more beautiful; when his imagination is unsullied, and his faith new and whole--then it is that love wears a halo. The man who has not loved before he was fourteen has missed a foretaste of Elysium. When I reached home, it was quite dark and I found my mother without a light, sitting rocking in a chair, as she so often used to do in my childhood days, looking into the fire and singing softly to herself. I nestled close to her, and, with her arms round me, she haltingly told me who my father was--a great man, a fine gentleman--he loved me and loved her very much; he was going to make a great man of me: All she said was so limited by reserve and so colored by her feelings that it was but half truth; and so I did not yet fully understand.

Chapters I-II

https://web.archive.org/web/20180424054150/http://www.gradesaver.com/the-autobiography-of-an-excolored-man/study-guide/summary-chapters-i-ii

The first-person narrator, whose name the reader does not know , begins by explaining that he Is going to divulge his greatest secret, a painful and fascinating secret that he has kept for years. He describes his early childhood growing up in a small town in Georgia right after the Civil War. His earliest memories are punctuated by his father's infrequent visits. He remembers that his father once gave him a small coin with a hole bored through it that he still wears around his neck. One day, the narrator's mother takes him to Connecticut, where she proceeds to raise him as a "perfect little aristocrat". She earns money by sewing. Early on, the narrator takes up the piano, imitating the songs his mother plays. He finds much joy in music, soon surpassing his mother and impressing his first teacher with his natural gift. He also embraces his school books and loves learning as much as he loves playing the piano. After a few pleasant years at a private school, the narrator's mother enrolls him in a public school. There, he makes a strong friend in "Red Head", or as he later calls him, "Red", an older and larger boy who has been held back from advancing in grades. Their friendship is cemented when the narrator saves Red from embarrassing himself during a spelling competition. The narrator feels that he "benefit" from Red's "strength and faithfulness" and Red, meanwhile, sees the mutual advantage of the narrator's "wit and quickness". The narrator mentions that he there are a few "colored" boys and girls in his school and class; one of them, nicknamed "Shiny" for his polished black skin and sparkling eyes, is the top pupil in the school. However, the white students taunt the African American students by calling them "nigger". One day, the narrator uses the word in his home and he is stunned at his mother's stinging rebuke. One day the principal of the school comes into the narrator's classroom and instructs the white students to stand. The narrator stands along with the rest of his white classmates, but is surprised when the principal tells him to sit down. The narrator is confused and shocked, overhearing other students saying they always knew he was "colored". When he is back at home, he studies his features in the mirror, understanding why his mother's friends always call him a "pretty" boy. Tormented, he implores his mother to tell him if he is a "nigger". Her eyes well with tears, but she tells him that he is not a "nigger". The narrator keeps pressing his mother and asks her if she is white and if he is white. She finally says no, but quickly adds that his father is a great man. The narrator wants to know more about his father and meet him but his mother says it is not the right time. The narrator later muses about the reveal of this great secret, "perhaps it had to be done, but I have never forgiven the woman who did it so cruelly". After that day, the narrator becomes keenly aware of the way people at school perceive him. He mentions that even decades later, he has never forgotten how it felt to experience the knowledge of his blackness. He believes he has passed into another world where the fact of his being "colored" permeates every thought and every experience of his life in the United States. His view is no longer that of "a...citizen, or a man, not even a human being" but of a "colored man". The narrator concludes that this division is what makes the "colored" people more mysterious to white Americans, while "colored" people understand whites, their oppressors, in a much deeper way. The narrator explains how this new awareness of his race changes his behavior towards other people, and not the other way around. He becomes "reserved...suspicious" and considers faithful Red as his only friend. He does not want to be grouped with the other students of color, even though he feels a sympathetic bond with Shiny. The narrator instead turns inward to his books and music, reading the Bible rigorously but not being impressed overall with books of theology. He takes lessons with the organist of the church he attends with his mother, and, at twelve, begins his lifelong career of impressing older listeners with his musical skill. He is praised for his ability to playing a piece of music with feeling and verve, and not in a rote or artificial manner. His affectations are pure and his ear is mature. The narrator continues through school, helping Red along with his studies so that they can remain together. During his third term, he falls in love with a young violinist, and even though he hates playing as an accompanist, he agrees to work with her. This brown-eyed girl is his first love "and love her as only a boy loves". One day, the narrator arrives home, in a hurry to get his music and get to his duet practice with the brown-eyed girl, when he realizes that something is different. An elegant, well-dressed visitor is there, smiling at the young narrator and leaning on the mantel. His mother tells her bewildered son that the elegant man is his father. The narrator is stunned, and although this man is who he pictured his father to be, he is nervous and tongue-tied. He feels like he cannot rise to the occasion and act as he should. After a bit of polite conversation, the narrator's mother, who is blissfully happy and full of smiles, asks her son to play something for his father. He plays Chopin passionately for his rapturous parents, but admits to the reader that his efforts are half-hearted. He asks if his father is staying, but the man replies that he is going to New York and will see him again soon. The narrator reveals that he only met his father once more after that. On his way to the rehearsal, the narrator's young mind races over the encounter. As an older man, the narrator understands that at the time his younger self could not conceive of his white father as truly different from him because "he had only a faint knowledge of prejudice and had no idea at all how it ramified and affected our entire social organism." After the rehearsal, which is nearly cancelled because the brown-eyed girl is annoyed at his tardiness, he returns home to his darkened house and finds his mother singing softly to herself. She tells the narrator about his father: "a great man, a fine gentleman" who will make a great man out of him as well. Looking back years later, the narrator wonders if his mother was aware that she was speaking in half-truths. As this novel is structured as an autobiography, the narrator begins by describing his childhood, setting up the context that he grows up in and that develops his identity. Identity is one of the central themes of the text and will be discussed in later analyses, but it is clear that the narrator's childhood experiences are crucial to his later development. He grows up not knowing that he is "colored" and comes by this knowledge in a humiliating way. He does not know his father and spends his adult life consequently grappling with the notion of manhood and how it impacts his racial identity. Johnson also establishes that the narrator is brilliant and a gifted musician, which will later facilitate his forays into both sides of the racial divide as he attempts to reconcile the two. These early chapters also introduce one of the few characters with a name -Shiny- and present him as a foil for the narrator as a man who embodies a different, more authentic form of blackness. The novel's reissue during the the heyday of the Harlem Renaissance is not surprising given James Weldon Johnson's stature in the 1920s. He had made his name in music, arts and letters, diplomacy, and became a political leader as head of the NAACP. Even though The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man was first published in 1912, it contains themes of self-actualization, "passing", the cultural contributions of African-Americans, and common consciousness, all of which were ubiquitous features of Harlem Renaissance fiction. Like Johnson's narrator, Harlem Renaissance writers viewed their language as performative speech and strove to prove that they were worthy of equal stature in American society. In this novel, Johnson describes stereotypes and early characterizations of African Americans that Harlem Renaissance writers would later categorize within the "Old Negro" archetype. These literary tropes were largely negative and could be read as semiotic signs, which imparted meaning to readers. The "Old Negro" characters included: the tom, a docile servant named after Uncle Tom; the coon, a backward country type; the buck, a sexualized and savage man; the tragic mulatta, a mixed-race and sexually attractive female character; and the mammy, a large, loyal, female domestic servant. Other less common "Old Negro" characters included the concubine and the conjure woman. Harlem Renaissance writers directly counteracted these popular images and endeavored to replace them with positive and nuanced depictions of African Americans. This was not only to change white readers' opinion about African Americans but also to counteract the deleterious affect such representations had on African Americans themselves, who were wont to internalize the stereotypes. In contrast, the "New Negro", as touted by Renaissance writers, was characterized by self-respect, self-dependence, and racial pride. The Harlem Renaissance writers, a group which includes Johnson even though he wrote Autobiography a decade earlier, grappled with certain common questions. Since their artistic abilities possessed performative potential, they wondered what level of responsibility they must take for portraying the positive aspects of African American characters. Should they defend and glorify their characters or present an honest portrayal of their people, even if it was negative and sometimes verged into the territory of stereotypes? Should they appeal to an African American audience, even though the majority of book-readers were white? W.E.B. Du Bois famously noted that "all art is propaganda and ever must be", and Johnson was very much aware of this. In The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man, the relationship between Johnson and the character of the narrator is unclear. Literary critics have long debated which ideas and sentiments are actually the author's and which are the character's, trying to negotiate the degree to which Johnson himself ever felt the narrator's brand of self-hatred, racism, and naivete. The title of the novel further complicates the matter, since it is not really an autobiography, but is written as if it were, and was originally published anonymously. Meanwhile, the character of the narrator makes a point of keeping his racial identity a secret and refusing to divulge certain identifiable details about his life. In terms of structure and style, The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man is a veritable pastiche. It is structured as an autobiography but contains elements of the picaresque, psychological realism, social protest, parody, and the slave narrative. The novel's relationship to slave narratives, hitherto the primary literary mode utilized by African American writers, is noteworthy. Slave narratives, like those written by Frederick Douglass, Olaudah Equiano, and Harriet Jacobs, were all factual, written in the first person, and depicted the struggles of their protagonists using autobiographical terms. These narratives revealed their authors' dignity and resilience in the face of abject despair at the hands of their white masters in an overwhelmingly racist society. Slave narratives usually began with a recounting of the author's time in slavery followed by a description of his or her escape to freedom. Through this journey, each of the former slaves describes a transition to selfhood and enlightenment. Johnson's novel is similar in that it is told by a first-person narrator who is on a journey of realization, although it is fictional. The critic Donald C. Goellnicht pays particular attention to the scene where the narrator's father says goodbye to him and gives him the coin necklace. He reads this scene as a parallel to "the auctioning off of the slave-owner's bastard children that is a common trope in the slave narratives. Having been auctioned off as a child, the narrator still maintains a misplaced desire for the coin that establishes his value -or, rather, his lack of value -as a human being." The coin represents the shackles of slavery and the narrator's enslavement to "the system of private property ownership that was the basis of chattel slavery". Some critics, however, describe The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man as a reverse slave narrative, in which the narrator actually cancels his selfhood. He is, critic Zoe Trodd writes, an "unreliable narrator, with a void past and numerous shifting identities" who "narrates himself out of existence." Goellnicht offers arguments for this perspective as well, noting that in Johnson's novel, the reader " a narrative in which the construction of a non-self...involv perverse blindness, voluntary invisibility, and self-enslavement".

sparknotes

all_chapterized_books/174-chapters/16.txt

finished_summaries/sparknotes/The Picture of Dorian Gray/section_7_part_2.txt

The Picture of Dorian Gray.chapter 16

chapter 16

{"name": "Chapter 16", "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20210228142327/https://www.sparknotes.com/lit/doriangray/section8/", "summary": "As the coach heads toward the opium dens, Dorian recites to himself Lord Henry's credo: \"To cure the soul by means of the senses, and the senses by means of the soul. He decides that if he cannot be forgiven for his sins, he can at least forget them; herein lies the appeal of the opium dens and the oblivion they promise. The coach stops, and Dorian exits. He enters a squalid den and finds a youth named Adrian Singleton, whom rumor says Dorian corrupted. As Dorian prepares to leave, a woman addresses him as \"the devil's bargain\" and \"Prince Charming. At these words, a sailor leaps to his feet and follows Dorian to the street. As he walks along, Dorian wonders whether he should feel guilty for the impact he has had on Adrian Singleton's life. His meditation is cut short, however, when he is seized from behind and held at gunpoint. Facing him is James Vane, Sibyl's brother, who has been tracking Dorian for years in hopes of avenging Sibyl's death. James does not know Dorian's name, but the reference to \"Prince Charming\" makes him decide that it must be the man who wronged his sister. Dorian points out, however, that the man James seeks was in love with Sibyl eighteen years ago; since he, Dorian, has the face of a twenty-year-old man, he cannot possibly be the man who wronged Sibyl. James releases him and makes his way back to the opium den. The old woman tells James that Dorian has been coming there for eighteen years and that his face has never aged a day in all that time. Furious at having let his prey escape, James resolves to hunt him down again", "analysis": "Chapters Fifteeen-Sixteen When Lord Henry alludes to the \"in de siecle\" in Chapter Fifteen, he refers more to the sensibilities that flourished in the 1890s than the chronological time period. In this decade, many people in continental Europe and England felt an unshakable sense of discontent. The values that once seemed to structure life and give it meaning were apparently lost. Two main reasons for this disenchantment were linked to the public functions of art and morality, which, in Victorian England, seemed inextricably connected. Art, it was thought, should function as a moral barometer; to the minds of many, this dictum left room for only the most restrictive morals and the most unimaginative art. The term \"fin de siecle\" therefore came to describe a mode of thinking that sought to escape this disenchantment and restore beauty to art and reshape public understandings of morality. In a way, though Dorian lives a life very much in tune with fin-de-siecle thinking, he rejects Victorian morals in favor of self-determined ethics based on pleasure and experience, and he retains--and is tortured by--a very Victorian mind-set. Indeed, by viewing the painting of himself as \"the most magical of mirrors,\" Dorian disavows the tenets of aestheticism that demand that art be completely freed of its connection to morality. The picture becomes the gauge by which Dorian measures his downfall and serves as a constant reminder of the sins that plague his conscience. If we understand Dorian as a victim of this Victorian circumstance, we can read his drastic course of action in a more sympathetic light. Indeed, by Chapter Sixteen, he is a man desperate to forget the sins for which he believes he can never be forgiven. As he sinks into the sordidness of the London docks and their opium dens, he reflects: Ugliness was the one reality. The coarse brawl, the loathsome den, the crude violence of disordered life, the very vileness of thief and outcast, were more vivid, in their intense actuality of impression, than all the gracious shapes of Art, the dreamy shadows of Song. Here, Dorian's thoughts echo French poets like Charles Baudelaire and Arthur Rimbaud, who believed that the description of intense experience was the key to true beauty, even when the experience itself was something sordid, ugly, or grotesque. Indeed, in this trip to the opium den, Dorian intends to do nothing less than \"cure the soul by means of the senses, and the senses by means of the soul.\" Of course, what Dorian finds in the opium den has a far less curative effect than he hopes. The presence of Adrian Singleton, a young man whose downfall and subsequent drug addiction is at least partially Dorian's fault, pains Dorian's conscience and makes it impossible for him to \"escape from himself.\" The reintroduction of James Vane makes this idea of escape quite literal. The avenging brother is, admittedly, a rather weak plot device that Wilde added to his 1891 revision of the novel. If Dorian fears and wishes to escape from himself, we can consider James the physical incarnation of that fear: James exists to precipitate the troubled Dorian's final breakdown."}

A cold rain began to fall, and the blurred street-lamps looked ghastly in the dripping mist. The public-houses were just closing, and dim men and women were clustering in broken groups round their doors. From some of the bars came the sound of horrible laughter. In others, drunkards brawled and screamed. Lying back in the hansom, with his hat pulled over his forehead, Dorian Gray watched with listless eyes the sordid shame of the great city, and now and then he repeated to himself the words that Lord Henry had said to him on the first day they had met, "To cure the soul by means of the senses, and the senses by means of the soul." Yes, that was the secret. He had often tried it, and would try it again now. There were opium dens where one could buy oblivion, dens of horror where the memory of old sins could be destroyed by the madness of sins that were new. The moon hung low in the sky like a yellow skull. From time to time a huge misshapen cloud stretched a long arm across and hid it. The gas-lamps grew fewer, and the streets more narrow and gloomy. Once the man lost his way and had to drive back half a mile. A steam rose from the horse as it splashed up the puddles. The sidewindows of the hansom were clogged with a grey-flannel mist. "To cure the soul by means of the senses, and the senses by means of the soul!" How the words rang in his ears! His soul, certainly, was sick to death. Was it true that the senses could cure it? Innocent blood had been spilled. What could atone for that? Ah! for that there was no atonement; but though forgiveness was impossible, forgetfulness was possible still, and he was determined to forget, to stamp the thing out, to crush it as one would crush the adder that had stung one. Indeed, what right had Basil to have spoken to him as he had done? Who had made him a judge over others? He had said things that were dreadful, horrible, not to be endured. On and on plodded the hansom, going slower, it seemed to him, at each step. He thrust up the trap and called to the man to drive faster. The hideous hunger for opium began to gnaw at him. His throat burned and his delicate hands twitched nervously together. He struck at the horse madly with his stick. The driver laughed and whipped up. He laughed in answer, and the man was silent. The way seemed interminable, and the streets like the black web of some sprawling spider. The monotony became unbearable, and as the mist thickened, he felt afraid. Then they passed by lonely brickfields. The fog was lighter here, and he could see the strange, bottle-shaped kilns with their orange, fanlike tongues of fire. A dog barked as they went by, and far away in the darkness some wandering sea-gull screamed. The horse stumbled in a rut, then swerved aside and broke into a gallop. After some time they left the clay road and rattled again over rough-paven streets. Most of the windows were dark, but now and then fantastic shadows were silhouetted against some lamplit blind. He watched them curiously. They moved like monstrous marionettes and made gestures like live things. He hated them. A dull rage was in his heart. As they turned a corner, a woman yelled something at them from an open door, and two men ran after the hansom for about a hundred yards. The driver beat at them with his whip. It is said that passion makes one think in a circle. Certainly with hideous iteration the bitten lips of Dorian Gray shaped and reshaped those subtle words that dealt with soul and sense, till he had found in them the full expression, as it were, of his mood, and justified, by intellectual approval, passions that without such justification would still have dominated his temper. From cell to cell of his brain crept the one thought; and the wild desire to live, most terrible of all man's appetites, quickened into force each trembling nerve and fibre. Ugliness that had once been hateful to him because it made things real, became dear to him now for that very reason. Ugliness was the one reality. The coarse brawl, the loathsome den, the crude violence of disordered life, the very vileness of thief and outcast, were more vivid, in their intense actuality of impression, than all the gracious shapes of art, the dreamy shadows of song. They were what he needed for forgetfulness. In three days he would be free. Suddenly the man drew up with a jerk at the top of a dark lane. Over the low roofs and jagged chimney-stacks of the houses rose the black masts of ships. Wreaths of white mist clung like ghostly sails to the yards. "Somewhere about here, sir, ain't it?" he asked huskily through the trap. Dorian started and peered round. "This will do," he answered, and having got out hastily and given the driver the extra fare he had promised him, he walked quickly in the direction of the quay. Here and there a lantern gleamed at the stern of some huge merchantman. The light shook and splintered in the puddles. A red glare came from an outward-bound steamer that was coaling. The slimy pavement looked like a wet mackintosh. He hurried on towards the left, glancing back now and then to see if he was being followed. In about seven or eight minutes he reached a small shabby house that was wedged in between two gaunt factories. In one of the top-windows stood a lamp. He stopped and gave a peculiar knock. After a little time he heard steps in the passage and the chain being unhooked. The door opened quietly, and he went in without saying a word to the squat misshapen figure that flattened itself into the shadow as he passed. At the end of the hall hung a tattered green curtain that swayed and shook in the gusty wind which had followed him in from the street. He dragged it aside and entered a long low room which looked as if it had once been a third-rate dancing-saloon. Shrill flaring gas-jets, dulled and distorted in the fly-blown mirrors that faced them, were ranged round the walls. Greasy reflectors of ribbed tin backed them, making quivering disks of light. The floor was covered with ochre-coloured sawdust, trampled here and there into mud, and stained with dark rings of spilled liquor. Some Malays were crouching by a little charcoal stove, playing with bone counters and showing their white teeth as they chattered. In one corner, with his head buried in his arms, a sailor sprawled over a table, and by the tawdrily painted bar that ran across one complete side stood two haggard women, mocking an old man who was brushing the sleeves of his coat with an expression of disgust. "He thinks he's got red ants on him," laughed one of them, as Dorian passed by. The man looked at her in terror and began to whimper. At the end of the room there was a little staircase, leading to a darkened chamber. As Dorian hurried up its three rickety steps, the heavy odour of opium met him. He heaved a deep breath, and his nostrils quivered with pleasure. When he entered, a young man with smooth yellow hair, who was bending over a lamp lighting a long thin pipe, looked up at him and nodded in a hesitating manner. "You here, Adrian?" muttered Dorian. "Where else should I be?" he answered, listlessly. "None of the chaps will speak to me now." "I thought you had left England." "Darlington is not going to do anything. My brother paid the bill at last. George doesn't speak to me either.... I don't care," he added with a sigh. "As long as one has this stuff, one doesn't want friends. I think I have had too many friends." Dorian winced and looked round at the grotesque things that lay in such fantastic postures on the ragged mattresses. The twisted limbs, the gaping mouths, the staring lustreless eyes, fascinated him. He knew in what strange heavens they were suffering, and what dull hells were teaching them the secret of some new joy. They were better off than he was. He was prisoned in thought. Memory, like a horrible malady, was eating his soul away. From time to time he seemed to see the eyes of Basil Hallward looking at him. Yet he felt he could not stay. The presence of Adrian Singleton troubled him. He wanted to be where no one would know who he was. He wanted to escape from himself. "I am going on to the other place," he said after a pause. "On the wharf?" "Yes." "That mad-cat is sure to be there. They won't have her in this place now." Dorian shrugged his shoulders. "I am sick of women who love one. Women who hate one are much more interesting. Besides, the stuff is better." "Much the same." "I like it better. Come and have something to drink. I must have something." "I don't want anything," murmured the young man. "Never mind." Adrian Singleton rose up wearily and followed Dorian to the bar. A half-caste, in a ragged turban and a shabby ulster, grinned a hideous greeting as he thrust a bottle of brandy and two tumblers in front of them. The women sidled up and began to chatter. Dorian turned his back on them and said something in a low voice to Adrian Singleton. A crooked smile, like a Malay crease, writhed across the face of one of the women. "We are very proud to-night," she sneered. "For God's sake don't talk to me," cried Dorian, stamping his foot on the ground. "What do you want? Money? Here it is. Don't ever talk to me again." Two red sparks flashed for a moment in the woman's sodden eyes, then flickered out and left them dull and glazed. She tossed her head and raked the coins off the counter with greedy fingers. Her companion watched her enviously. "It's no use," sighed Adrian Singleton. "I don't care to go back. What does it matter? I am quite happy here." "You will write to me if you want anything, won't you?" said Dorian, after a pause. "Perhaps." "Good night, then." "Good night," answered the young man, passing up the steps and wiping his parched mouth with a handkerchief. Dorian walked to the door with a look of pain in his face. As he drew the curtain aside, a hideous laugh broke from the painted lips of the woman who had taken his money. "There goes the devil's bargain!" she hiccoughed, in a hoarse voice. "Curse you!" he answered, "don't call me that." She snapped her fingers. "Prince Charming is what you like to be called, ain't it?" she yelled after him. The drowsy sailor leaped to his feet as she spoke, and looked wildly round. The sound of the shutting of the hall door fell on his ear. He rushed out as if in pursuit. Dorian Gray hurried along the quay through the drizzling rain. His meeting with Adrian Singleton had strangely moved him, and he wondered if the ruin of that young life was really to be laid at his door, as Basil Hallward had said to him with such infamy of insult. He bit his lip, and for a few seconds his eyes grew sad. Yet, after all, what did it matter to him? One's days were too brief to take the burden of another's errors on one's shoulders. Each man lived his own life and paid his own price for living it. The only pity was one had to pay so often for a single fault. One had to pay over and over again, indeed. In her dealings with man, destiny never closed her accounts. There are moments, psychologists tell us, when the passion for sin, or for what the world calls sin, so dominates a nature that every fibre of the body, as every cell of the brain, seems to be instinct with fearful impulses. Men and women at such moments lose the freedom of their will. They move to their terrible end as automatons move. Choice is taken from them, and conscience is either killed, or, if it lives at all, lives but to give rebellion its fascination and disobedience its charm. For all sins, as theologians weary not of reminding us, are sins of disobedience. When that high spirit, that morning star of evil, fell from heaven, it was as a rebel that he fell. Callous, concentrated on evil, with stained mind, and soul hungry for rebellion, Dorian Gray hastened on, quickening his step as he went, but as he darted aside into a dim archway, that had served him often as a short cut to the ill-famed place where he was going, he felt himself suddenly seized from behind, and before he had time to defend himself, he was thrust back against the wall, with a brutal hand round his throat. He struggled madly for life, and by a terrible effort wrenched the tightening fingers away. In a second he heard the click of a revolver, and saw the gleam of a polished barrel, pointing straight at his head, and the dusky form of a short, thick-set man facing him. "What do you want?" he gasped. "Keep quiet," said the man. "If you stir, I shoot you." "You are mad. What have I done to you?" "You wrecked the life of Sibyl Vane," was the answer, "and Sibyl Vane was my sister. She killed herself. I know it. Her death is at your door. I swore I would kill you in return. For years I have sought you. I had no clue, no trace. The two people who could have described you were dead. I knew nothing of you but the pet name she used to call you. I heard it to-night by chance. Make your peace with God, for to-night you are going to die." Dorian Gray grew sick with fear. "I never knew her," he stammered. "I never heard of her. You are mad." "You had better confess your sin, for as sure as I am James Vane, you are going to die." There was a horrible moment. Dorian did not know what to say or do. "Down on your knees!" growled the man. "I give you one minute to make your peace--no more. I go on board to-night for India, and I must do my job first. One minute. That's all." Dorian's arms fell to his side. Paralysed with terror, he did not know what to do. Suddenly a wild hope flashed across his brain. "Stop," he cried. "How long ago is it since your sister died? Quick, tell me!" "Eighteen years," said the man. "Why do you ask me? What do years matter?" "Eighteen years," laughed Dorian Gray, with a touch of triumph in his voice. "Eighteen years! Set me under the lamp and look at my face!" James Vane hesitated for a moment, not understanding what was meant. Then he seized Dorian Gray and dragged him from the archway. Dim and wavering as was the wind-blown light, yet it served to show him the hideous error, as it seemed, into which he had fallen, for the face of the man he had sought to kill had all the bloom of boyhood, all the unstained purity of youth. He seemed little more than a lad of twenty summers, hardly older, if older indeed at all, than his sister had been when they had parted so many years ago. It was obvious that this was not the man who had destroyed her life. He loosened his hold and reeled back. "My God! my God!" he cried, "and I would have murdered you!" Dorian Gray drew a long breath. "You have been on the brink of committing a terrible crime, my man," he said, looking at him sternly. "Let this be a warning to you not to take vengeance into your own hands." "Forgive me, sir," muttered James Vane. "I was deceived. A chance word I heard in that damned den set me on the wrong track." "You had better go home and put that pistol away, or you may get into trouble," said Dorian, turning on his heel and going slowly down the street. James Vane stood on the pavement in horror. He was trembling from head to foot. After a little while, a black shadow that had been creeping along the dripping wall moved out into the light and came close to him with stealthy footsteps. He felt a hand laid on his arm and looked round with a start. It was one of the women who had been drinking at the bar. "Why didn't you kill him?" she hissed out, putting haggard face quite close to his. "I knew you were following him when you rushed out from Daly's. You fool! You should have killed him. He has lots of money, and he's as bad as bad." "He is not the man I am looking for," he answered, "and I want no man's money. I want a man's life. The man whose life I want must be nearly forty now. This one is little more than a boy. Thank God, I have not got his blood upon my hands." The woman gave a bitter laugh. "Little more than a boy!" she sneered. "Why, man, it's nigh on eighteen years since Prince Charming made me what I am." "You lie!" cried James Vane. She raised her hand up to heaven. "Before God I am telling the truth," she cried. "Before God?" "Strike me dumb if it ain't so. He is the worst one that comes here. They say he has sold himself to the devil for a pretty face. It's nigh on eighteen years since I met him. He hasn't changed much since then. I have, though," she added, with a sickly leer. "You swear this?" "I swear it," came in hoarse echo from her flat mouth. "But don't give me away to him," she whined; "I am afraid of him. Let me have some money for my night's lodging." He broke from her with an oath and rushed to the corner of the street, but Dorian Gray had disappeared. When he looked back, the woman had vanished also.

Chapter 16

https://web.archive.org/web/20210228142327/https://www.sparknotes.com/lit/doriangray/section8/

As the coach heads toward the opium dens, Dorian recites to himself Lord Henry's credo: "To cure the soul by means of the senses, and the senses by means of the soul. He decides that if he cannot be forgiven for his sins, he can at least forget them; herein lies the appeal of the opium dens and the oblivion they promise. The coach stops, and Dorian exits. He enters a squalid den and finds a youth named Adrian Singleton, whom rumor says Dorian corrupted. As Dorian prepares to leave, a woman addresses him as "the devil's bargain" and "Prince Charming. At these words, a sailor leaps to his feet and follows Dorian to the street. As he walks along, Dorian wonders whether he should feel guilty for the impact he has had on Adrian Singleton's life. His meditation is cut short, however, when he is seized from behind and held at gunpoint. Facing him is James Vane, Sibyl's brother, who has been tracking Dorian for years in hopes of avenging Sibyl's death. James does not know Dorian's name, but the reference to "Prince Charming" makes him decide that it must be the man who wronged his sister. Dorian points out, however, that the man James seeks was in love with Sibyl eighteen years ago; since he, Dorian, has the face of a twenty-year-old man, he cannot possibly be the man who wronged Sibyl. James releases him and makes his way back to the opium den. The old woman tells James that Dorian has been coming there for eighteen years and that his face has never aged a day in all that time. Furious at having let his prey escape, James resolves to hunt him down again

Chapters Fifteeen-Sixteen When Lord Henry alludes to the "in de siecle" in Chapter Fifteen, he refers more to the sensibilities that flourished in the 1890s than the chronological time period. In this decade, many people in continental Europe and England felt an unshakable sense of discontent. The values that once seemed to structure life and give it meaning were apparently lost. Two main reasons for this disenchantment were linked to the public functions of art and morality, which, in Victorian England, seemed inextricably connected. Art, it was thought, should function as a moral barometer; to the minds of many, this dictum left room for only the most restrictive morals and the most unimaginative art. The term "fin de siecle" therefore came to describe a mode of thinking that sought to escape this disenchantment and restore beauty to art and reshape public understandings of morality. In a way, though Dorian lives a life very much in tune with fin-de-siecle thinking, he rejects Victorian morals in favor of self-determined ethics based on pleasure and experience, and he retains--and is tortured by--a very Victorian mind-set. Indeed, by viewing the painting of himself as "the most magical of mirrors," Dorian disavows the tenets of aestheticism that demand that art be completely freed of its connection to morality. The picture becomes the gauge by which Dorian measures his downfall and serves as a constant reminder of the sins that plague his conscience. If we understand Dorian as a victim of this Victorian circumstance, we can read his drastic course of action in a more sympathetic light. Indeed, by Chapter Sixteen, he is a man desperate to forget the sins for which he believes he can never be forgiven. As he sinks into the sordidness of the London docks and their opium dens, he reflects: Ugliness was the one reality. The coarse brawl, the loathsome den, the crude violence of disordered life, the very vileness of thief and outcast, were more vivid, in their intense actuality of impression, than all the gracious shapes of Art, the dreamy shadows of Song. Here, Dorian's thoughts echo French poets like Charles Baudelaire and Arthur Rimbaud, who believed that the description of intense experience was the key to true beauty, even when the experience itself was something sordid, ugly, or grotesque. Indeed, in this trip to the opium den, Dorian intends to do nothing less than "cure the soul by means of the senses, and the senses by means of the soul." Of course, what Dorian finds in the opium den has a far less curative effect than he hopes. The presence of Adrian Singleton, a young man whose downfall and subsequent drug addiction is at least partially Dorian's fault, pains Dorian's conscience and makes it impossible for him to "escape from himself." The reintroduction of James Vane makes this idea of escape quite literal. The avenging brother is, admittedly, a rather weak plot device that Wilde added to his 1891 revision of the novel. If Dorian fears and wishes to escape from himself, we can consider James the physical incarnation of that fear: James exists to precipitate the troubled Dorian's final breakdown.

shmoop

all_chapterized_books/23042-chapters/9.txt

finished_summaries/shmoop/The Tempest/section_8_part_0.txt

The Tempest.act 5.scene 1

act 5, scene 1

{"name": "Act 5, Scene 1", "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20210411014001/https://www.shmoop.com/study-guides/literature/tempest/summary/act-5-scene-1", "summary": "Prospero asks about King Alonso and his attendants. Ariel informs his master that the shipwrecked group is a pitiful sight: the three traitors are distracted and the rest are mourning. Ariel says Prospero's feelings toward the group would become tender at the sight. Even Ariel would cry...if he were human. Hearing Ariel speak so kindly, with mercy befitting a human, Prospero says he'll put his thirst for vengeance aside and be merciful. He sends Ariel to free the traitors and the rest of their crew from their confusion, and draws a magic circle with his staff . As Ariel leaves him, Prospero muses on all that he has done with his potent art of magic, and solemnly says that once this last task is done, he'll break his staff and bury it in the earth, and drown his book in the ocean. In other words, the guy is giving up his magic. Ariel arrives, dragging behind him a frantic Alonso, Gonzalo, Sebastian, and Antonio, with their attendant lords Adrian and Francisco. They all stand in Prospero's magic circle, charmed, as Prospero addresses each of them. He speaks to Gonzalo first, and tears up as he thanks him for being his \"true preserver\" and remaining so loyal to whomever he serves. Prospero then chides King Alonso for treating him and Miranda so poorly, and says Sebastian, too, suffers for wronging them. Finally, Prospero comes to his terrible brother Antonio. Prospero reveals that Antonio plotted with Sebastian to murder the King, but forgives them all. Prospero then notes that the group may not recognize him . Prospero then asks Ariel to bring his hat and sword, so they might know that the man before them is the old, genuine Duke of Milan. As Ariel dresses Prospero, the airy spirit sings another pretty little song and Prospero notes, though he will miss Ariel, the spirit will surely soon have his freedom. All Ariel needs to do is bring the sleeping mariners from their ship to this spot. Gonzalo and all the shipwrecked gang look on, unsure whether this is more enchantment, or if it's really Prospero before them. Alonso, stunned, immediately returns Prospero's dukedom and asks for Prospero's forgiveness. Alonso also wants to know how Prospero survived and ended up on this island. Prospero turns then to Gonzalo, praising him again before getting back to Antonio and Sebastian. Prospero says he could say some things that would raise a couple of eyebrows, but out of the kindness of his heart, he will keep them to himself. The pair of traitors is not even a bit ashamed or sorry. Sebastian claims the Devil speaks in Prospero, but Prospero ignores this, and instead wholeheartedly forgives his traitorous brother Antonio. King Alonso brings up the loss of his son, Ferdinand, and Prospero cryptically says he has lost his daughter--they've lost both children on account of the tempest. The story of how all of this came to be, he says, is not the kind of thing that can be discussed over a single sitting, but over the course of long days. In the meantime, they can entertain themselves with other things. Perhaps, for instance, they'd like to take a look in Prospero's humble cell? Prospero draws back the curtain to his home and reveals Ferdinand and Miranda, who happen to be playing chess. Alonso and Ferdinand are pleasantly surprised to find each other alive, and Miranda, faced with so many dudes for the first time, declares \"O, wonder! / How many goodly creatures are there here! / How beauteous mankind is! O brave new world / That has such people in't!\" Alonso points out that Ferdinand can't have known the girl he's playing chess with for more than three hours, but hears the surprising news that the girl is his new daughter-in-law, three hours or no. Gonzalo, Alonso, and all the other \"good\" guys are overjoyed with the news. Ariel then enters on cue with the boatswain from the first scene, who happily announces that not only are all the sailors alive, but the ship is good as new. Like magic. Alonso, meanwhile, thinks they should consult an oracle about how on earth all of this very strange stuff has happened, but Prospero tells him to relax. He assures Alonso that he'll explain everything eventually, and for now they should just enjoy the moment. Finally, Prospero tells Ariel to free Caliban and his companions from the whole \"being savagely hunted by hounds\" spell. Stefano, Trinculo, and Caliban enter, the former two in Prospero's stolen clothes. Alonso claims Stefano as his drunken butler, and Prospero claims Caliban as his own slave-begotten-of-a-witch-and-the-Devil. There's some punning on being in a pickle, and Prospero, in a merciful mood, demands that Caliban take his friends and go to work tidying up the cell, if he wants forgiveness. Caliban laments that he was, as we suspected, a \"thrice-double ass\" to take this drunkard Stefano for a god. The three exit to prepare Prospero's cell. Prospero invites Alonso and everyone back to his place, where they'll be treated to Prospero's long life story. Prospero promises that in the morning they'll all go on the newly fixed ship to Naples. Once there, Prospero hopes to see the children married, and then head back to Milan, \"where every third thought shall be my grave.\" Alonso glosses over this happy little sentiment by saying he looks forward to Prospero's autobiography. Prospero promises tomorrow will bring them favorable weather . He leaves Ariel the final task of seeing to the weather, and after that the spirit is finally free. Prospero sends everyone into his home, and then speaks directly to the audience. In the play's final speech, Prospero informs the audience that the only thing that can free him from the island prison and send him to Naples is the audience's applause and approval. P.S. Some literary critics think that this speech is Shakespeare the playwright's way of saying \"so long\" to the theater. If you want to know more about this, go to \"Symbolism.\"", "analysis": ""}

ACT V. SCENE I. _Before the cell of Prospero._ _Enter PROSPERO in his magic robes, and ARIEL._ _Pros._ Now does my project gather to a head: My charms crack not; my spirits obey; and time Goes upright with his carriage. How's the day? _Ari._ On the sixth hour; at which time, my lord, You said our work should cease. _Pros._ I did say so, 5 When first I raised the tempest. Say, my spirit, How fares the king and's followers? _Ari._ Confined together In the same fashion as you gave in charge, Just as you left them; all prisoners, sir, In the line-grove which weather-fends your cell; 10 They cannot budge till your release. The king, His brother, and yours, abide all three distracted, And the remainder mourning over them, Brimful of sorrow and dismay; but chiefly Him that you term'd, sir, "The good old lord, Gonzalo;" 15 His tears run down his beard, like winter's drops From eaves of reeds. Your charm so strongly works 'em, That if you now beheld them, your affections Would become tender. _Pros._ Dost thou think so, spirit? _Ari._ Mine would, sir, were I human. _Pros._ And mine shall. 20 Hast thou, which art but air, a touch, a feeling Of their afflictions, and shall not myself, One of their kind, that relish all as sharply, Passion as they, be kindlier moved than thou art? Though with their high wrongs I am struck to the quick, 25 Yet with my nobler reason 'gainst my fury Do I take part: the rarer action is In virtue than in vengeance: they being penitent, The sole drift of my purpose doth extend Not a frown further. Go release them, Ariel: 30 My charms I'll break, their senses I'll restore, And they shall be themselves. _Ari._ I'll fetch them, sir. [_Exit._ _Pros._ Ye elves of hills, brooks, standing lakes, and groves; And ye that on the sands with printless foot Do chase the ebbing Neptune, and do fly him 35 When he comes back; you demi-puppets that By moonshine do the green sour ringlets make, Whereof the ewe not bites; and you whose pastime Is to make midnight mushrooms, that rejoice To hear the solemn curfew; by whose aid-- 40 Weak masters though ye be--I have bedimm'd The noontide sun, call'd forth the mutinous winds. And 'twixt the green sea and the azured vault Set roaring war: to the dread rattling thunder Have I given fire, and rifted Jove's stout oak 45 With his own bolt; the strong-based promontory Have I made shake, and by the spurs pluck'd up The pine and cedar: graves at my command Have waked their sleepers, oped, and let 'em forth By my so potent art. But this rough magic 50 I here abjure; and, when I have required Some heavenly music,--which even now I do,-- To work mine end upon their senses, that This airy charm is for, I'll break my staff, Bury it certain fathoms in the earth, 55 And deeper than did ever plummet sound I'll drown my book. [_Solemn music._ _Re-enter ARIEL before: then ALONSO, with a frantic gesture, attended by GONZALO; SEBASTIAN and ANTONIO in like manner, attended by ADRIAN and FRANCISCO: they all enter the circle which PROSPERO had made, and there stand charmed; which PROSPERO observing, speaks:_ A solemn air, and the best comforter To an unsettled fancy, cure thy brains, Now useless, boil'd within thy skull! There stand, 60 For you are spell-stopp'd. Holy Gonzalo, honourable man, Mine eyes, even sociable to the show of thine, Fall fellowly drops. The charm dissolves apace; And as the morning steals upon the night, 65 Melting the darkness, so their rising senses Begin to chase the ignorant fumes that mantle Their clearer reason. O good Gonzalo, My true preserver, and a loyal sir To him thou follow'st! I will pay thy graces 70 Home both in word and deed. Most cruelly Didst thou, Alonso, use me and my daughter: Thy brother was a furtherer in the act. Thou art pinch'd for't now, Sebastian. Flesh and blood, You, brother mine, that entertain'd ambition, 75 Expell'd remorse and nature; who, with Sebastian,-- Whose inward pinches therefore are most strong,-- Would here have kill'd your king; I do forgive thee, Unnatural though thou art. Their understanding Begins to swell; and the approaching tide 80 Will shortly fill the reasonable shore, That now lies foul and muddy. Not one of them That yet looks on me, or would know me: Ariel, Fetch me the hat and rapier in my cell: I will discase me, and myself present 85 As I was sometime Milan: quickly, spirit; Thou shalt ere long be free. _ARIEL sings and helps to attire him._ Where the bee sucks, there suck I: In a cowslip's bell I lie; There I couch when owls do cry. 90 On the bat's back I do fly After summer merrily. Merrily, merrily shall I live now Under the blossom that hangs on the bough. _Pros._ Why, that's my dainty Ariel! I shall miss thee; 95 But yet thou shalt have freedom: so, so, so. To the king's ship, invisible as thou art: There shalt thou find the mariners asleep Under the hatches; the master and the boatswain Being awake, enforce them to this place, 100 And presently, I prithee. _Ari._ I drink the air before me, and return Or ere your pulse twice beat. [_Exit._ _Gon._ All torment, trouble, wonder and amazement Inhabits here: some heavenly power guide us 105 Out of this fearful country! _Pros._ Behold, sir king, The wronged Duke of Milan, Prospero: For more assurance that a living prince Does now speak to thee, I embrace thy body; And to thee and thy company I bid 110 A hearty welcome. _Alon._ Whether thou be'st he or no, Or some enchanted trifle to abuse me, As late I have been, I not know: thy pulse Beats, as of flesh and blood; and, since I saw thee, The affliction of my mind amends, with which, 115 I fear, a madness held me: this must crave-- An if this be at all--a most strange story. Thy dukedom I resign, and do entreat Thou pardon me my wrongs. --But how should Prospero Be living and be here? _Pros._ First, noble friend, 120 Let me embrace thine age, whose honour cannot Be measured or confined. _Gon._ Whether this be Or be not, I'll not swear. _Pros._ You do yet taste Some subtilties o' the isle, that will not let you Believe things certain. Welcome, my friends all! 125 [_Aside to Seb. and Ant._] But you, my brace of lords, were I so minded, I here could pluck his Highness' frown upon you, And justify you traitors: at this time I will tell no tales. _Seb._ [_Aside_] The devil speaks in him. _Pros._ No. For you, most wicked sir, whom to call brother 130 Would even infect my mouth, I do forgive Thy rankest fault,--all of them; and require My dukedom of thee, which perforce, I know, Thou must restore. _Alon._ If thou be'st Prospero, Give us particulars of thy preservation; 135 How thou hast met us here, who three hours since Were wreck'd upon this shore; where I have lost-- How sharp the point of this remembrance is!-- My dear son Ferdinand. _Pros._ I am woe for't, sir. _Alon._ Irreparable is the loss; and patience 140 Says it is past her cure. _Pros._ I rather think You have not sought her help, of whose soft grace For the like loss I have her sovereign aid, And rest myself content. _Alon._ You the like loss! _Pros._ As great to me as late; and, supportable 145 To make the dear loss, have I means much weaker Than you may call to comfort you, for I Have lost my daughter. _Alon._ A daughter? O heavens, that they were living both in Naples, The king and queen there! that they were, I wish 150 Myself were mudded in that oozy bed Where my son lies. When did you lose you daughter? _Pros._ In this last tempest. I perceive, these lords At this encounter do so much admire, That they devour their reason, and scarce think 155 Their eyes do offices of truth, their words Are natural breath: but, howsoe'er you have Been justled from your senses, know for certain That I am Prospero, and that very duke Which was thrust forth of Milan; who most strangely 160 Upon this shore, where you were wreck'd, was landed, To be the Lord on't. No more yet of this; For 'tis a chronicle of day by day, Not a relation for a breakfast, nor Befitting this first meeting. Welcome, sir; 165 This cell's my court: here have I few attendants, And subjects none abroad: pray you, look in. My dukedom since you have given me again, I will requite you with as good a thing; At least bring forth a wonder, to content ye 170 As much as me my dukedom. _Here Prospero discovers FERDINAND and MIRANDA playing at chess._ _Mir._ Sweet lord, you play me false. _Fer._ No, my dear'st love, I would not for the world. _Mir._ Yes, for a score of kingdoms you should wrangle, And I would call it fair play. _Alon._ If this prove 175 A vision of the island, one dear son Shall I twice lose. _Seb._ A most high miracle! _Fer._ Though the seas threaten, they are merciful; I have cursed them without cause. [_Kneels._ _Alon._ Now all the blessings Of a glad father compass thee about! 180 Arise, and say how thou camest here. _Mir._ O, wonder! How many goodly creatures are there here! How beauteous mankind is! O brave new world, That has such people in't! _Pros._ 'Tis new to thee. _Alon._ What is this maid with whom thou wast at play? 185 Your eld'st acquaintance cannot be three hours: Is she the goddess that hath sever'd us, And brought us thus together? _Fer._ Sir, she is mortal; But by immortal Providence she's mine: I chose her when I could not ask my father 190 For his advice, nor thought I had one. She Is daughter to this famous Duke of Milan, Of whom so often I have heard renown, But never saw before; of whom I have Received a second life; and second father 195 This lady makes him to me. _Alon._ I am hers: But, O, how oddly will it sound that I Must ask my child forgiveness! _Pros._ There, sir, stop: Let us not burthen our remembrances with A heaviness that's gone. _Gon._ I have inly wept, 200 Or should have spoke ere this. Look down, you gods, And on this couple drop a blessed crown! For it is you that have chalk'd forth the way Which brought us hither. _Alon._ I say, Amen, Gonzalo! _Gon._ Was Milan thrust from Milan, that his issue 205 Should become kings of Naples? O, rejoice Beyond a common joy! and set it down With gold on lasting pillars: In one voyage Did Claribel her husband find at Tunis, And Ferdinand, her brother, found a wife 210 Where he himself was lost, Prospero his dukedom In a poor isle, and all of us ourselves When no man was his own. _Alon._ [_to Fer. and Mir._] Give me your hands: Let grief and sorrow still embrace his heart That doth not wish you joy! _Gon._ Be it so! Amen! 215 _Re-enter ARIEL, with the _Master_ and _Boatswain_ amazedly following._ O, look, sir, look, sir! here is more of us: I prophesied, if a gallows were on land, This fellow could not drown. Now, blasphemy, That swear'st grace o'erboard, not an oath on shore? Hast thou no mouth by land? What is the news? 220 _Boats._ The best news is, that we have safely found Our king and company; the next, our ship-- Which, but three glasses since, we gave out split-- Is tight and yare and bravely rigg'd, as when We first put out to sea. _Ari._ [_Aside to Pros._] Sir, all this service 225 Have I done since I went. _Pros._ [_Aside to Ari._] My tricksy spirit! _Alon._ These are not natural events; they strengthen From strange to stranger. Say, how came you hither? _Boats._ If I did think, sir, I were well awake, I'ld strive to tell you. We were dead of sleep, 230 And--how we know not--all clapp'd under hatches; Where, but even now, with strange and several noises Of roaring, shrieking, howling, jingling chains, And more diversity of sounds, all horrible, We were awaked; straightway, at liberty; 235 Where we, in all her trim, freshly beheld Our royal, good, and gallant ship; our master Capering to eye her:--on a trice, so please you, Even in a dream, were we divided from them, And were brought moping hither. _Ari._ [_Aside to Pros._] Was't well done? 240 _Pros._ [_Aside to Ari._] Bravely, my diligence. Thou shalt be free. _Alon._ This is as strange a maze as e'er men trod; And there is in this business more than nature Was ever conduct of: some oracle Must rectify our knowledge. _Pros._ Sir, my liege, 245 Do not infest your mind with beating on The strangeness of this business; at pick'd leisure Which shall be shortly, single I'll resolve you, Which to you shall seem probable, of every These happen'd accidents; till when, be cheerful, 250 And think of each thing well. [_Aside to Ari._] Come hither, spirit: Set Caliban and his companions free; Untie the spell. [_Exit Ariel._] How fares my gracious sir? There are yet missing of your company Some few odd lads that you remember not. 255 _Re-enter ARIEL, driving in CALIBAN, STEPHANO, and TRINCULO, in their stolen apparel._ _Ste._ Every man shift for all the rest, and let no man take care for himself; for all is but fortune. --Coragio, bully-monster, coragio! _Trin._ If these be true spies which I wear in my head, here's a goodly sight. 260 _Cal._ O Setebos, these be brave spirits indeed! How fine my master is! I am afraid He will chastise me. _Seb._ Ha, ha! What things are these, my lord Antonio? Will money buy 'em? _Ant._ Very like; one of them 265 Is a plain fish, and, no doubt, marketable. _Pros._ Mark but the badges of these men, my lords, Then say if they be true. This mis-shapen knave, His mother was a witch; and one so strong That could control the moon, make flows and ebbs, 270 And deal in her command, without her power. These three have robb'd me; and this demi-devil-- For he's a bastard one--had plotted with them To take my life. Two of these fellows you Must know and own; this thing of darkness I 275 Acknowledge mine. _Cal._ I shall be pinch'd to death. _Alon._ Is not this Stephano, my drunken butler? _Seb._ He is drunk now: where had he wine? _Alon._ And Trinculo is reeling ripe: where should they Find this grand liquor that hath gilded 'em?-- 280 How camest thou in this pickle? _Trin._ I have been in such a pickle, since I saw you last, that, I fear me, will never out of my bones: I shall not fear fly-blowing. _Seb._ Why, how now, Stephano! 285 _Ste._ O, touch me not;--I am not Stephano, but a cramp. _Pros._ You'ld be king o' the isle, sirrah? _Ste._ I should have been a sore one, then. _Alon._ This is a strange thing as e'er I look'd on. [_Pointing to Caliban._ _Pros._ He is as disproportion'd in his manners 290 As in his shape. Go, sirrah, to my cell; Take with you your companions; as you look To have my pardon, trim it handsomely. _Cal._ Ay, that I will; and I'll be wise hereafter, And seek for grace. What a thrice-double ass 295 Was I, to take this drunkard for a god, And worship this dull fool! _Pros._ Go to; away! _Alon._ Hence, and bestow your luggage where you found it. _Seb._ Or stole it, rather. [_Exeunt Cal., Ste., and Trin._ _Pros._ Sir, I invite your Highness and your train 300 To my poor cell, where you shall take your rest For this one night; which, part of it, I'll waste With such discourse as, I not doubt, shall make it Go quick away: the story of my life, And the particular accidents gone by 305 Since I came to this isle: and in the morn I'll bring you to your ship, and so to Naples, Where I have hope to see the nuptial Of these our dear-beloved solemnized; And thence retire me to my Milan, where 310 Every third thought shall be my grave. _Alon._ I long To hear the story of your life, which must Take the ear strangely. _Pros._ I'll deliver all; And promise you calm seas, auspicious gales, And sail so expeditious, that shall catch Your royal fleet far off. [_Aside to Ari._] My Ariel, chick, 315 That is thy charge: then to the elements Be free, and fare thou well! Please you, draw near. [_Exeunt._ Notes: V, 1. 7: _together_] om. Pope. 9: _all_] _all your_ Pope. 10: _line-grove_] _lime-grove_ Rowe. 11: _your_] F1 F2. _you_ F3 F4. 15: _sir_] om. Pope. 16: _run_] _runs_ F1. _winter's_] _winter_ F4.] 23: F1 F2 put a comma after _sharply_. F3 F4 omit it. 24: _Passion_] _Passion'd_ Pope. 26: _'gainst_] Pope. _gainst_ F1 F2. _against_ F3 F4. 33: SCENE II. Pope. 37: _green sour_] _green-sward_ Douce conj. 46: _strong-based_] Rowe. _strong-bass'd_ Ff. 58: SCENE III. Pope. 60: _boil'd_] Pope. _boile_ F1 F2. _boil_ F3 F4. 62: _Holy_] _Noble_ Collier MS. 63: _show_] _shew_ Ff. _flow_ Collier MS. 64: _fellowly_] _fellow_ Pope. 68: _O_] _O my_ Pope. _O thou_ S. Walker conj. 69: _sir_] _servant_ Collier MS. 72: _Didst_] F3 F4. _Did_ F1 F2. 74: _Sebastian. Flesh and blood,_] _Sebastian, flesh and blood._ Theobald. 75: _entertain'd_] _entertaine_ F1. 76: _who_] Rowe. _whom_ Ff. 82: _lies_] F3 F4. _ly_ F1 F2. 83: _or_] _e'er_ Collier MS. 84: Theobald gives as stage direction "Exit Ariel and returns immediately." 88: _suck_] _lurk_ Theobald. 90: _couch_] _crowch_ F3 F4. [Capell punctuates _There I couch: when owls do cry,_] 92: _summer_] _sun-set_ Theobald. 106: _Behold,_] _lo!_ Pope. 111: _Whether thou be'st_] _Where thou beest_ Ff. _Be'st thou_ Pope. _Whe'r thou be'st_ Capell. 112: _trifle_] _devil_ Collier MS. 119: _my_] _thy_ Collier MS. 124: _not_] F3 F4. _nor_ F1 F2. 132: _fault_] _faults_ F4. 136: _who_] F2 F3 F4. _whom_ F1. 145: _and,_] _sir, and_ Capell. _supportable_] F1 F2. _insupportable_ F3 F4. _portable_ Steevens. 148: _my_] _my only_ Hanmer. _A daughter_] _Only daughter_ Hanmer. _Daughter_ Capell. 156: _eyes_] F1. _eye_ F2 F3 F4. _their_] _these_ Capell.] 172: SCENE IV. Pope. Here Prospero discovers...] Ff. SCENE opens to the entrance of the cell. Here Prospero discovers... Theobald. Cell opens and discovers... Capell.] 172: _dear'st_] _dearest_ Ff. 179: [Kneels] Theobald. 191: _advice_] F4. _advise_ F1 F2 F3. 199, 200: _remembrances with_] _remembrance with_ Pope. _remembrances With_ Malone. 213: _When_] _Where_ Johnson conj.] _and_] om. Capell. 216: SCENE V. Pope. _sir, look, sir_] _sir, look_ F3 F4.] _is_] _are_ Pope.] 221: _safely_] _safe_ F3 F4. 230: _of sleep_] _a-sleep_ Pope. 234: _more_] Rowe. _mo_ F1 F2. _moe_ F3 F4. 236: _her_] Theobald (Thirlby conj.). _our_ Ff. 242-245: Given to Ariel in F2 F3 F4. 247: _leisure_] F1. _seisure_ F2. _seizure_ F3 F4. 248: _Which shall be shortly, single_] Pope. _(which shall be shortly single)_ Ff. 253: [Exit Ariel] Capell. 256: SCENE VI. Pope. 258: _Coragio_] _corasio_ F1. 268: _mis-shapen_] _mis-shap'd_ Pope. 271: _command, without her power._] _command. Without her power,_ anon. conj. _without_] _with all_ Collier MS. 280: _liquor_] _'lixir_ Theobald. 282-284: Printed as verse in Ff. 289: _This is_] F1 F2. _'Tis_ F3 F4.] _e'er I_] _I ever_ Hanmer. [Pointing to Caliban.] Steevens.] 299: [Exeunt... Trin.] Capell. 308: _nuptial_] _nuptiall_ F1. _nuptials_ F2 F3 F4. 309: See note (XVIII).

Act 5, Scene 1

https://web.archive.org/web/20210411014001/https://www.shmoop.com/study-guides/literature/tempest/summary/act-5-scene-1

Prospero asks about King Alonso and his attendants. Ariel informs his master that the shipwrecked group is a pitiful sight: the three traitors are distracted and the rest are mourning. Ariel says Prospero's feelings toward the group would become tender at the sight. Even Ariel would cry...if he were human. Hearing Ariel speak so kindly, with mercy befitting a human, Prospero says he'll put his thirst for vengeance aside and be merciful. He sends Ariel to free the traitors and the rest of their crew from their confusion, and draws a magic circle with his staff . As Ariel leaves him, Prospero muses on all that he has done with his potent art of magic, and solemnly says that once this last task is done, he'll break his staff and bury it in the earth, and drown his book in the ocean. In other words, the guy is giving up his magic. Ariel arrives, dragging behind him a frantic Alonso, Gonzalo, Sebastian, and Antonio, with their attendant lords Adrian and Francisco. They all stand in Prospero's magic circle, charmed, as Prospero addresses each of them. He speaks to Gonzalo first, and tears up as he thanks him for being his "true preserver" and remaining so loyal to whomever he serves. Prospero then chides King Alonso for treating him and Miranda so poorly, and says Sebastian, too, suffers for wronging them. Finally, Prospero comes to his terrible brother Antonio. Prospero reveals that Antonio plotted with Sebastian to murder the King, but forgives them all. Prospero then notes that the group may not recognize him . Prospero then asks Ariel to bring his hat and sword, so they might know that the man before them is the old, genuine Duke of Milan. As Ariel dresses Prospero, the airy spirit sings another pretty little song and Prospero notes, though he will miss Ariel, the spirit will surely soon have his freedom. All Ariel needs to do is bring the sleeping mariners from their ship to this spot. Gonzalo and all the shipwrecked gang look on, unsure whether this is more enchantment, or if it's really Prospero before them. Alonso, stunned, immediately returns Prospero's dukedom and asks for Prospero's forgiveness. Alonso also wants to know how Prospero survived and ended up on this island. Prospero turns then to Gonzalo, praising him again before getting back to Antonio and Sebastian. Prospero says he could say some things that would raise a couple of eyebrows, but out of the kindness of his heart, he will keep them to himself. The pair of traitors is not even a bit ashamed or sorry. Sebastian claims the Devil speaks in Prospero, but Prospero ignores this, and instead wholeheartedly forgives his traitorous brother Antonio. King Alonso brings up the loss of his son, Ferdinand, and Prospero cryptically says he has lost his daughter--they've lost both children on account of the tempest. The story of how all of this came to be, he says, is not the kind of thing that can be discussed over a single sitting, but over the course of long days. In the meantime, they can entertain themselves with other things. Perhaps, for instance, they'd like to take a look in Prospero's humble cell? Prospero draws back the curtain to his home and reveals Ferdinand and Miranda, who happen to be playing chess. Alonso and Ferdinand are pleasantly surprised to find each other alive, and Miranda, faced with so many dudes for the first time, declares "O, wonder! / How many goodly creatures are there here! / How beauteous mankind is! O brave new world / That has such people in't!" Alonso points out that Ferdinand can't have known the girl he's playing chess with for more than three hours, but hears the surprising news that the girl is his new daughter-in-law, three hours or no. Gonzalo, Alonso, and all the other "good" guys are overjoyed with the news. Ariel then enters on cue with the boatswain from the first scene, who happily announces that not only are all the sailors alive, but the ship is good as new. Like magic. Alonso, meanwhile, thinks they should consult an oracle about how on earth all of this very strange stuff has happened, but Prospero tells him to relax. He assures Alonso that he'll explain everything eventually, and for now they should just enjoy the moment. Finally, Prospero tells Ariel to free Caliban and his companions from the whole "being savagely hunted by hounds" spell. Stefano, Trinculo, and Caliban enter, the former two in Prospero's stolen clothes. Alonso claims Stefano as his drunken butler, and Prospero claims Caliban as his own slave-begotten-of-a-witch-and-the-Devil. There's some punning on being in a pickle, and Prospero, in a merciful mood, demands that Caliban take his friends and go to work tidying up the cell, if he wants forgiveness. Caliban laments that he was, as we suspected, a "thrice-double ass" to take this drunkard Stefano for a god. The three exit to prepare Prospero's cell. Prospero invites Alonso and everyone back to his place, where they'll be treated to Prospero's long life story. Prospero promises that in the morning they'll all go on the newly fixed ship to Naples. Once there, Prospero hopes to see the children married, and then head back to Milan, "where every third thought shall be my grave." Alonso glosses over this happy little sentiment by saying he looks forward to Prospero's autobiography. Prospero promises tomorrow will bring them favorable weather . He leaves Ariel the final task of seeing to the weather, and after that the spirit is finally free. Prospero sends everyone into his home, and then speaks directly to the audience. In the play's final speech, Prospero informs the audience that the only thing that can free him from the island prison and send him to Naples is the audience's applause and approval. P.S. Some literary critics think that this speech is Shakespeare the playwright's way of saying "so long" to the theater. If you want to know more about this, go to "Symbolism."

sparknotes

all_chapterized_books/28054-chapters/48.txt

finished_summaries/sparknotes/The Brothers Karamazov/section_10_part_3.txt

The Brothers Karamazov.book 8.chapter 3

book 8, chapter 3

{"name": "book 8, Chapter 3", "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20210305110438/https://www.sparknotes.com/lit/brothersk/section11/", "summary": "Gold Mines Dmitri asks Madame Khokhlakov to lend him the money, but she refuses and suggests that he should go to work in the gold mines instead. He runs into Grushenka's servant and finds out that she is not at home. The servant refuses to tell him where she has gone", "analysis": ""}

Chapter III. Gold-Mines This was the visit of Mitya of which Grushenka had spoken to Rakitin with such horror. She was just then expecting the "message," and was much relieved that Mitya had not been to see her that day or the day before. She hoped that "please God he won't come till I'm gone away," and he suddenly burst in on her. The rest we know already. To get him off her hands she suggested at once that he should walk with her to Samsonov's, where she said she absolutely must go "to settle his accounts," and when Mitya accompanied her at once, she said good-by to him at the gate, making him promise to come at twelve o'clock to take her home again. Mitya, too, was delighted at this arrangement. If she was sitting at Samsonov's she could not be going to Fyodor Pavlovitch's, "if only she's not lying," he added at once. But he thought she was not lying from what he saw. He was that sort of jealous man who, in the absence of the beloved woman, at once invents all sorts of awful fancies of what may be happening to her, and how she may be betraying him, but, when shaken, heartbroken, convinced of her faithlessness, he runs back to her; at the first glance at her face, her gay, laughing, affectionate face, he revives at once, lays aside all suspicion and with joyful shame abuses himself for his jealousy. After leaving Grushenka at the gate he rushed home. Oh, he had so much still to do that day! But a load had been lifted from his heart, anyway. "Now I must only make haste and find out from Smerdyakov whether anything happened there last night, whether, by any chance, she went to Fyodor Pavlovitch; ough!" floated through his mind. Before he had time to reach his lodging, jealousy had surged up again in his restless heart. Jealousy! "Othello was not jealous, he was trustful," observed Pushkin. And that remark alone is enough to show the deep insight of our great poet. Othello's soul was shattered and his whole outlook clouded simply because _his ideal was destroyed_. But Othello did not begin hiding, spying, peeping. He was trustful, on the contrary. He had to be led up, pushed on, excited with great difficulty before he could entertain the idea of deceit. The truly jealous man is not like that. It is impossible to picture to oneself the shame and moral degradation to which the jealous man can descend without a qualm of conscience. And yet it's not as though the jealous were all vulgar and base souls. On the contrary, a man of lofty feelings, whose love is pure and full of self-sacrifice, may yet hide under tables, bribe the vilest people, and be familiar with the lowest ignominy of spying and eavesdropping. Othello was incapable of making up his mind to faithlessness--not incapable of forgiving it, but of making up his mind to it--though his soul was as innocent and free from malice as a babe's. It is not so with the really jealous man. It is hard to imagine what some jealous men can make up their mind to and overlook, and what they can forgive! The jealous are the readiest of all to forgive, and all women know it. The jealous man can forgive extraordinarily quickly (though, of course, after a violent scene), and he is able to forgive infidelity almost conclusively proved, the very kisses and embraces he has seen, if only he can somehow be convinced that it has all been "for the last time," and that his rival will vanish from that day forward, will depart to the ends of the earth, or that he himself will carry her away somewhere, where that dreaded rival will not get near her. Of course the reconciliation is only for an hour. For, even if the rival did disappear next day, he would invent another one and would be jealous of him. And one might wonder what there was in a love that had to be so watched over, what a love could be worth that needed such strenuous guarding. But that the jealous will never understand. And yet among them are men of noble hearts. It is remarkable, too, that those very men of noble hearts, standing hidden in some cupboard, listening and spying, never feel the stings of conscience at that moment, anyway, though they understand clearly enough with their "noble hearts" the shameful depths to which they have voluntarily sunk. At the sight of Grushenka, Mitya's jealousy vanished, and, for an instant he became trustful and generous, and positively despised himself for his evil feelings. But it only proved that, in his love for the woman, there was an element of something far higher than he himself imagined, that it was not only a sensual passion, not only the "curve of her body," of which he had talked to Alyosha. But, as soon as Grushenka had gone, Mitya began to suspect her of all the low cunning of faithlessness, and he felt no sting of conscience at it. And so jealousy surged up in him again. He had, in any case, to make haste. The first thing to be done was to get hold of at least a small, temporary loan of money. The nine roubles had almost all gone on his expedition. And, as we all know, one can't take a step without money. But he had thought over in the cart where he could get a loan. He had a brace of fine dueling pistols in a case, which he had not pawned till then because he prized them above all his possessions. In the "Metropolis" tavern he had some time since made acquaintance with a young official and had learnt that this very opulent bachelor was passionately fond of weapons. He used to buy pistols, revolvers, daggers, hang them on his wall and show them to acquaintances. He prided himself on them, and was quite a specialist on the mechanism of the revolver. Mitya, without stopping to think, went straight to him, and offered to pawn his pistols to him for ten roubles. The official, delighted, began trying to persuade him to sell them outright. But Mitya would not consent, so the young man gave him ten roubles, protesting that nothing would induce him to take interest. They parted friends. Mitya was in haste; he rushed towards Fyodor Pavlovitch's by the back way, to his arbor, to get hold of Smerdyakov as soon as possible. In this way the fact was established that three or four hours before a certain event, of which I shall speak later on, Mitya had not a farthing, and pawned for ten roubles a possession he valued, though, three hours later, he was in possession of thousands.... But I am anticipating. From Marya Kondratyevna (the woman living near Fyodor Pavlovitch's) he learned the very disturbing fact of Smerdyakov's illness. He heard the story of his fall in the cellar, his fit, the doctor's visit, Fyodor Pavlovitch's anxiety; he heard with interest, too, that his brother Ivan had set off that morning for Moscow. "Then he must have driven through Volovya before me," thought Dmitri, but he was terribly distressed about Smerdyakov. "What will happen now? Who'll keep watch for me? Who'll bring me word?" he thought. He began greedily questioning the women whether they had seen anything the evening before. They quite understood what he was trying to find out, and completely reassured him. No one had been there. Ivan Fyodorovitch had been there the night; everything had been perfectly as usual. Mitya grew thoughtful. He would certainly have to keep watch to-day, but where? Here or at Samsonov's gate? He decided that he must be on the look out both here and there, and meanwhile ... meanwhile.... The difficulty was that he had to carry out the new plan that he had made on the journey back. He was sure of its success, but he must not delay acting upon it. Mitya resolved to sacrifice an hour to it: "In an hour I shall know everything, I shall settle everything, and then, then, first of all to Samsonov's. I'll inquire whether Grushenka's there and instantly be back here again, stay till eleven, and then to Samsonov's again to bring her home." This was what he decided. He flew home, washed, combed his hair, brushed his clothes, dressed, and went to Madame Hohlakov's. Alas! he had built his hopes on her. He had resolved to borrow three thousand from that lady. And what was more, he felt suddenly convinced that she would not refuse to lend it to him. It may be wondered why, if he felt so certain, he had not gone to her at first, one of his own sort, so to speak, instead of to Samsonov, a man he did not know, who was not of his own class, and to whom he hardly knew how to speak. But the fact was that he had never known Madame Hohlakov well, and had seen nothing of her for the last month, and that he knew she could not endure him. She had detested him from the first because he was engaged to Katerina Ivanovna, while she had, for some reason, suddenly conceived the desire that Katerina Ivanovna should throw him over, and marry the "charming, chivalrously refined Ivan, who had such excellent manners." Mitya's manners she detested. Mitya positively laughed at her, and had once said about her that she was just as lively and at her ease as she was uncultivated. But that morning in the cart a brilliant idea had struck him: "If she is so anxious I should not marry Katerina Ivanovna" (and he knew she was positively hysterical upon the subject) "why should she refuse me now that three thousand, just to enable me to leave Katya and get away from her for ever. These spoilt fine ladies, if they set their hearts on anything, will spare no expense to satisfy their caprice. Besides, she's so rich," Mitya argued. As for his "plan" it was just the same as before; it consisted of the offer of his rights to Tchermashnya--but not with a commercial object, as it had been with Samsonov, not trying to allure the lady with the possibility of making a profit of six or seven thousand--but simply as a security for the debt. As he worked out this new idea, Mitya was enchanted with it, but so it always was with him in all his undertakings, in all his sudden decisions. He gave himself up to every new idea with passionate enthusiasm. Yet, when he mounted the steps of Madame Hohlakov's house he felt a shiver of fear run down his spine. At that moment he saw fully, as a mathematical certainty, that this was his last hope, that if this broke down, nothing else was left him in the world, but to "rob and murder some one for the three thousand." It was half-past seven when he rang at the bell. At first fortune seemed to smile upon him. As soon as he was announced he was received with extraordinary rapidity. "As though she were waiting for me," thought Mitya, and as soon as he had been led to the drawing-room, the lady of the house herself ran in, and declared at once that she was expecting him. "I was expecting you! I was expecting you! Though I'd no reason to suppose you would come to see me, as you will admit yourself. Yet, I did expect you. You may marvel at my instinct, Dmitri Fyodorovitch, but I was convinced all the morning that you would come." "That is certainly wonderful, madam," observed Mitya, sitting down limply, "but I have come to you on a matter of great importance.... On a matter of supreme importance for me, that is, madam ... for me alone ... and I hasten--" "I know you've come on most important business, Dmitri Fyodorovitch; it's not a case of presentiment, no reactionary harking back to the miraculous (have you heard about Father Zossima?). This is a case of mathematics: you couldn't help coming, after all that has passed with Katerina Ivanovna; you couldn't, you couldn't, that's a mathematical certainty." "The realism of actual life, madam, that's what it is. But allow me to explain--" "Realism indeed, Dmitri Fyodorovitch. I'm all for realism now. I've seen too much of miracles. You've heard that Father Zossima is dead?" "No, madam, it's the first time I've heard of it." Mitya was a little surprised. The image of Alyosha rose to his mind. "Last night, and only imagine--" "Madam," said Mitya, "I can imagine nothing except that I'm in a desperate position, and that if you don't help me, everything will come to grief, and I first of all. Excuse me for the triviality of the expression, but I'm in a fever--" "I know, I know that you're in a fever. You could hardly fail to be, and whatever you may say to me, I know beforehand. I have long been thinking over your destiny, Dmitri Fyodorovitch, I am watching over it and studying it.... Oh, believe me, I'm an experienced doctor of the soul, Dmitri Fyodorovitch." "Madam, if you are an experienced doctor, I'm certainly an experienced patient," said Mitya, with an effort to be polite, "and I feel that if you are watching over my destiny in this way, you will come to my help in my ruin, and so allow me, at least to explain to you the plan with which I have ventured to come to you ... and what I am hoping of you.... I have come, madam--" "Don't explain it. It's of secondary importance. But as for help, you're not the first I have helped, Dmitri Fyodorovitch. You have most likely heard of my cousin, Madame Belmesov. Her husband was ruined, 'had come to grief,' as you characteristically express it, Dmitri Fyodorovitch. I recommended him to take to horse-breeding, and now he's doing well. Have you any idea of horse-breeding, Dmitri Fyodorovitch?" "Not the faintest, madam; ah, madam, not the faintest!" cried Mitya, in nervous impatience, positively starting from his seat. "I simply implore you, madam, to listen to me. Only give me two minutes of free speech that I may just explain to you everything, the whole plan with which I have come. Besides, I am short of time. I'm in a fearful hurry," Mitya cried hysterically, feeling that she was just going to begin talking again, and hoping to cut her short. "I have come in despair ... in the last gasp of despair, to beg you to lend me the sum of three thousand, a loan, but on safe, most safe security, madam, with the most trustworthy guarantees! Only let me explain--" "You must tell me all that afterwards, afterwards!" Madame Hohlakov with a gesture demanded silence in her turn, "and whatever you may tell me, I know it all beforehand; I've told you so already. You ask for a certain sum, for three thousand, but I can give you more, immeasurably more, I will save you, Dmitri Fyodorovitch, but you must listen to me." Mitya started from his seat again. "Madam, will you really be so good!" he cried, with strong feeling. "Good God, you've saved me! You have saved a man from a violent death, from a bullet.... My eternal gratitude--" "I will give you more, infinitely more than three thousand!" cried Madame Hohlakov, looking with a radiant smile at Mitya's ecstasy. "Infinitely? But I don't need so much. I only need that fatal three thousand, and on my part I can give security for that sum with infinite gratitude, and I propose a plan which--" "Enough, Dmitri Fyodorovitch, it's said and done." Madame Hohlakov cut him short, with the modest triumph of beneficence: "I have promised to save you, and I will save you. I will save you as I did Belmesov. What do you think of the gold-mines, Dmitri Fyodorovitch?" "Of the gold-mines, madam? I have never thought anything about them." "But I have thought of them for you. Thought of them over and over again. I have been watching you for the last month. I've watched you a hundred times as you've walked past, saying to myself: That's a man of energy who ought to be at the gold-mines. I've studied your gait and come to the conclusion: that's a man who would find gold." "From my gait, madam?" said Mitya, smiling. "Yes, from your gait. You surely don't deny that character can be told from the gait, Dmitri Fyodorovitch? Science supports the idea. I'm all for science and realism now. After all this business with Father Zossima, which has so upset me, from this very day I'm a realist and I want to devote myself to practical usefulness. I'm cured. 'Enough!' as Turgenev says." "But, madam, the three thousand you so generously promised to lend me--" "It is yours, Dmitri Fyodorovitch," Madame Hohlakov cut in at once. "The money is as good as in your pocket, not three thousand, but three million, Dmitri Fyodorovitch, in less than no time. I'll make you a present of the idea: you shall find gold-mines, make millions, return and become a leading man, and wake us up and lead us to better things. Are we to leave it all to the Jews? You will found institutions and enterprises of all sorts. You will help the poor, and they will bless you. This is the age of railways, Dmitri Fyodorovitch. You'll become famous and indispensable to the Department of Finance, which is so badly off at present. The depreciation of the rouble keeps me awake at night, Dmitri Fyodorovitch; people don't know that side of me--" "Madam, madam!" Dmitri interrupted with an uneasy presentiment. "I shall indeed, perhaps, follow your advice, your wise advice, madam.... I shall perhaps set off ... to the gold-mines.... I'll come and see you again about it ... many times, indeed ... but now, that three thousand you so generously ... oh, that would set me free, and if you could to-day ... you see, I haven't a minute, a minute to lose to-day--" "Enough, Dmitri Fyodorovitch, enough!" Madame Hohlakov interrupted emphatically. "The question is, will you go to the gold-mines or not; have you quite made up your mind? Answer yes or no." "I will go, madam, afterwards.... I'll go where you like ... but now--" "Wait!" cried Madame Hohlakov. And jumping up and running to a handsome bureau with numerous little drawers, she began pulling out one drawer after another, looking for something with desperate haste. "The three thousand," thought Mitya, his heart almost stopping, "and at the instant ... without any papers or formalities ... that's doing things in gentlemanly style! She's a splendid woman, if only she didn't talk so much!" "Here!" cried Madame Hohlakov, running back joyfully to Mitya, "here is what I was looking for!" It was a tiny silver ikon on a cord, such as is sometimes worn next the skin with a cross. "This is from Kiev, Dmitri Fyodorovitch," she went on reverently, "from the relics of the Holy Martyr, Varvara. Let me put it on your neck myself, and with it dedicate you to a new life, to a new career." And she actually put the cord round his neck, and began arranging it. In extreme embarrassment, Mitya bent down and helped her, and at last he got it under his neck-tie and collar through his shirt to his chest. "Now you can set off," Madame Hohlakov pronounced, sitting down triumphantly in her place again. "Madam, I am so touched. I don't know how to thank you, indeed ... for such kindness, but ... If only you knew how precious time is to me.... That sum of money, for which I shall be indebted to your generosity.... Oh, madam, since you are so kind, so touchingly generous to me," Mitya exclaimed impulsively, "then let me reveal to you ... though, of course, you've known it a long time ... that I love somebody here.... I have been false to Katya ... Katerina Ivanovna I should say.... Oh, I've behaved inhumanly, dishonorably to her, but I fell in love here with another woman ... a woman whom you, madam, perhaps, despise, for you know everything already, but whom I cannot leave on any account, and therefore that three thousand now--" "Leave everything, Dmitri Fyodorovitch," Madame Hohlakov interrupted in the most decisive tone. "Leave everything, especially women. Gold-mines are your goal, and there's no place for women there. Afterwards, when you come back rich and famous, you will find the girl of your heart in the highest society. That will be a modern girl, a girl of education and advanced ideas. By that time the dawning woman question will have gained ground, and the new woman will have appeared." "Madam, that's not the point, not at all...." Mitya clasped his hands in entreaty. "Yes, it is, Dmitri Fyodorovitch, just what you need; the very thing you're yearning for, though you don't realize it yourself. I am not at all opposed to the present woman movement, Dmitri Fyodorovitch. The development of woman, and even the political emancipation of woman in the near future--that's my ideal. I've a daughter myself, Dmitri Fyodorovitch, people don't know that side of me. I wrote a letter to the author, Shtchedrin, on that subject. He has taught me so much, so much about the vocation of woman. So last year I sent him an anonymous letter of two lines: 'I kiss and embrace you, my teacher, for the modern woman. Persevere.' And I signed myself, 'A Mother.' I thought of signing myself 'A contemporary Mother,' and hesitated, but I stuck to the simple 'Mother'; there's more moral beauty in that, Dmitri Fyodorovitch. And the word 'contemporary' might have reminded him of '_The Contemporary_'--a painful recollection owing to the censorship.... Good Heavens, what is the matter!" "Madam!" cried Mitya, jumping up at last, clasping his hands before her in helpless entreaty. "You will make me weep if you delay what you have so generously--" "Oh, do weep, Dmitri Fyodorovitch, do weep! That's a noble feeling ... such a path lies open before you! Tears will ease your heart, and later on you will return rejoicing. You will hasten to me from Siberia on purpose to share your joy with me--" "But allow me, too!" Mitya cried suddenly. "For the last time I entreat you, tell me, can I have the sum you promised me to-day, if not, when may I come for it?" "What sum, Dmitri Fyodorovitch?" "The three thousand you promised me ... that you so generously--" "Three thousand? Roubles? Oh, no, I haven't got three thousand," Madame Hohlakov announced with serene amazement. Mitya was stupefied. "Why, you said just now ... you said ... you said it was as good as in my hands--" "Oh, no, you misunderstood me, Dmitri Fyodorovitch. In that case you misunderstood me. I was talking of the gold-mines. It's true I promised you more, infinitely more than three thousand, I remember it all now, but I was referring to the gold-mines." "But the money? The three thousand?" Mitya exclaimed, awkwardly. "Oh, if you meant money, I haven't any. I haven't a penny, Dmitri Fyodorovitch. I'm quarreling with my steward about it, and I've just borrowed five hundred roubles from Miuesov, myself. No, no, I've no money. And, do you know, Dmitri Fyodorovitch, if I had, I wouldn't give it to you. In the first place I never lend money. Lending money means losing friends. And I wouldn't give it to you particularly. I wouldn't give it you, because I like you and want to save you, for all you need is the gold-mines, the gold-mines, the gold-mines!" "Oh, the devil!" roared Mitya, and with all his might brought his fist down on the table. "Aie! Aie!" cried Madame Hohlakov, alarmed, and she flew to the other end of the drawing-room. Mitya spat on the ground, and strode rapidly out of the room, out of the house, into the street, into the darkness! He walked like one possessed, and beating himself on the breast, on the spot where he had struck himself two days previously, before Alyosha, the last time he saw him in the dark, on the road. What those blows upon his breast signified, _on that spot_, and what he meant by it--that was, for the time, a secret which was known to no one in the world, and had not been told even to Alyosha. But that secret meant for him more than disgrace; it meant ruin, suicide. So he had determined, if he did not get hold of the three thousand that would pay his debt to Katerina Ivanovna, and so remove from his breast, from _that spot on his breast_, the shame he carried upon it, that weighed on his conscience. All this will be fully explained to the reader later on, but now that his last hope had vanished, this man, so strong in appearance, burst out crying like a little child a few steps from the Hohlakovs' house. He walked on, and not knowing what he was doing, wiped away his tears with his fist. In this way he reached the square, and suddenly became aware that he had stumbled against something. He heard a piercing wail from an old woman whom he had almost knocked down. "Good Lord, you've nearly killed me! Why don't you look where you're going, scapegrace?" "Why, it's you!" cried Mitya, recognizing the old woman in the dark. It was the old servant who waited on Samsonov, whom Mitya had particularly noticed the day before. "And who are you, my good sir?" said the old woman, in quite a different voice. "I don't know you in the dark." "You live at Kuzma Kuzmitch's. You're the servant there?" "Just so, sir, I was only running out to Prohoritch's.... But I don't know you now." "Tell me, my good woman, is Agrafena Alexandrovna there now?" said Mitya, beside himself with suspense. "I saw her to the house some time ago." "She has been there, sir. She stayed a little while, and went off again." "What? Went away?" cried Mitya. "When did she go?" "Why, as soon as she came. She only stayed a minute. She only told Kuzma Kuzmitch a tale that made him laugh, and then she ran away." "You're lying, damn you!" roared Mitya. "Aie! Aie!" shrieked the old woman, but Mitya had vanished. He ran with all his might to the house where Grushenka lived. At the moment he reached it, Grushenka was on her way to Mokroe. It was not more than a quarter of an hour after her departure. Fenya was sitting with her grandmother, the old cook, Matryona, in the kitchen when "the captain" ran in. Fenya uttered a piercing shriek on seeing him. "You scream?" roared Mitya, "where is she?" But without giving the terror-stricken Fenya time to utter a word, he fell all of a heap at her feet. "Fenya, for Christ's sake, tell me, where is she?" "I don't know. Dmitri Fyodorovitch, my dear, I don't know. You may kill me but I can't tell you." Fenya swore and protested. "You went out with her yourself not long ago--" "She came back!" "Indeed she didn't. By God I swear she didn't come back." "You're lying!" shouted Mitya. "From your terror I know where she is." He rushed away. Fenya in her fright was glad she had got off so easily. But she knew very well that it was only that he was in such haste, or she might not have fared so well. But as he ran, he surprised both Fenya and old Matryona by an unexpected action. On the table stood a brass mortar, with a pestle in it, a small brass pestle, not much more than six inches long. Mitya already had opened the door with one hand when, with the other, he snatched up the pestle, and thrust it in his side-pocket. "Oh, Lord! He's going to murder some one!" cried Fenya, flinging up her hands.

book 8, Chapter 3

https://web.archive.org/web/20210305110438/https://www.sparknotes.com/lit/brothersk/section11/

Gold Mines Dmitri asks Madame Khokhlakov to lend him the money, but she refuses and suggests that he should go to work in the gold mines instead. He runs into Grushenka's servant and finds out that she is not at home. The servant refuses to tell him where she has gone

sparknotes

all_chapterized_books/161-chapters/chapters_28_to_32.txt

finished_summaries/sparknotes/Sense and Sensibility/section_6_part_0.txt

Sense and Sensibility.chapters 28-32

chapters 28-32

{"name": "Chapters 28-32", "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20210123003206/https://www.sparknotes.com/lit/sensibility/section7/", "summary": "Elinor and Marianne are obliged to accompany Lady Middleton to a party in town, even though Marianne is far too melancholic to enjoy dancing or card games. Suddenly, Marianne catches sight of Willoughby among the crowd and rushes forth to greet him. She is astonished and deeply distressed when he avoids her eye and appears absorbed in conversation with another young lady. When she finally approaches him directly, he coldly remarks that he indeed received her letters but never found her at home when he attempted to visit her in reply. Marianne must leave the party immediately with her sisters, for she is too overcome by grief to do anything but climb into bed. The next day, after breakfast, Marianne shares with Elinor a letter she has just received from Willoughby. In his letter, Willoughby apologizes for anything in his conduct at the party that might have offended her. He expresses his esteem for the entire Dashwood family and regrets if he ever gave Marianne any reason to believe that he felt differently for her. Finally, he informs her of his upcoming engagement to another woman and encloses in his letter the three notes that she sent him in London. To Elinor's dismay, all of Marianne's notes were urgent pleas for Willoughby to come visit her at Mrs. Jennings's home, even though, as Marianne confesses, they were never formally engaged to one another. Elinor can hardly believe that Marianne could be so forward in her affections when she and Willoughby were not even engaged, but she nevertheless tries to comfort her sister with gentle words, wine, and lavender drops. Marianne tells her sister that she wants to leave London immediately, but Elinor reminds her that it would be rude to leave Mrs. Jennings after such a short visit. Mrs. Jennings tries to comfort Marianne but says all the wrong things. She remarks to Elinor that her sister looks \"very bad\" and that she should realize that Willoughby \"is not the only young man in the world worth having.\" She also invites guests to dinner in order to amuse Marianne, but even her sweetmeats and olives cannot lift the girl's spirits. Marianne leaves the table early, but Elinor remains to hear Mrs. Jennings and her friends discuss how Willoughby squandered all his fortune and therefore abruptly proposed to Miss Sophia Grey, a wealthy heiress. Mrs. Jennings tells Elinor that now it will only be a matter of time before Marianne marries Colonel Brandon. While the party takes after-dinner tea, Colonel Brandon arrives to speak with Elinor. He fears that the rumor he heard in town about Willoughby's engagement to Miss Grey might be true, and Elinor confirms his fears. The next day, he visits once again to share with Elinor the sad story of his own romantic history, in the interest of shedding light on Marianne's predicament: he explains that he was once deeply in love with a woman named Eliza, but she was married against his inclination to his brother so as to ensure her fortune for the family. Brandon's brother treated her very unkindly, and she deceived him; ultimately, the couple divorced, and she disappeared. Colonel Brandon, formerly her lover and then her brother-in-law, at last found her dying of consumption in a sponging house in London. He cared for her until her death and promised to take care of her three-year-old daughter. Willoughby placed the young girl in school, and she visited him periodically. Then, about a year earlier, she suddenly disappeared. The following October--the day of the intended picnic to Whitwell, which takes place earlier in the book--he received the news that she had been seduced and abandoned by none other than John Willoughby! He explains that this is why he had to rush off to London on the day of their planned outing. Elinor shares Colonel Brandon's story with Marianne and Marianne mourns the loss of Willoughby's \"good\" character just as she mourned the loss of him to another woman. The sisters also receive a note from their mother expressing her shock and pain at the news of Willoughby's betrayal. Nonetheless, Mrs. Dashwood urges her daughters to stay in town, especially since their half-brother John Dashwood and his wife Fanny will be arriving there shortly. Meanwhile, Mrs. Jennings, Mrs. Palmer, Lady Middleton, and the Steele sisters also offer words of sympathy to the Dashwood sisters, though their concern is more for themselves than for Marianne: Lady Middleton, for example, expresses outrage at Willoughby's behavior but then arranges to leave her card with Miss Grey since she will be an elegant and wealthy woman when she marries John Willoughby. Only the sympathy of Elinor, Mrs. Dashwood, and Colonel Brandon is entirely genuine and well-intentioned.", "analysis": "Commentary Although Austen makes reference throughout the novel to letters sent from one character to another, Chapter 29 is exceptional because it includes the full text of four letters sent between Willoughby and Marianne. Chapter 29 perhaps most closely resembles Austen's original 1795 manuscript for the book, which was conceived as an epistolary novel entitled Elinor and Marianne. It wasn't until at least four years later that Austen rewrote these letters with narration. Elinor feels that Willoughby's letter proclaims him to be \"deep in hardened villainy.\" Indeed, Willoughby is only one in a long line of Austen's male villains, including George Wickham , Henry Crawford . All of Austen's villains are tricksters, who initially seem charming, attractive, and witty. Some, like Frank Churchill, turn out to be fibbers and play-actors while others, like George Wickham, are downright frauds. However, Willoughby is both: he is a glamorous seducer as well as a corrupt philanderer. He is not just impetuous but also callous; he is not just insensitive but also vicious. As a result, it is not difficult to see how he can capture Marianne's heart without ever fully winning Elinor's confidence. The contrast between Elinor and Marianne is perhaps made most explicit in their reactions to their lovers' seemingly insensitive treatment. Whereas Elinor is relieved that she does not have to share Lucy's news about Edward with her mother and sister, Marianne insists through her grief that \"I care not who knows that I am wretched.\" Her attempt to claim intimacy with Willoughby at the party dramatizes the dangers of showing one's feelings publicly and contrasts strikingly with Elinor's more cautious restraint. Colonel Brandon's own personal story of his relationship with Eliza Williams and her daughter elaborately echoes Marianne's relationship with Willoughby. The details of Brandon's story parallel all of the plots of the novel, including that of the insensitive parent's commitment to primogeniture, of brothers who cannot see eye-to-eye, and of women whose hearts are broken by the men they love. However, Brandon's dramatic story also includes divorce, seduction, illegitimate birth, and even a duel, all of which are extreme consequences of the emotions and situations that Marianne Dashwood must confront. Though Brandon comments that he is a \"very awkward narrator,\" his story-within-a-story actually sheds light on many of the most important themes of the novel."}

Nothing occurred during the next three or four days, to make Elinor regret what she had done, in applying to her mother; for Willoughby neither came nor wrote. They were engaged about the end of that time to attend Lady Middleton to a party, from which Mrs. Jennings was kept away by the indisposition of her youngest daughter; and for this party, Marianne, wholly dispirited, careless of her appearance, and seeming equally indifferent whether she went or staid, prepared, without one look of hope or one expression of pleasure. She sat by the drawing-room fire after tea, till the moment of Lady Middleton's arrival, without once stirring from her seat, or altering her attitude, lost in her own thoughts, and insensible of her sister's presence; and when at last they were told that Lady Middleton waited for them at the door, she started as if she had forgotten that any one was expected. They arrived in due time at the place of destination, and as soon as the string of carriages before them would allow, alighted, ascended the stairs, heard their names announced from one landing-place to another in an audible voice, and entered a room splendidly lit up, quite full of company, and insufferably hot. When they had paid their tribute of politeness by curtsying to the lady of the house, they were permitted to mingle in the crowd, and take their share of the heat and inconvenience, to which their arrival must necessarily add. After some time spent in saying little or doing less, Lady Middleton sat down to Cassino, and as Marianne was not in spirits for moving about, she and Elinor luckily succeeding to chairs, placed themselves at no great distance from the table. They had not remained in this manner long, before Elinor perceived Willoughby, standing within a few yards of them, in earnest conversation with a very fashionable looking young woman. She soon caught his eye, and he immediately bowed, but without attempting to speak to her, or to approach Marianne, though he could not but see her; and then continued his discourse with the same lady. Elinor turned involuntarily to Marianne, to see whether it could be unobserved by her. At that moment she first perceived him, and her whole countenance glowing with sudden delight, she would have moved towards him instantly, had not her sister caught hold of her. "Good heavens!" she exclaimed, "he is there--he is there--Oh! why does he not look at me? why cannot I speak to him?" "Pray, pray be composed," cried Elinor, "and do not betray what you feel to every body present. Perhaps he has not observed you yet." This however was more than she could believe herself; and to be composed at such a moment was not only beyond the reach of Marianne, it was beyond her wish. She sat in an agony of impatience which affected every feature. At last he turned round again, and regarded them both; she started up, and pronouncing his name in a tone of affection, held out her hand to him. He approached, and addressing himself rather to Elinor than Marianne, as if wishing to avoid her eye, and determined not to observe her attitude, inquired in a hurried manner after Mrs. Dashwood, and asked how long they had been in town. Elinor was robbed of all presence of mind by such an address, and was unable to say a word. But the feelings of her sister were instantly expressed. Her face was crimsoned over, and she exclaimed, in a voice of the greatest emotion, "Good God! Willoughby, what is the meaning of this? Have you not received my letters? Will you not shake hands with me?" He could not then avoid it, but her touch seemed painful to him, and he held her hand only for a moment. During all this time he was evidently struggling for composure. Elinor watched his countenance and saw its expression becoming more tranquil. After a moment's pause, he spoke with calmness. "I did myself the honour of calling in Berkeley Street last Tuesday, and very much regretted that I was not fortunate enough to find yourselves and Mrs. Jennings at home. My card was not lost, I hope." "But have you not received my notes?" cried Marianne in the wildest anxiety. "Here is some mistake I am sure--some dreadful mistake. What can be the meaning of it? Tell me, Willoughby; for heaven's sake tell me, what is the matter?" He made no reply; his complexion changed and all his embarrassment returned; but as if, on catching the eye of the young lady with whom he had been previously talking, he felt the necessity of instant exertion, he recovered himself again, and after saying, "Yes, I had the pleasure of receiving the information of your arrival in town, which you were so good as to send me," turned hastily away with a slight bow and joined his friend. Marianne, now looking dreadfully white, and unable to stand, sunk into her chair, and Elinor, expecting every moment to see her faint, tried to screen her from the observation of others, while reviving her with lavender water. "Go to him, Elinor," she cried, as soon as she could speak, "and force him to come to me. Tell him I must see him again--must speak to him instantly.-- I cannot rest--I shall not have a moment's peace till this is explained--some dreadful misapprehension or other.-- Oh go to him this moment." "How can that be done? No, my dearest Marianne, you must wait. This is not the place for explanations. Wait only till tomorrow." With difficulty however could she prevent her from following him herself; and to persuade her to check her agitation, to wait, at least, with the appearance of composure, till she might speak to him with more privacy and more effect, was impossible; for Marianne continued incessantly to give way in a low voice to the misery of her feelings, by exclamations of wretchedness. In a short time Elinor saw Willoughby quit the room by the door towards the staircase, and telling Marianne that he was gone, urged the impossibility of speaking to him again that evening, as a fresh argument for her to be calm. She instantly begged her sister would entreat Lady Middleton to take them home, as she was too miserable to stay a minute longer. Lady Middleton, though in the middle of a rubber, on being informed that Marianne was unwell, was too polite to object for a moment to her wish of going away, and making over her cards to a friend, they departed as soon the carriage could be found. Scarcely a word was spoken during their return to Berkeley Street. Marianne was in a silent agony, too much oppressed even for tears; but as Mrs. Jennings was luckily not come home, they could go directly to their own room, where hartshorn restored her a little to herself. She was soon undressed and in bed, and as she seemed desirous of being alone, her sister then left her, and while she waited the return of Mrs. Jennings, had leisure enough for thinking over the past. That some kind of engagement had subsisted between Willoughby and Marianne she could not doubt, and that Willoughby was weary of it, seemed equally clear; for however Marianne might still feed her own wishes, SHE could not attribute such behaviour to mistake or misapprehension of any kind. Nothing but a thorough change of sentiment could account for it. Her indignation would have been still stronger than it was, had she not witnessed that embarrassment which seemed to speak a consciousness of his own misconduct, and prevented her from believing him so unprincipled as to have been sporting with the affections of her sister from the first, without any design that would bear investigation. Absence might have weakened his regard, and convenience might have determined him to overcome it, but that such a regard had formerly existed she could not bring herself to doubt. As for Marianne, on the pangs which so unhappy a meeting must already have given her, and on those still more severe which might await her in its probable consequence, she could not reflect without the deepest concern. Her own situation gained in the comparison; for while she could ESTEEM Edward as much as ever, however they might be divided in future, her mind might be always supported. But every circumstance that could embitter such an evil seemed uniting to heighten the misery of Marianne in a final separation from Willoughby--in an immediate and irreconcilable rupture with him. Before the house-maid had lit their fire the next day, or the sun gained any power over a cold, gloomy morning in January, Marianne, only half dressed, was kneeling against one of the window-seats for the sake of all the little light she could command from it, and writing as fast as a continual flow of tears would permit her. In this situation, Elinor, roused from sleep by her agitation and sobs, first perceived her; and after observing her for a few moments with silent anxiety, said, in a tone of the most considerate gentleness, "Marianne, may I ask-?" "No, Elinor," she replied, "ask nothing; you will soon know all." The sort of desperate calmness with which this was said, lasted no longer than while she spoke, and was immediately followed by a return of the same excessive affliction. It was some minutes before she could go on with her letter, and the frequent bursts of grief which still obliged her, at intervals, to withhold her pen, were proofs enough of her feeling how more than probable it was that she was writing for the last time to Willoughby. Elinor paid her every quiet and unobtrusive attention in her power; and she would have tried to sooth and tranquilize her still more, had not Marianne entreated her, with all the eagerness of the most nervous irritability, not to speak to her for the world. In such circumstances, it was better for both that they should not be long together; and the restless state of Marianne's mind not only prevented her from remaining in the room a moment after she was dressed, but requiring at once solitude and continual change of place, made her wander about the house till breakfast time, avoiding the sight of every body. At breakfast she neither ate, nor attempted to eat any thing; and Elinor's attention was then all employed, not in urging her, not in pitying her, nor in appearing to regard her, but in endeavouring to engage Mrs. Jennings's notice entirely to herself. As this was a favourite meal with Mrs. Jennings, it lasted a considerable time, and they were just setting themselves, after it, round the common working table, when a letter was delivered to Marianne, which she eagerly caught from the servant, and, turning of a death-like paleness, instantly ran out of the room. Elinor, who saw as plainly by this, as if she had seen the direction, that it must come from Willoughby, felt immediately such a sickness at heart as made her hardly able to hold up her head, and sat in such a general tremour as made her fear it impossible to escape Mrs. Jennings's notice. That good lady, however, saw only that Marianne had received a letter from Willoughby, which appeared to her a very good joke, and which she treated accordingly, by hoping, with a laugh, that she would find it to her liking. Of Elinor's distress, she was too busily employed in measuring lengths of worsted for her rug, to see any thing at all; and calmly continuing her talk, as soon as Marianne disappeared, she said, "Upon my word, I never saw a young woman so desperately in love in my life! MY girls were nothing to her, and yet they used to be foolish enough; but as for Miss Marianne, she is quite an altered creature. I hope, from the bottom of my heart, he won't keep her waiting much longer, for it is quite grievous to see her look so ill and forlorn. Pray, when are they to be married?" Elinor, though never less disposed to speak than at that moment, obliged herself to answer such an attack as this, and, therefore, trying to smile, replied, "And have you really, Ma'am, talked yourself into a persuasion of my sister's being engaged to Mr. Willoughby? I thought it had been only a joke, but so serious a question seems to imply more; and I must beg, therefore, that you will not deceive yourself any longer. I do assure you that nothing would surprise me more than to hear of their being going to be married." "For shame, for shame, Miss Dashwood! how can you talk so? Don't we all know that it must be a match, that they were over head and ears in love with each other from the first moment they met? Did not I see them together in Devonshire every day, and all day long; and did not I know that your sister came to town with me on purpose to buy wedding clothes? Come, come, this won't do. Because you are so sly about it yourself, you think nobody else has any senses; but it is no such thing, I can tell you, for it has been known all over town this ever so long. I tell every body of it and so does Charlotte." "Indeed, Ma'am," said Elinor, very seriously, "you are mistaken. Indeed, you are doing a very unkind thing in spreading the report, and you will find that you have though you will not believe me now." Mrs. Jennings laughed again, but Elinor had not spirits to say more, and eager at all events to know what Willoughby had written, hurried away to their room, where, on opening the door, she saw Marianne stretched on the bed, almost choked by grief, one letter in her hand, and two or three others laying by her. Elinor drew near, but without saying a word; and seating herself on the bed, took her hand, kissed her affectionately several times, and then gave way to a burst of tears, which at first was scarcely less violent than Marianne's. The latter, though unable to speak, seemed to feel all the tenderness of this behaviour, and after some time thus spent in joint affliction, she put all the letters into Elinor's hands; and then covering her face with her handkerchief, almost screamed with agony. Elinor, who knew that such grief, shocking as it was to witness it, must have its course, watched by her till this excess of suffering had somewhat spent itself, and then turning eagerly to Willoughby's letter, read as follows: "Bond Street, January. "MY DEAR MADAM, "I have just had the honour of receiving your letter, for which I beg to return my sincere acknowledgments. I am much concerned to find there was anything in my behaviour last night that did not meet your approbation; and though I am quite at a loss to discover in what point I could be so unfortunate as to offend you, I entreat your forgiveness of what I can assure you to have been perfectly unintentional. I shall never reflect on my former acquaintance with your family in Devonshire without the most grateful pleasure, and flatter myself it will not be broken by any mistake or misapprehension of my actions. My esteem for your whole family is very sincere; but if I have been so unfortunate as to give rise to a belief of more than I felt, or meant to express, I shall reproach myself for not having been more guarded in my professions of that esteem. That I should ever have meant more you will allow to be impossible, when you understand that my affections have been long engaged elsewhere, and it will not be many weeks, I believe, before this engagement is fulfilled. It is with great regret that I obey your commands in returning the letters with which I have been honoured from you, and the lock of hair, which you so obligingly bestowed on me. "I am, dear Madam, "Your most obedient "humble servant, "JOHN WILLOUGHBY." With what indignation such a letter as this must be read by Miss Dashwood, may be imagined. Though aware, before she began it, that it must bring a confession of his inconstancy, and confirm their separation for ever, she was not aware that such language could be suffered to announce it; nor could she have supposed Willoughby capable of departing so far from the appearance of every honourable and delicate feeling--so far from the common decorum of a gentleman, as to send a letter so impudently cruel: a letter which, instead of bringing with his desire of a release any professions of regret, acknowledged no breach of faith, denied all peculiar affection whatever--a letter of which every line was an insult, and which proclaimed its writer to be deep in hardened villainy. She paused over it for some time with indignant astonishment; then read it again and again; but every perusal only served to increase her abhorrence of the man, and so bitter were her feelings against him, that she dared not trust herself to speak, lest she might wound Marianne still deeper by treating their disengagement, not as a loss to her of any possible good but as an escape from the worst and most irremediable of all evils, a connection, for life, with an unprincipled man, as a deliverance the most real, a blessing the most important. In her earnest meditations on the contents of the letter, on the depravity of that mind which could dictate it, and probably, on the very different mind of a very different person, who had no other connection whatever with the affair than what her heart gave him with every thing that passed, Elinor forgot the immediate distress of her sister, forgot that she had three letters on her lap yet unread, and so entirely forgot how long she had been in the room, that when on hearing a carriage drive up to the door, she went to the window to see who could be coming so unreasonably early, she was all astonishment to perceive Mrs. Jennings's chariot, which she knew had not been ordered till one. Determined not to quit Marianne, though hopeless of contributing, at present, to her ease, she hurried away to excuse herself from attending Mrs. Jennings, on account of her sister being indisposed. Mrs. Jennings, with a thoroughly good-humoured concern for its cause, admitted the excuse most readily, and Elinor, after seeing her safe off, returned to Marianne, whom she found attempting to rise from the bed, and whom she reached just in time to prevent her from falling on the floor, faint and giddy from a long want of proper rest and food; for it was many days since she had any appetite, and many nights since she had really slept; and now, when her mind was no longer supported by the fever of suspense, the consequence of all this was felt in an aching head, a weakened stomach, and a general nervous faintness. A glass of wine, which Elinor procured for her directly, made her more comfortable, and she was at last able to express some sense of her kindness, by saying, "Poor Elinor! how unhappy I make you!" "I only wish," replied her sister, "there were any thing I COULD do, which might be of comfort to you." This, as every thing else would have been, was too much for Marianne, who could only exclaim, in the anguish of her heart, "Oh! Elinor, I am miserable, indeed," before her voice was entirely lost in sobs. Elinor could no longer witness this torrent of unresisted grief in silence. "Exert yourself, dear Marianne," she cried, "if you would not kill yourself and all who love you. Think of your mother; think of her misery while YOU suffer: for her sake you must exert yourself." "I cannot, I cannot," cried Marianne; "leave me, leave me, if I distress you; leave me, hate me, forget me! but do not torture me so. Oh! how easy for those, who have no sorrow of their own to talk of exertion! Happy, happy Elinor, YOU cannot have an idea of what I suffer." "Do you call ME happy, Marianne? Ah! if you knew!--And can you believe me to be so, while I see you so wretched!" "Forgive me, forgive me," throwing her arms round her sister's neck; "I know you feel for me; I know what a heart you have; but yet you are--you must be happy; Edward loves you--what, oh what, can do away such happiness as that?" "Many, many circumstances," said Elinor, solemnly. "No, no, no," cried Marianne wildly, "he loves you, and only you. You CAN have no grief." "I can have no pleasure while I see you in this state." "And you will never see me otherwise. Mine is a misery which nothing can do away." "You must not talk so, Marianne. Have you no comforts? no friends? Is your loss such as leaves no opening for consolation? Much as you suffer now, think of what you would have suffered if the discovery of his character had been delayed to a later period--if your engagement had been carried on for months and months, as it might have been, before he chose to put an end to it. Every additional day of unhappy confidence, on your side, would have made the blow more dreadful." "Engagement!" cried Marianne, "there has been no engagement." "No engagement!" "No, he is not so unworthy as you believe him. He has broken no faith with me." "But he told you that he loved you." "Yes--no--never absolutely. It was every day implied, but never professedly declared. Sometimes I thought it had been--but it never was." "Yet you wrote to him?"-- "Yes--could that be wrong after all that had passed?-- But I cannot talk." Elinor said no more, and turning again to the three letters which now raised a much stronger curiosity than before, directly ran over the contents of all. The first, which was what her sister had sent him on their arrival in town, was to this effect. Berkeley Street, January. "How surprised you will be, Willoughby, on receiving this; and I think you will feel something more than surprise, when you know that I am in town. An opportunity of coming hither, though with Mrs. Jennings, was a temptation we could not resist. I wish you may receive this in time to come here to-night, but I will not depend on it. At any rate I shall expect you to-morrow. For the present, adieu. "M.D." Her second note, which had been written on the morning after the dance at the Middletons', was in these words:-- "I cannot express my disappointment in having missed you the day before yesterday, nor my astonishment at not having received any answer to a note which I sent you above a week ago. I have been expecting to hear from you, and still more to see you, every hour of the day. Pray call again as soon as possible, and explain the reason of my having expected this in vain. You had better come earlier another time, because we are generally out by one. We were last night at Lady Middleton's, where there was a dance. I have been told that you were asked to be of the party. But could it be so? You must be very much altered indeed since we parted, if that could be the case, and you not there. But I will not suppose this possible, and I hope very soon to receive your personal assurance of its being otherwise. "M.D." The contents of her last note to him were these:-- "What am I to imagine, Willoughby, by your behaviour last night? Again I demand an explanation of it. I was prepared to meet you with the pleasure which our separation naturally produced, with the familiarity which our intimacy at Barton appeared to me to justify. I was repulsed indeed! I have passed a wretched night in endeavouring to excuse a conduct which can scarcely be called less than insulting; but though I have not yet been able to form any reasonable apology for your behaviour, I am perfectly ready to hear your justification of it. You have perhaps been misinformed, or purposely deceived, in something concerning me, which may have lowered me in your opinion. Tell me what it is, explain the grounds on which you acted, and I shall be satisfied, in being able to satisfy you. It would grieve me indeed to be obliged to think ill of you; but if I am to do it, if I am to learn that you are not what we have hitherto believed you, that your regard for us all was insincere, that your behaviour to me was intended only to deceive, let it be told as soon as possible. My feelings are at present in a state of dreadful indecision; I wish to acquit you, but certainty on either side will be ease to what I now suffer. If your sentiments are no longer what they were, you will return my notes, and the lock of my hair which is in your possession. "M.D." That such letters, so full of affection and confidence, could have been so answered, Elinor, for Willoughby's sake, would have been unwilling to believe. But her condemnation of him did not blind her to the impropriety of their having been written at all; and she was silently grieving over the imprudence which had hazarded such unsolicited proofs of tenderness, not warranted by anything preceding, and most severely condemned by the event, when Marianne, perceiving that she had finished the letters, observed to her that they contained nothing but what any one would have written in the same situation. "I felt myself," she added, "to be as solemnly engaged to him, as if the strictest legal covenant had bound us to each other." "I can believe it," said Elinor; "but unfortunately he did not feel the same." "He DID feel the same, Elinor--for weeks and weeks he felt it. I know he did. Whatever may have changed him now, (and nothing but the blackest art employed against me can have done it), I was once as dear to him as my own soul could wish. This lock of hair, which now he can so readily give up, was begged of me with the most earnest supplication. Had you seen his look, his manner, had you heard his voice at that moment! Have you forgot the last evening of our being together at Barton? The morning that we parted too! When he told me that it might be many weeks before we met again--his distress--can I ever forget his distress?" For a moment or two she could say no more; but when this emotion had passed away, she added, in a firmer tone, "Elinor, I have been cruelly used; but not by Willoughby." "Dearest Marianne, who but himself? By whom can he have been instigated?" "By all the world, rather than by his own heart. I could rather believe every creature of my acquaintance leagued together to ruin me in his opinion, than believe his nature capable of such cruelty. This woman of whom he writes--whoever she be--or any one, in short, but your own dear self, mama, and Edward, may have been so barbarous to bely me. Beyond you three, is there a creature in the world whom I would not rather suspect of evil than Willoughby, whose heart I know so well?" Elinor would not contend, and only replied, "Whoever may have been so detestably your enemy, let them be cheated of their malignant triumph, my dear sister, by seeing how nobly the consciousness of your own innocence and good intentions supports your spirits. It is a reasonable and laudable pride which resists such malevolence." "No, no," cried Marianne, "misery such as mine has no pride. I care not who knows that I am wretched. The triumph of seeing me so may be open to all the world. Elinor, Elinor, they who suffer little may be proud and independent as they like--may resist insult, or return mortification--but I cannot. I must feel--I must be wretched--and they are welcome to enjoy the consciousness of it that can." "But for my mother's sake and mine--" "I would do more than for my own. But to appear happy when I am so miserable--Oh! who can require it?" Again they were both silent. Elinor was employed in walking thoughtfully from the fire to the window, from the window to the fire, without knowing that she received warmth from one, or discerning objects through the other; and Marianne, seated at the foot of the bed, with her head leaning against one of its posts, again took up Willoughby's letter, and, after shuddering over every sentence, exclaimed-- "It is too much! Oh, Willoughby, Willoughby, could this be yours! Cruel, cruel--nothing can acquit you. Elinor, nothing can. Whatever he might have heard against me--ought he not to have suspended his belief? ought he not to have told me of it, to have given me the power of clearing myself? 'The lock of hair, (repeating it from the letter,) which you so obligingly bestowed on me'--That is unpardonable. Willoughby, where was your heart when you wrote those words? Oh, barbarously insolent!--Elinor, can he be justified?" "No, Marianne, in no possible way." "And yet this woman--who knows what her art may have been?--how long it may have been premeditated, and how deeply contrived by her!--Who is she?--Who can she be?--Whom did I ever hear him talk of as young and attractive among his female acquaintance?--Oh! no one, no one--he talked to me only of myself." Another pause ensued; Marianne was greatly agitated, and it ended thus. "Elinor, I must go home. I must go and comfort mama. Can not we be gone to-morrow?" "To-morrow, Marianne!" "Yes, why should I stay here? I came only for Willoughby's sake--and now who cares for me? Who regards me?" "It would be impossible to go to-morrow. We owe Mrs. Jennings much more than civility; and civility of the commonest kind must prevent such a hasty removal as that." "Well then, another day or two, perhaps; but I cannot stay here long, I cannot stay to endure the questions and remarks of all these people. The Middletons and Palmers--how am I to bear their pity? The pity of such a woman as Lady Middleton! Oh, what would HE say to that!" Elinor advised her to lie down again, and for a moment she did so; but no attitude could give her ease; and in restless pain of mind and body she moved from one posture to another, till growing more and more hysterical, her sister could with difficulty keep her on the bed at all, and for some time was fearful of being constrained to call for assistance. Some lavender drops, however, which she was at length persuaded to take, were of use; and from that time till Mrs. Jennings returned, she continued on the bed quiet and motionless. Mrs. Jennings came immediately to their room on her return, and without waiting to have her request of admittance answered, opened the door and walked in with a look of real concern. "How do you do my dear?"--said she in a voice of great compassion to Marianne, who turned away her face without attempting to answer. "How is she, Miss Dashwood?--Poor thing! she looks very bad.-- No wonder. Ay, it is but too true. He is to be married very soon--a good-for-nothing fellow! I have no patience with him. Mrs. Taylor told me of it half an hour ago, and she was told it by a particular friend of Miss Grey herself, else I am sure I should not have believed it; and I was almost ready to sink as it was. Well, said I, all I can say is, that if this be true, he has used a young lady of my acquaintance abominably ill, and I wish with all my soul his wife may plague his heart out. And so I shall always say, my dear, you may depend on it. I have no notion of men's going on in this way; and if ever I meet him again, I will give him such a dressing as he has not had this many a day. But there is one comfort, my dear Miss Marianne; he is not the only young man in the world worth having; and with your pretty face you will never want admirers. Well, poor thing! I won't disturb her any longer, for she had better have her cry out at once and have done with. The Parrys and Sandersons luckily are coming tonight you know, and that will amuse her." She then went away, walking on tiptoe out of the room, as if she supposed her young friend's affliction could be increased by noise. Marianne, to the surprise of her sister, determined on dining with them. Elinor even advised her against it. But "no, she would go down; she could bear it very well, and the bustle about her would be less." Elinor, pleased to have her governed for a moment by such a motive, though believing it hardly possible that she could sit out the dinner, said no more; and adjusting her dress for her as well as she could, while Marianne still remained on the bed, was ready to assist her into the dining room as soon as they were summoned to it. When there, though looking most wretchedly, she ate more and was calmer than her sister had expected. Had she tried to speak, or had she been conscious of half Mrs. Jennings's well-meant but ill-judged attentions to her, this calmness could not have been maintained; but not a syllable escaped her lips; and the abstraction of her thoughts preserved her in ignorance of every thing that was passing before her. Elinor, who did justice to Mrs. Jennings's kindness, though its effusions were often distressing, and sometimes almost ridiculous, made her those acknowledgments, and returned her those civilities, which her sister could not make or return for herself. Their good friend saw that Marianne was unhappy, and felt that every thing was due to her which might make her at all less so. She treated her therefore, with all the indulgent fondness of a parent towards a favourite child on the last day of its holidays. Marianne was to have the best place by the fire, was to be tempted to eat by every delicacy in the house, and to be amused by the relation of all the news of the day. Had not Elinor, in the sad countenance of her sister, seen a check to all mirth, she could have been entertained by Mrs. Jennings's endeavours to cure a disappointment in love, by a variety of sweetmeats and olives, and a good fire. As soon, however, as the consciousness of all this was forced by continual repetition on Marianne, she could stay no longer. With a hasty exclamation of Misery, and a sign to her sister not to follow her, she directly got up and hurried out of the room. "Poor soul!" cried Mrs. Jennings, as soon as she was gone, "how it grieves me to see her! And I declare if she is not gone away without finishing her wine! And the dried cherries too! Lord! nothing seems to do her any good. I am sure if I knew of any thing she would like, I would send all over the town for it. Well, it is the oddest thing to me, that a man should use such a pretty girl so ill! But when there is plenty of money on one side, and next to none on the other, Lord bless you! they care no more about such things!--" "The lady then--Miss Grey I think you called her--is very rich?" "Fifty thousand pounds, my dear. Did you ever see her? a smart, stylish girl they say, but not handsome. I remember her aunt very well, Biddy Henshawe; she married a very wealthy man. But the family are all rich together. Fifty thousand pounds! and by all accounts, it won't come before it's wanted; for they say he is all to pieces. No wonder! dashing about with his curricle and hunters! Well, it don't signify talking; but when a young man, be who he will, comes and makes love to a pretty girl, and promises marriage, he has no business to fly off from his word only because he grows poor, and a richer girl is ready to have him. Why don't he, in such a case, sell his horses, let his house, turn off his servants, and make a thorough reform at once? I warrant you, Miss Marianne would have been ready to wait till matters came round. But that won't do now-a-days; nothing in the way of pleasure can ever be given up by the young men of this age." "Do you know what kind of a girl Miss Grey is? Is she said to be amiable?" "I never heard any harm of her; indeed I hardly ever heard her mentioned; except that Mrs. Taylor did say this morning, that one day Miss Walker hinted to her, that she believed Mr. and Mrs. Ellison would not be sorry to have Miss Grey married, for she and Mrs. Ellison could never agree."-- "And who are the Ellisons?" "Her guardians, my dear. But now she is of age and may choose for herself; and a pretty choice she has made!--What now," after pausing a moment--"your poor sister is gone to her own room, I suppose, to moan by herself. Is there nothing one can get to comfort her? Poor dear, it seems quite cruel to let her be alone. Well, by-and-by we shall have a few friends, and that will amuse her a little. What shall we play at? She hates whist I know; but is there no round game she cares for?" "Dear ma'am, this kindness is quite unnecessary. Marianne, I dare say, will not leave her room again this evening. I shall persuade her if I can to go early to bed, for I am sure she wants rest." "Aye, I believe that will be best for her. Let her name her own supper, and go to bed. Lord! no wonder she has been looking so bad and so cast down this last week or two, for this matter I suppose has been hanging over her head as long as that. And so the letter that came today finished it! Poor soul! I am sure if I had had a notion of it, I would not have joked her about it for all my money. But then you know, how should I guess such a thing? I made sure of its being nothing but a common love letter, and you know young people like to be laughed at about them. Lord! how concerned Sir John and my daughters will be when they hear it! If I had my senses about me I might have called in Conduit Street in my way home, and told them of it. But I shall see them tomorrow." "It would be unnecessary I am sure, for you to caution Mrs. Palmer and Sir John against ever naming Mr. Willoughby, or making the slightest allusion to what has passed, before my sister. Their own good-nature must point out to them the real cruelty of appearing to know any thing about it when she is present; and the less that may ever be said to myself on the subject, the more my feelings will be spared, as you my dear madam will easily believe." "Oh! Lord! yes, that I do indeed. It must be terrible for you to hear it talked of; and as for your sister, I am sure I would not mention a word about it to her for the world. You saw I did not all dinner time. No more would Sir John, nor my daughters, for they are all very thoughtful and considerate; especially if I give them a hint, as I certainly will. For my part, I think the less that is said about such things, the better, the sooner 'tis blown over and forgot. And what does talking ever do you know?" "In this affair it can only do harm; more so perhaps than in many cases of a similar kind, for it has been attended by circumstances which, for the sake of every one concerned in it, make it unfit to become the public conversation. I must do THIS justice to Mr. Willoughby--he has broken no positive engagement with my sister." "Law, my dear! Don't pretend to defend him. No positive engagement indeed! after taking her all over Allenham House, and fixing on the very rooms they were to live in hereafter!" Elinor, for her sister's sake, could not press the subject farther, and she hoped it was not required of her for Willoughby's; since, though Marianne might lose much, he could gain very little by the enforcement of the real truth. After a short silence on both sides, Mrs. Jennings, with all her natural hilarity, burst forth again. "Well, my dear, 'tis a true saying about an ill-wind, for it will be all the better for Colonel Brandon. He will have her at last; aye, that he will. Mind me, now, if they an't married by Mid-summer. Lord! how he'll chuckle over this news! I hope he will come tonight. It will be all to one a better match for your sister. Two thousand a year without debt or drawback--except the little love-child, indeed; aye, I had forgot her; but she may be 'prenticed out at a small cost, and then what does it signify? Delaford is a nice place, I can tell you; exactly what I call a nice old fashioned place, full of comforts and conveniences; quite shut in with great garden walls that are covered with the best fruit-trees in the country; and such a mulberry tree in one corner! Lord! how Charlotte and I did stuff the only time we were there! Then, there is a dove-cote, some delightful stew-ponds, and a very pretty canal; and every thing, in short, that one could wish for; and, moreover, it is close to the church, and only a quarter of a mile from the turnpike-road, so 'tis never dull, for if you only go and sit up in an old yew arbour behind the house, you may see all the carriages that pass along. Oh! 'tis a nice place! A butcher hard by in the village, and the parsonage-house within a stone's throw. To my fancy, a thousand times prettier than Barton Park, where they are forced to send three miles for their meat, and have not a neighbour nearer than your mother. Well, I shall spirit up the Colonel as soon as I can. One shoulder of mutton, you know, drives another down. If we CAN but put Willoughby out of her head!" "Ay, if we can do THAT, Ma'am," said Elinor, "we shall do very well with or without Colonel Brandon." And then rising, she went away to join Marianne, whom she found, as she expected, in her own room, leaning, in silent misery, over the small remains of a fire, which, till Elinor's entrance, had been her only light. "You had better leave me," was all the notice that her sister received from her. "I will leave you," said Elinor, "if you will go to bed." But this, from the momentary perverseness of impatient suffering, she at first refused to do. Her sister's earnest, though gentle persuasion, however, soon softened her to compliance, and Elinor saw her lay her aching head on the pillow, and as she hoped, in a way to get some quiet rest before she left her. In the drawing-room, whither she then repaired, she was soon joined by Mrs. Jennings, with a wine-glass, full of something, in her hand. "My dear," said she, entering, "I have just recollected that I have some of the finest old Constantia wine in the house that ever was tasted, so I have brought a glass of it for your sister. My poor husband! how fond he was of it! Whenever he had a touch of his old colicky gout, he said it did him more good than any thing else in the world. Do take it to your sister." "Dear Ma'am," replied Elinor, smiling at the difference of the complaints for which it was recommended, "how good you are! But I have just left Marianne in bed, and, I hope, almost asleep; and as I think nothing will be of so much service to her as rest, if you will give me leave, I will drink the wine myself." Mrs. Jennings, though regretting that she had not been five minutes earlier, was satisfied with the compromise; and Elinor, as she swallowed the chief of it, reflected, that though its effects on a colicky gout were, at present, of little importance to her, its healing powers, on a disappointed heart might be as reasonably tried on herself as on her sister. Colonel Brandon came in while the party were at tea, and by his manner of looking round the room for Marianne, Elinor immediately fancied that he neither expected nor wished to see her there, and, in short, that he was already aware of what occasioned her absence. Mrs. Jennings was not struck by the same thought; for soon after his entrance, she walked across the room to the tea-table where Elinor presided, and whispered-- "The Colonel looks as grave as ever you see. He knows nothing of it; do tell him, my dear." He shortly afterwards drew a chair close to hers, and, with a look which perfectly assured her of his good information, inquired after her sister. "Marianne is not well," said she. "She has been indisposed all day, and we have persuaded her to go to bed." "Perhaps, then," he hesitatingly replied, "what I heard this morning may be--there may be more truth in it than I could believe possible at first." "What did you hear?" "That a gentleman, whom I had reason to think--in short, that a man, whom I KNEW to be engaged--but how shall I tell you? If you know it already, as surely you must, I may be spared." "You mean," answered Elinor, with forced calmness, "Mr. Willoughby's marriage with Miss Grey. Yes, we DO know it all. This seems to have been a day of general elucidation, for this very morning first unfolded it to us. Mr. Willoughby is unfathomable! Where did you hear it?" "In a stationer's shop in Pall Mall, where I had business. Two ladies were waiting for their carriage, and one of them was giving the other an account of the intended match, in a voice so little attempting concealment, that it was impossible for me not to hear all. The name of Willoughby, John Willoughby, frequently repeated, first caught my attention; and what followed was a positive assertion that every thing was now finally settled respecting his marriage with Miss Grey--it was no longer to be a secret--it would take place even within a few weeks, with many particulars of preparations and other matters. One thing, especially, I remember, because it served to identify the man still more:--as soon as the ceremony was over, they were to go to Combe Magna, his seat in Somersetshire. My astonishment!--but it would be impossible to describe what I felt. The communicative lady I learnt, on inquiry, for I stayed in the shop till they were gone, was a Mrs. Ellison, and that, as I have been since informed, is the name of Miss Grey's guardian." "It is. But have you likewise heard that Miss Grey has fifty thousand pounds? In that, if in any thing, we may find an explanation." "It may be so; but Willoughby is capable--at least I think"--he stopped a moment; then added in a voice which seemed to distrust itself, "And your sister--how did she--" "Her sufferings have been very severe. I have only to hope that they may be proportionately short. It has been, it is a most cruel affliction. Till yesterday, I believe, she never doubted his regard; and even now, perhaps--but I am almost convinced that he never was really attached to her. He has been very deceitful! and, in some points, there seems a hardness of heart about him." "Ah!" said Colonel Brandon, "there is, indeed! But your sister does not--I think you said so--she does not consider quite as you do?" "You know her disposition, and may believe how eagerly she would still justify him if she could." He made no answer; and soon afterwards, by the removal of the tea-things, and the arrangement of the card parties, the subject was necessarily dropped. Mrs. Jennings, who had watched them with pleasure while they were talking, and who expected to see the effect of Miss Dashwood's communication, in such an instantaneous gaiety on Colonel Brandon's side, as might have become a man in the bloom of youth, of hope and happiness, saw him, with amazement, remain the whole evening more serious and thoughtful than usual. From a night of more sleep than she had expected, Marianne awoke the next morning to the same consciousness of misery in which she had closed her eyes. Elinor encouraged her as much as possible to talk of what she felt; and before breakfast was ready, they had gone through the subject again and again; and with the same steady conviction and affectionate counsel on Elinor's side, the same impetuous feelings and varying opinions on Marianne's, as before. Sometimes she could believe Willoughby to be as unfortunate and as innocent as herself, and at others, lost every consolation in the impossibility of acquitting him. At one moment she was absolutely indifferent to the observation of all the world, at another she would seclude herself from it for ever, and at a third could resist it with energy. In one thing, however, she was uniform, when it came to the point, in avoiding, where it was possible, the presence of Mrs. Jennings, and in a determined silence when obliged to endure it. Her heart was hardened against the belief of Mrs. Jennings's entering into her sorrows with any compassion. "No, no, no, it cannot be," she cried; "she cannot feel. Her kindness is not sympathy; her good-nature is not tenderness. All that she wants is gossip, and she only likes me now because I supply it." Elinor had not needed this to be assured of the injustice to which her sister was often led in her opinion of others, by the irritable refinement of her own mind, and the too great importance placed by her on the delicacies of a strong sensibility, and the graces of a polished manner. Like half the rest of the world, if more than half there be that are clever and good, Marianne, with excellent abilities and an excellent disposition, was neither reasonable nor candid. She expected from other people the same opinions and feelings as her own, and she judged of their motives by the immediate effect of their actions on herself. Thus a circumstance occurred, while the sisters were together in their own room after breakfast, which sunk the heart of Mrs. Jennings still lower in her estimation; because, through her own weakness, it chanced to prove a source of fresh pain to herself, though Mrs. Jennings was governed in it by an impulse of the utmost goodwill. With a letter in her outstretched hand, and countenance gaily smiling, from the persuasion of bringing comfort, she entered their room, saying, "Now, my dear, I bring you something that I am sure will do you good." Marianne heard enough. In one moment her imagination placed before her a letter from Willoughby, full of tenderness and contrition, explanatory of all that had passed, satisfactory, convincing; and instantly followed by Willoughby himself, rushing eagerly into the room to inforce, at her feet, by the eloquence of his eyes, the assurances of his letter. The work of one moment was destroyed by the next. The hand writing of her mother, never till then unwelcome, was before her; and, in the acuteness of the disappointment which followed such an ecstasy of more than hope, she felt as if, till that instant, she had never suffered. The cruelty of Mrs. Jennings no language, within her reach in her moments of happiest eloquence, could have expressed; and now she could reproach her only by the tears which streamed from her eyes with passionate violence--a reproach, however, so entirely lost on its object, that after many expressions of pity, she withdrew, still referring her to the letter of comfort. But the letter, when she was calm enough to read it, brought little comfort. Willoughby filled every page. Her mother, still confident of their engagement, and relying as warmly as ever on his constancy, had only been roused by Elinor's application, to intreat from Marianne greater openness towards them both; and this, with such tenderness towards her, such affection for Willoughby, and such a conviction of their future happiness in each other, that she wept with agony through the whole of it. All her impatience to be at home again now returned; her mother was dearer to her than ever; dearer through the very excess of her mistaken confidence in Willoughby, and she was wildly urgent to be gone. Elinor, unable herself to determine whether it were better for Marianne to be in London or at Barton, offered no counsel of her own except of patience till their mother's wishes could be known; and at length she obtained her sister's consent to wait for that knowledge. Mrs. Jennings left them earlier than usual; for she could not be easy till the Middletons and Palmers were able to grieve as much as herself; and positively refusing Elinor's offered attendance, went out alone for the rest of the morning. Elinor, with a very heavy heart, aware of the pain she was going to communicate, and perceiving, by Marianne's letter, how ill she had succeeded in laying any foundation for it, then sat down to write her mother an account of what had passed, and entreat her directions for the future; while Marianne, who came into the drawing-room on Mrs. Jennings's going away, remained fixed at the table where Elinor wrote, watching the advancement of her pen, grieving over her for the hardship of such a task, and grieving still more fondly over its effect on her mother. In this manner they had continued about a quarter of an hour, when Marianne, whose nerves could not then bear any sudden noise, was startled by a rap at the door. "Who can this be?" cried Elinor. "So early too! I thought we HAD been safe." Marianne moved to the window-- "It is Colonel Brandon!" said she, with vexation. "We are never safe from HIM." "He will not come in, as Mrs. Jennings is from home." "I will not trust to THAT," retreating to her own room. "A man who has nothing to do with his own time has no conscience in his intrusion on that of others." The event proved her conjecture right, though it was founded on injustice and error; for Colonel Brandon DID come in; and Elinor, who was convinced that solicitude for Marianne brought him thither, and who saw THAT solicitude in his disturbed and melancholy look, and in his anxious though brief inquiry after her, could not forgive her sister for esteeming him so lightly. "I met Mrs. Jennings in Bond Street," said he, after the first salutation, "and she encouraged me to come on; and I was the more easily encouraged, because I thought it probable that I might find you alone, which I was very desirous of doing. My object--my wish--my sole wish in desiring it--I hope, I believe it is--is to be a means of giving comfort;--no, I must not say comfort--not present comfort--but conviction, lasting conviction to your sister's mind. My regard for her, for yourself, for your mother--will you allow me to prove it, by relating some circumstances which nothing but a VERY sincere regard--nothing but an earnest desire of being useful--I think I am justified--though where so many hours have been spent in convincing myself that I am right, is there not some reason to fear I may be wrong?" He stopped. "I understand you," said Elinor. "You have something to tell me of Mr. Willoughby, that will open his character farther. Your telling it will be the greatest act of friendship that can be shewn Marianne. MY gratitude will be insured immediately by any information tending to that end, and HERS must be gained by it in time. Pray, pray let me hear it." "You shall; and, to be brief, when I quitted Barton last October,--but this will give you no idea--I must go farther back. You will find me a very awkward narrator, Miss Dashwood; I hardly know where to begin. A short account of myself, I believe, will be necessary, and it SHALL be a short one. On such a subject," sighing heavily, "can I have little temptation to be diffuse." He stopt a moment for recollection, and then, with another sigh, went on. "You have probably entirely forgotten a conversation--(it is not to be supposed that it could make any impression on you)--a conversation between us one evening at Barton Park--it was the evening of a dance--in which I alluded to a lady I had once known, as resembling, in some measure, your sister Marianne." "Indeed," answered Elinor, "I have NOT forgotten it." He looked pleased by this remembrance, and added, "If I am not deceived by the uncertainty, the partiality of tender recollection, there is a very strong resemblance between them, as well in mind as person. The same warmth of heart, the same eagerness of fancy and spirits. This lady was one of my nearest relations, an orphan from her infancy, and under the guardianship of my father. Our ages were nearly the same, and from our earliest years we were playfellows and friends. I cannot remember the time when I did not love Eliza; and my affection for her, as we grew up, was such, as perhaps, judging from my present forlorn and cheerless gravity, you might think me incapable of having ever felt. Hers, for me, was, I believe, fervent as the attachment of your sister to Mr. Willoughby and it was, though from a different cause, no less unfortunate. At seventeen she was lost to me for ever. She was married--married against her inclination to my brother. Her fortune was large, and our family estate much encumbered. And this, I fear, is all that can be said for the conduct of one, who was at once her uncle and guardian. My brother did not deserve her; he did not even love her. I had hoped that her regard for me would support her under any difficulty, and for some time it did; but at last the misery of her situation, for she experienced great unkindness, overcame all her resolution, and though she had promised me that nothing--but how blindly I relate! I have never told you how this was brought on. We were within a few hours of eloping together for Scotland. The treachery, or the folly, of my cousin's maid betrayed us. I was banished to the house of a relation far distant, and she was allowed no liberty, no society, no amusement, till my father's point was gained. I had depended on her fortitude too far, and the blow was a severe one--but had her marriage been happy, so young as I then was, a few months must have reconciled me to it, or at least I should not have now to lament it. This however was not the case. My brother had no regard for her; his pleasures were not what they ought to have been, and from the first he treated her unkindly. The consequence of this, upon a mind so young, so lively, so inexperienced as Mrs. Brandon's, was but too natural. She resigned herself at first to all the misery of her situation; and happy had it been if she had not lived to overcome those regrets which the remembrance of me occasioned. But can we wonder that, with such a husband to provoke inconstancy, and without a friend to advise or restrain her (for my father lived only a few months after their marriage, and I was with my regiment in the East Indies) she should fall? Had I remained in England, perhaps--but I meant to promote the happiness of both by removing from her for years, and for that purpose had procured my exchange. The shock which her marriage had given me," he continued, in a voice of great agitation, "was of trifling weight--was nothing to what I felt when I heard, about two years afterwards, of her divorce. It was THAT which threw this gloom,--even now the recollection of what I suffered--" He could say no more, and rising hastily walked for a few minutes about the room. Elinor, affected by his relation, and still more by his distress, could not speak. He saw her concern, and coming to her, took her hand, pressed it, and kissed it with grateful respect. A few minutes more of silent exertion enabled him to proceed with composure. "It was nearly three years after this unhappy period before I returned to England. My first care, when I DID arrive, was of course to seek for her; but the search was as fruitless as it was melancholy. I could not trace her beyond her first seducer, and there was every reason to fear that she had removed from him only to sink deeper in a life of sin. Her legal allowance was not adequate to her fortune, nor sufficient for her comfortable maintenance, and I learnt from my brother that the power of receiving it had been made over some months before to another person. He imagined, and calmly could he imagine it, that her extravagance, and consequent distress, had obliged her to dispose of it for some immediate relief. At last, however, and after I had been six months in England, I DID find her. Regard for a former servant of my own, who had since fallen into misfortune, carried me to visit him in a spunging-house, where he was confined for debt; and there, in the same house, under a similar confinement, was my unfortunate sister. So altered--so faded--worn down by acute suffering of every kind! hardly could I believe the melancholy and sickly figure before me, to be the remains of the lovely, blooming, healthful girl, on whom I had once doted. What I endured in so beholding her--but I have no right to wound your feelings by attempting to describe it--I have pained you too much already. That she was, to all appearance, in the last stage of a consumption, was--yes, in such a situation it was my greatest comfort. Life could do nothing for her, beyond giving time for a better preparation for death; and that was given. I saw her placed in comfortable lodgings, and under proper attendants; I visited her every day during the rest of her short life: I was with her in her last moments." Again he stopped to recover himself; and Elinor spoke her feelings in an exclamation of tender concern, at the fate of his unfortunate friend. "Your sister, I hope, cannot be offended," said he, "by the resemblance I have fancied between her and my poor disgraced relation. Their fates, their fortunes, cannot be the same; and had the natural sweet disposition of the one been guarded by a firmer mind, or a happier marriage, she might have been all that you will live to see the other be. But to what does all this lead? I seem to have been distressing you for nothing. Ah! Miss Dashwood--a subject such as this--untouched for fourteen years--it is dangerous to handle it at all! I WILL be more collected--more concise. She left to my care her only child, a little girl, the offspring of her first guilty connection, who was then about three years old. She loved the child, and had always kept it with her. It was a valued, a precious trust to me; and gladly would I have discharged it in the strictest sense, by watching over her education myself, had the nature of our situations allowed it; but I had no family, no home; and my little Eliza was therefore placed at school. I saw her there whenever I could, and after the death of my brother, (which happened about five years ago, and which left to me the possession of the family property,) she visited me at Delaford. I called her a distant relation; but I am well aware that I have in general been suspected of a much nearer connection with her. It is now three years ago (she had just reached her fourteenth year,) that I removed her from school, to place her under the care of a very respectable woman, residing in Dorsetshire, who had the charge of four or five other girls of about the same time of life; and for two years I had every reason to be pleased with her situation. But last February, almost a twelvemonth back, she suddenly disappeared. I had allowed her, (imprudently, as it has since turned out,) at her earnest desire, to go to Bath with one of her young friends, who was attending her father there for his health. I knew him to be a very good sort of man, and I thought well of his daughter--better than she deserved, for, with a most obstinate and ill-judged secrecy, she would tell nothing, would give no clue, though she certainly knew all. He, her father, a well-meaning, but not a quick-sighted man, could really, I believe, give no information; for he had been generally confined to the house, while the girls were ranging over the town and making what acquaintance they chose; and he tried to convince me, as thoroughly as he was convinced himself, of his daughter's being entirely unconcerned in the business. In short, I could learn nothing but that she was gone; all the rest, for eight long months, was left to conjecture. What I thought, what I feared, may be imagined; and what I suffered too." "Good heavens!" cried Elinor, "could it be--could Willoughby!"-- "The first news that reached me of her," he continued, "came in a letter from herself, last October. It was forwarded to me from Delaford, and I received it on the very morning of our intended party to Whitwell; and this was the reason of my leaving Barton so suddenly, which I am sure must at the time have appeared strange to every body, and which I believe gave offence to some. Little did Mr. Willoughby imagine, I suppose, when his looks censured me for incivility in breaking up the party, that I was called away to the relief of one whom he had made poor and miserable; but HAD he known it, what would it have availed? Would he have been less gay or less happy in the smiles of your sister? No, he had already done that, which no man who CAN feel for another would do. He had left the girl whose youth and innocence he had seduced, in a situation of the utmost distress, with no creditable home, no help, no friends, ignorant of his address! He had left her, promising to return; he neither returned, nor wrote, nor relieved her." "This is beyond every thing!" exclaimed Elinor. "His character is now before you; expensive, dissipated, and worse than both. Knowing all this, as I have now known it many weeks, guess what I must have felt on seeing your sister as fond of him as ever, and on being assured that she was to marry him: guess what I must have felt for all your sakes. When I came to you last week and found you alone, I came determined to know the truth; though irresolute what to do when it WAS known. My behaviour must have seemed strange to you then; but now you will comprehend it. To suffer you all to be so deceived; to see your sister--but what could I do? I had no hope of interfering with success; and sometimes I thought your sister's influence might yet reclaim him. But now, after such dishonorable usage, who can tell what were his designs on her. Whatever they may have been, however, she may now, and hereafter doubtless WILL turn with gratitude towards her own condition, when she compares it with that of my poor Eliza, when she considers the wretched and hopeless situation of this poor girl, and pictures her to herself, with an affection for him so strong, still as strong as her own, and with a mind tormented by self-reproach, which must attend her through life. Surely this comparison must have its use with her. She will feel her own sufferings to be nothing. They proceed from no misconduct, and can bring no disgrace. On the contrary, every friend must be made still more her friend by them. Concern for her unhappiness, and respect for her fortitude under it, must strengthen every attachment. Use your own discretion, however, in communicating to her what I have told you. You must know best what will be its effect; but had I not seriously, and from my heart believed it might be of service, might lessen her regrets, I would not have suffered myself to trouble you with this account of my family afflictions, with a recital which may seem to have been intended to raise myself at the expense of others." Elinor's thanks followed this speech with grateful earnestness; attended too with the assurance of her expecting material advantage to Marianne, from the communication of what had passed. "I have been more pained," said she, "by her endeavors to acquit him than by all the rest; for it irritates her mind more than the most perfect conviction of his unworthiness can do. Now, though at first she will suffer much, I am sure she will soon become easier. Have you," she continued, after a short silence, "ever seen Mr. Willoughby since you left him at Barton?" "Yes," he replied gravely, "once I have. One meeting was unavoidable." Elinor, startled by his manner, looked at him anxiously, saying, "What? have you met him to--" "I could meet him no other way. Eliza had confessed to me, though most reluctantly, the name of her lover; and when he returned to town, which was within a fortnight after myself, we met by appointment, he to defend, I to punish his conduct. We returned unwounded, and the meeting, therefore, never got abroad." Elinor sighed over the fancied necessity of this; but to a man and a soldier she presumed not to censure it. "Such," said Colonel Brandon, after a pause, "has been the unhappy resemblance between the fate of mother and daughter! and so imperfectly have I discharged my trust!" "Is she still in town?" "No; as soon as she recovered from her lying-in, for I found her near her delivery, I removed her and her child into the country, and there she remains." Recollecting, soon afterwards, that he was probably dividing Elinor from her sister, he put an end to his visit, receiving from her again the same grateful acknowledgments, and leaving her full of compassion and esteem for him. When the particulars of this conversation were repeated by Miss Dashwood to her sister, as they very soon were, the effect on her was not entirely such as the former had hoped to see. Not that Marianne appeared to distrust the truth of any part of it, for she listened to it all with the most steady and submissive attention, made neither objection nor remark, attempted no vindication of Willoughby, and seemed to shew by her tears that she felt it to be impossible. But though this behaviour assured Elinor that the conviction of this guilt WAS carried home to her mind, though she saw with satisfaction the effect of it, in her no longer avoiding Colonel Brandon when he called, in her speaking to him, even voluntarily speaking, with a kind of compassionate respect, and though she saw her spirits less violently irritated than before, she did not see her less wretched. Her mind did become settled, but it was settled in a gloomy dejection. She felt the loss of Willoughby's character yet more heavily than she had felt the loss of his heart; his seduction and desertion of Miss Williams, the misery of that poor girl, and the doubt of what his designs might ONCE have been on herself, preyed altogether so much on her spirits, that she could not bring herself to speak of what she felt even to Elinor; and, brooding over her sorrows in silence, gave more pain to her sister than could have been communicated by the most open and most frequent confession of them. To give the feelings or the language of Mrs. Dashwood on receiving and answering Elinor's letter would be only to give a repetition of what her daughters had already felt and said; of a disappointment hardly less painful than Marianne's, and an indignation even greater than Elinor's. Long letters from her, quickly succeeding each other, arrived to tell all that she suffered and thought; to express her anxious solicitude for Marianne, and entreat she would bear up with fortitude under this misfortune. Bad indeed must the nature of Marianne's affliction be, when her mother could talk of fortitude! mortifying and humiliating must be the origin of those regrets, which SHE could wish her not to indulge! Against the interest of her own individual comfort, Mrs. Dashwood had determined that it would be better for Marianne to be any where, at that time, than at Barton, where every thing within her view would be bringing back the past in the strongest and most afflicting manner, by constantly placing Willoughby before her, such as she had always seen him there. She recommended it to her daughters, therefore, by all means not to shorten their visit to Mrs. Jennings; the length of which, though never exactly fixed, had been expected by all to comprise at least five or six weeks. A variety of occupations, of objects, and of company, which could not be procured at Barton, would be inevitable there, and might yet, she hoped, cheat Marianne, at times, into some interest beyond herself, and even into some amusement, much as the ideas of both might now be spurned by her. From all danger of seeing Willoughby again, her mother considered her to be at least equally safe in town as in the country, since his acquaintance must now be dropped by all who called themselves her friends. Design could never bring them in each other's way: negligence could never leave them exposed to a surprise; and chance had less in its favour in the crowd of London than even in the retirement of Barton, where it might force him before her while paying that visit at Allenham on his marriage, which Mrs. Dashwood, from foreseeing at first as a probable event, had brought herself to expect as a certain one. She had yet another reason for wishing her children to remain where they were; a letter from her son-in-law had told her that he and his wife were to be in town before the middle of February, and she judged it right that they should sometimes see their brother. Marianne had promised to be guided by her mother's opinion, and she submitted to it therefore without opposition, though it proved perfectly different from what she wished and expected, though she felt it to be entirely wrong, formed on mistaken grounds, and that by requiring her longer continuance in London it deprived her of the only possible alleviation of her wretchedness, the personal sympathy of her mother, and doomed her to such society and such scenes as must prevent her ever knowing a moment's rest. But it was a matter of great consolation to her, that what brought evil to herself would bring good to her sister; and Elinor, on the other hand, suspecting that it would not be in her power to avoid Edward entirely, comforted herself by thinking, that though their longer stay would therefore militate against her own happiness, it would be better for Marianne than an immediate return into Devonshire. Her carefulness in guarding her sister from ever hearing Willoughby's name mentioned, was not thrown away. Marianne, though without knowing it herself, reaped all its advantage; for neither Mrs. Jennings, nor Sir John, nor even Mrs. Palmer herself, ever spoke of him before her. Elinor wished that the same forbearance could have extended towards herself, but that was impossible, and she was obliged to listen day after day to the indignation of them all. Sir John, could not have thought it possible. "A man of whom he had always had such reason to think well! Such a good-natured fellow! He did not believe there was a bolder rider in England! It was an unaccountable business. He wished him at the devil with all his heart. He would not speak another word to him, meet him where he might, for all the world! No, not if it were to be by the side of Barton covert, and they were kept watching for two hours together. Such a scoundrel of a fellow! such a deceitful dog! It was only the last time they met that he had offered him one of Folly's puppies! and this was the end of it!" Mrs. Palmer, in her way, was equally angry. "She was determined to drop his acquaintance immediately, and she was very thankful that she had never been acquainted with him at all. She wished with all her heart Combe Magna was not so near Cleveland; but it did not signify, for it was a great deal too far off to visit; she hated him so much that she was resolved never to mention his name again, and she should tell everybody she saw, how good-for-nothing he was." The rest of Mrs. Palmer's sympathy was shewn in procuring all the particulars in her power of the approaching marriage, and communicating them to Elinor. She could soon tell at what coachmaker's the new carriage was building, by what painter Mr. Willoughby's portrait was drawn, and at what warehouse Miss Grey's clothes might be seen. The calm and polite unconcern of Lady Middleton on the occasion was a happy relief to Elinor's spirits, oppressed as they often were by the clamorous kindness of the others. It was a great comfort to her to be sure of exciting no interest in ONE person at least among their circle of friends: a great comfort to know that there was ONE who would meet her without feeling any curiosity after particulars, or any anxiety for her sister's health. Every qualification is raised at times, by the circumstances of the moment, to more than its real value; and she was sometimes worried down by officious condolence to rate good-breeding as more indispensable to comfort than good-nature. Lady Middleton expressed her sense of the affair about once every day, or twice, if the subject occurred very often, by saying, "It is very shocking, indeed!" and by the means of this continual though gentle vent, was able not only to see the Miss Dashwoods from the first without the smallest emotion, but very soon to see them without recollecting a word of the matter; and having thus supported the dignity of her own sex, and spoken her decided censure of what was wrong in the other, she thought herself at liberty to attend to the interest of her own assemblies, and therefore determined (though rather against the opinion of Sir John) that as Mrs. Willoughby would at once be a woman of elegance and fortune, to leave her card with her as soon as she married. Colonel Brandon's delicate, unobtrusive enquiries were never unwelcome to Miss Dashwood. He had abundantly earned the privilege of intimate discussion of her sister's disappointment, by the friendly zeal with which he had endeavoured to soften it, and they always conversed with confidence. His chief reward for the painful exertion of disclosing past sorrows and present humiliations, was given in the pitying eye with which Marianne sometimes observed him, and the gentleness of her voice whenever (though it did not often happen) she was obliged, or could oblige herself to speak to him. THESE assured him that his exertion had produced an increase of good-will towards himself, and THESE gave Elinor hopes of its being farther augmented hereafter; but Mrs. Jennings, who knew nothing of all this, who knew only that the Colonel continued as grave as ever, and that she could neither prevail on him to make the offer himself, nor commission her to make it for him, began, at the end of two days, to think that, instead of Midsummer, they would not be married till Michaelmas, and by the end of a week that it would not be a match at all. The good understanding between the Colonel and Miss Dashwood seemed rather to declare that the honours of the mulberry-tree, the canal, and the yew arbour, would all be made over to HER; and Mrs. Jennings had, for some time ceased to think at all of Mrs. Ferrars. Early in February, within a fortnight from the receipt of Willoughby's letter, Elinor had the painful office of informing her sister that he was married. She had taken care to have the intelligence conveyed to herself, as soon as it was known that the ceremony was over, as she was desirous that Marianne should not receive the first notice of it from the public papers, which she saw her eagerly examining every morning. She received the news with resolute composure; made no observation on it, and at first shed no tears; but after a short time they would burst out, and for the rest of the day, she was in a state hardly less pitiable than when she first learnt to expect the event. The Willoughbys left town as soon as they were married; and Elinor now hoped, as there could be no danger of her seeing either of them, to prevail on her sister, who had never yet left the house since the blow first fell, to go out again by degrees as she had done before. About this time the two Miss Steeles, lately arrived at their cousin's house in Bartlett's Buildings, Holburn, presented themselves again before their more grand relations in Conduit and Berkeley Streets; and were welcomed by them all with great cordiality. Elinor only was sorry to see them. Their presence always gave her pain, and she hardly knew how to make a very gracious return to the overpowering delight of Lucy in finding her STILL in town. "I should have been quite disappointed if I had not found you here STILL," said she repeatedly, with a strong emphasis on the word. "But I always thought I SHOULD. I was almost sure you would not leave London yet awhile; though you TOLD me, you know, at Barton, that you should not stay above a MONTH. But I thought, at the time, that you would most likely change your mind when it came to the point. It would have been such a great pity to have went away before your brother and sister came. And now to be sure you will be in no hurry to be gone. I am amazingly glad you did not keep to YOUR WORD." Elinor perfectly understood her, and was forced to use all her self-command to make it appear that she did NOT. "Well, my dear," said Mrs. Jennings, "and how did you travel?" "Not in the stage, I assure you," replied Miss Steele, with quick exultation; "we came post all the way, and had a very smart beau to attend us. Dr. Davies was coming to town, and so we thought we'd join him in a post-chaise; and he behaved very genteelly, and paid ten or twelve shillings more than we did." "Oh, oh!" cried Mrs. Jennings; "very pretty, indeed! and the Doctor is a single man, I warrant you." "There now," said Miss Steele, affectedly simpering, "everybody laughs at me so about the Doctor, and I cannot think why. My cousins say they are sure I have made a conquest; but for my part I declare I never think about him from one hour's end to another. 'Lord! here comes your beau, Nancy,' my cousin said t'other day, when she saw him crossing the street to the house. My beau, indeed! said I--I cannot think who you mean. The Doctor is no beau of mine." "Aye, aye, that is very pretty talking--but it won't do--the Doctor is the man, I see." "No, indeed!" replied her cousin, with affected earnestness, "and I beg you will contradict it, if you ever hear it talked of." Mrs. Jennings directly gave her the gratifying assurance that she certainly would NOT, and Miss Steele was made completely happy. "I suppose you will go and stay with your brother and sister, Miss Dashwood, when they come to town," said Lucy, returning, after a cessation of hostile hints, to the charge. "No, I do not think we shall." "Oh, yes, I dare say you will." Elinor would not humour her by farther opposition. "What a charming thing it is that Mrs. Dashwood can spare you both for so long a time together!" "Long a time, indeed!" interposed Mrs. Jennings. "Why, their visit is but just begun!" Lucy was silenced. "I am sorry we cannot see your sister, Miss Dashwood," said Miss Steele. "I am sorry she is not well--" for Marianne had left the room on their arrival. "You are very good. My sister will be equally sorry to miss the pleasure of seeing you; but she has been very much plagued lately with nervous head-aches, which make her unfit for company or conversation." "Oh, dear, that is a great pity! but such old friends as Lucy and me!--I think she might see US; and I am sure we would not speak a word." Elinor, with great civility, declined the proposal. Her sister was perhaps laid down upon the bed, or in her dressing gown, and therefore not able to come to them. "Oh, if that's all," cried Miss Steele, "we can just as well go and see HER." Elinor began to find this impertinence too much for her temper; but she was saved the trouble of checking it, by Lucy's sharp reprimand, which now, as on many occasions, though it did not give much sweetness to the manners of one sister, was of advantage in governing those of the other.

Chapters 28-32

https://web.archive.org/web/20210123003206/https://www.sparknotes.com/lit/sensibility/section7/

Elinor and Marianne are obliged to accompany Lady Middleton to a party in town, even though Marianne is far too melancholic to enjoy dancing or card games. Suddenly, Marianne catches sight of Willoughby among the crowd and rushes forth to greet him. She is astonished and deeply distressed when he avoids her eye and appears absorbed in conversation with another young lady. When she finally approaches him directly, he coldly remarks that he indeed received her letters but never found her at home when he attempted to visit her in reply. Marianne must leave the party immediately with her sisters, for she is too overcome by grief to do anything but climb into bed. The next day, after breakfast, Marianne shares with Elinor a letter she has just received from Willoughby. In his letter, Willoughby apologizes for anything in his conduct at the party that might have offended her. He expresses his esteem for the entire Dashwood family and regrets if he ever gave Marianne any reason to believe that he felt differently for her. Finally, he informs her of his upcoming engagement to another woman and encloses in his letter the three notes that she sent him in London. To Elinor's dismay, all of Marianne's notes were urgent pleas for Willoughby to come visit her at Mrs. Jennings's home, even though, as Marianne confesses, they were never formally engaged to one another. Elinor can hardly believe that Marianne could be so forward in her affections when she and Willoughby were not even engaged, but she nevertheless tries to comfort her sister with gentle words, wine, and lavender drops. Marianne tells her sister that she wants to leave London immediately, but Elinor reminds her that it would be rude to leave Mrs. Jennings after such a short visit. Mrs. Jennings tries to comfort Marianne but says all the wrong things. She remarks to Elinor that her sister looks "very bad" and that she should realize that Willoughby "is not the only young man in the world worth having." She also invites guests to dinner in order to amuse Marianne, but even her sweetmeats and olives cannot lift the girl's spirits. Marianne leaves the table early, but Elinor remains to hear Mrs. Jennings and her friends discuss how Willoughby squandered all his fortune and therefore abruptly proposed to Miss Sophia Grey, a wealthy heiress. Mrs. Jennings tells Elinor that now it will only be a matter of time before Marianne marries Colonel Brandon. While the party takes after-dinner tea, Colonel Brandon arrives to speak with Elinor. He fears that the rumor he heard in town about Willoughby's engagement to Miss Grey might be true, and Elinor confirms his fears. The next day, he visits once again to share with Elinor the sad story of his own romantic history, in the interest of shedding light on Marianne's predicament: he explains that he was once deeply in love with a woman named Eliza, but she was married against his inclination to his brother so as to ensure her fortune for the family. Brandon's brother treated her very unkindly, and she deceived him; ultimately, the couple divorced, and she disappeared. Colonel Brandon, formerly her lover and then her brother-in-law, at last found her dying of consumption in a sponging house in London. He cared for her until her death and promised to take care of her three-year-old daughter. Willoughby placed the young girl in school, and she visited him periodically. Then, about a year earlier, she suddenly disappeared. The following October--the day of the intended picnic to Whitwell, which takes place earlier in the book--he received the news that she had been seduced and abandoned by none other than John Willoughby! He explains that this is why he had to rush off to London on the day of their planned outing. Elinor shares Colonel Brandon's story with Marianne and Marianne mourns the loss of Willoughby's "good" character just as she mourned the loss of him to another woman. The sisters also receive a note from their mother expressing her shock and pain at the news of Willoughby's betrayal. Nonetheless, Mrs. Dashwood urges her daughters to stay in town, especially since their half-brother John Dashwood and his wife Fanny will be arriving there shortly. Meanwhile, Mrs. Jennings, Mrs. Palmer, Lady Middleton, and the Steele sisters also offer words of sympathy to the Dashwood sisters, though their concern is more for themselves than for Marianne: Lady Middleton, for example, expresses outrage at Willoughby's behavior but then arranges to leave her card with Miss Grey since she will be an elegant and wealthy woman when she marries John Willoughby. Only the sympathy of Elinor, Mrs. Dashwood, and Colonel Brandon is entirely genuine and well-intentioned.

Commentary Although Austen makes reference throughout the novel to letters sent from one character to another, Chapter 29 is exceptional because it includes the full text of four letters sent between Willoughby and Marianne. Chapter 29 perhaps most closely resembles Austen's original 1795 manuscript for the book, which was conceived as an epistolary novel entitled Elinor and Marianne. It wasn't until at least four years later that Austen rewrote these letters with narration. Elinor feels that Willoughby's letter proclaims him to be "deep in hardened villainy." Indeed, Willoughby is only one in a long line of Austen's male villains, including George Wickham , Henry Crawford . All of Austen's villains are tricksters, who initially seem charming, attractive, and witty. Some, like Frank Churchill, turn out to be fibbers and play-actors while others, like George Wickham, are downright frauds. However, Willoughby is both: he is a glamorous seducer as well as a corrupt philanderer. He is not just impetuous but also callous; he is not just insensitive but also vicious. As a result, it is not difficult to see how he can capture Marianne's heart without ever fully winning Elinor's confidence. The contrast between Elinor and Marianne is perhaps made most explicit in their reactions to their lovers' seemingly insensitive treatment. Whereas Elinor is relieved that she does not have to share Lucy's news about Edward with her mother and sister, Marianne insists through her grief that "I care not who knows that I am wretched." Her attempt to claim intimacy with Willoughby at the party dramatizes the dangers of showing one's feelings publicly and contrasts strikingly with Elinor's more cautious restraint. Colonel Brandon's own personal story of his relationship with Eliza Williams and her daughter elaborately echoes Marianne's relationship with Willoughby. The details of Brandon's story parallel all of the plots of the novel, including that of the insensitive parent's commitment to primogeniture, of brothers who cannot see eye-to-eye, and of women whose hearts are broken by the men they love. However, Brandon's dramatic story also includes divorce, seduction, illegitimate birth, and even a duel, all of which are extreme consequences of the emotions and situations that Marianne Dashwood must confront. Though Brandon comments that he is a "very awkward narrator," his story-within-a-story actually sheds light on many of the most important themes of the novel.

cliffnotes

all_chapterized_books/174-chapters/09.txt

finished_summaries/cliffnotes/The Picture of Dorian Gray/section_9_part_0.txt

The Picture of Dorian Gray.chapter 9

chapter 9

{"name": "Chapter 9", "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20201219150422/https://www.cliffsnotes.com/literature/p/the-picture-of-dorian-gray/summary-and-analysis/chapter-9", "summary": "While Dorian breakfasts the next morning, Basil arrives, upset about Sibyl's death and concerned for Dorian. Basil had come by Dorian's home the night before but was told that Dorian was at the opera. Basil cannot believe that Dorian could have gone to the opera so soon after Sibyl's suicide, and he is concerned that \"one tragedy might be followed by another.\" Dorian is bored and indifferent about Sybil. He tells Basil that Sibyl's mother has a son but that he has no idea how the woman is faring. Beyond that, he wants no more talk of \"horrid subjects.\" Instead, he asks about Basil's paintings. Basil is astonished at Dorian's indifference. He asks Dorian how he could attend the opera while Sibyl Vane lay dead but not yet buried. Dorian tries to interrupt. Echoing his mentor, Lord Henry, he observes that a person who is \"master of himself can end a sorrow as easily as he can invent a pleasure.\" Basil continues, saying that Dorian's attitude is \"horrible.\" He accuses Dorian of having no heart and blames the change in Dorian on Lord Henry's influence. Dorian retorts that he owes \"a great deal\" to Lord Henry, more than he owes to Basil, who \"only taught me to be vain.\" Basil sadly responds, \"Well, I am punished for that, Dorian -- or shall be some day,\" a major foreshadowing of events to come in the novel. Basil is even more distraught when he learns that Sibyl's death was a suicide. Dorian, however, again echoes Lord Henry by calling Sibyl's death \"one of the great romantic tragedies of the age.\" Besides, Dorian points out, he did grieve; however, he recalls, it soon passed. He repeats a self-serving anecdote about his own life and concedes that he has indeed changed. He admits that Basil may be \"better\" than Lord Henry, but the latter is stronger. Basil, he concludes, is too afraid of life. The subject turns to art. Dorian asks Basil to make a drawing of Sibyl, and Basil agrees to try making the portrait. More importantly, he asks Dorian to sit for him again. That would be impossible, says Dorian. Basil then asks to see the portrait because he now plans to exhibit it in Paris. Dorian is horrified that Basil wants to exhibit the portrait; he fears that his secret would be revealed to the whole world. Dorian reminds Basil of his promise never to exhibit the portrait and asks why he has changed his mind. Basil explains that he didn't want to exhibit the portrait for fear that others might see his feelings for Dorian in it. Since that time, he has come to the conclusion that \"art conceals the artist far more completely than it ever reveals him,\" and that he doesn't fear others seeing the portrait. Basil finally agrees not to exhibit the portrait and leaves. At the end of the chapter, Dorian marvels at how he was spared from telling his own secret and, instead, managed to manipulate his friend into telling his secret. He vows to keep the portrait hidden away forever.", "analysis": "Wilde uses this chapter to continue his character development of both Basil and Dorian. Basil shows himself to be a decent, caring human being who is as concerned for Sibyl and her mother as he is for Dorian. Unlike Lord Henry, he does not encourage Dorian to turn away from the girl's death or treat it like some entertaining fantasy. In a moment of heightened irony, Dorian accuses Basil of being \"too much afraid of life.\" In fact, Dorian is afraid that Basil will see the portrait and thus learn of his secret pact. As for Dorian, he shows himself to be fully immersed in his new life of selfishness and manipulation. For example, when Dorian learns of Basil's strange admiration for him, an admiration that has obviously had a major impact on Basil, Dorian is simply pleased to be adored by Basil. As he wonders if he will ever feel that way toward someone, it becomes evident that he already does -- while he respects Lord Henry, Dorian only adores himself. When he gets Basil to admit his secret without having to reveal his own, he feels pleasure at having manipulated the situation so completely to his own advantage. His decision at the end of the chapter to hide the painting reveals his commitment to a life of vanity and self-gratification. Wilde also shows the reader the tension that Dorian feels about keeping his pact a secret. Dorian becomes gripped with raging fear when he hears that Basil wants to see the painting and to show it to others -- he is so afraid that he actually breaks into a sweat. Dorian's fear points to an important theme in the book: A life devoted solely to the pursuit of selfish pleasure will always be marred by self-con-scious fear. Dorian has what he wants -- eternal youth and a life filled with pleasure -- but he can't fully enjoy his life for fear that his secret will be discovered. Dorian's fear in this chapter is the first sign that Dorian's new life will be a study in disappointment. Readers should note that this chapter contains several ironic allusions that become important later in the story. For example, Dorian makes a fleeting and flippant reference about Sibyl's brother; when Dorian mentions James, the reader is reminded of the brother's promise to kill anyone who harms Sybil. The repeated references to the brother remind the reader of his presence and foreshadow his later reemergence in the book. As the novel progresses, the reader also will see the irony in Dorian's statement that he would turn to Basil in a time of trouble. Glossary martyr one who suffers death rather than compromise principles; one who sacrifices greatly. philanthropist one who attempts to benefit mankind through charitable aid. ennui French, \"boredom.\" misanthrope a person who scorns or hates mankind. Gautier Theophile Gautier , French poet and critic. la consolation des arts French, \"the consolation of the arts.\" pallid ashen, or pale. Paris in Greek mythology, the son of King Priam of Troy and his wife, Hecuba; his choice of Helen as the winner of a beauty contest, and his refusal to return her, caused the Trojan War; later, he shot the arrow that caused the death of Achilles. Adonis in Greek mythology, a youth of astonishing beauty, favored by the goddess of love, Aphrodite. Adrian Publius Aelius Hadrianus , popularly known as Hadrian, or Adrian, Roman emperor ; had strong ties to Egypt and lost a close friend to drowning in the Nile. panegyrics praise."}

As he was sitting at breakfast next morning, Basil Hallward was shown into the room. "I am so glad I have found you, Dorian," he said gravely. "I called last night, and they told me you were at the opera. Of course, I knew that was impossible. But I wish you had left word where you had really gone to. I passed a dreadful evening, half afraid that one tragedy might be followed by another. I think you might have telegraphed for me when you heard of it first. I read of it quite by chance in a late edition of _The Globe_ that I picked up at the club. I came here at once and was miserable at not finding you. I can't tell you how heart-broken I am about the whole thing. I know what you must suffer. But where were you? Did you go down and see the girl's mother? For a moment I thought of following you there. They gave the address in the paper. Somewhere in the Euston Road, isn't it? But I was afraid of intruding upon a sorrow that I could not lighten. Poor woman! What a state she must be in! And her only child, too! What did she say about it all?" "My dear Basil, how do I know?" murmured Dorian Gray, sipping some pale-yellow wine from a delicate, gold-beaded bubble of Venetian glass and looking dreadfully bored. "I was at the opera. You should have come on there. I met Lady Gwendolen, Harry's sister, for the first time. We were in her box. She is perfectly charming; and Patti sang divinely. Don't talk about horrid subjects. If one doesn't talk about a thing, it has never happened. It is simply expression, as Harry says, that gives reality to things. I may mention that she was not the woman's only child. There is a son, a charming fellow, I believe. But he is not on the stage. He is a sailor, or something. And now, tell me about yourself and what you are painting." "You went to the opera?" said Hallward, speaking very slowly and with a strained touch of pain in his voice. "You went to the opera while Sibyl Vane was lying dead in some sordid lodging? You can talk to me of other women being charming, and of Patti singing divinely, before the girl you loved has even the quiet of a grave to sleep in? Why, man, there are horrors in store for that little white body of hers!" "Stop, Basil! I won't hear it!" cried Dorian, leaping to his feet. "You must not tell me about things. What is done is done. What is past is past." "You call yesterday the past?" "What has the actual lapse of time got to do with it? It is only shallow people who require years to get rid of an emotion. A man who is master of himself can end a sorrow as easily as he can invent a pleasure. I don't want to be at the mercy of my emotions. I want to use them, to enjoy them, and to dominate them." "Dorian, this is horrible! Something has changed you completely. You look exactly the same wonderful boy who, day after day, used to come down to my studio to sit for his picture. But you were simple, natural, and affectionate then. You were the most unspoiled creature in the whole world. Now, I don't know what has come over you. You talk as if you had no heart, no pity in you. It is all Harry's influence. I see that." The lad flushed up and, going to the window, looked out for a few moments on the green, flickering, sun-lashed garden. "I owe a great deal to Harry, Basil," he said at last, "more than I owe to you. You only taught me to be vain." "Well, I am punished for that, Dorian--or shall be some day." "I don't know what you mean, Basil," he exclaimed, turning round. "I don't know what you want. What do you want?" "I want the Dorian Gray I used to paint," said the artist sadly. "Basil," said the lad, going over to him and putting his hand on his shoulder, "you have come too late. Yesterday, when I heard that Sibyl Vane had killed herself--" "Killed herself! Good heavens! is there no doubt about that?" cried Hallward, looking up at him with an expression of horror. "My dear Basil! Surely you don't think it was a vulgar accident? Of course she killed herself." The elder man buried his face in his hands. "How fearful," he muttered, and a shudder ran through him. "No," said Dorian Gray, "there is nothing fearful about it. It is one of the great romantic tragedies of the age. As a rule, people who act lead the most commonplace lives. They are good husbands, or faithful wives, or something tedious. You know what I mean--middle-class virtue and all that kind of thing. How different Sibyl was! She lived her finest tragedy. She was always a heroine. The last night she played--the night you saw her--she acted badly because she had known the reality of love. When she knew its unreality, she died, as Juliet might have died. She passed again into the sphere of art. There is something of the martyr about her. Her death has all the pathetic uselessness of martyrdom, all its wasted beauty. But, as I was saying, you must not think I have not suffered. If you had come in yesterday at a particular moment--about half-past five, perhaps, or a quarter to six--you would have found me in tears. Even Harry, who was here, who brought me the news, in fact, had no idea what I was going through. I suffered immensely. Then it passed away. I cannot repeat an emotion. No one can, except sentimentalists. And you are awfully unjust, Basil. You come down here to console me. That is charming of you. You find me consoled, and you are furious. How like a sympathetic person! You remind me of a story Harry told me about a certain philanthropist who spent twenty years of his life in trying to get some grievance redressed, or some unjust law altered--I forget exactly what it was. Finally he succeeded, and nothing could exceed his disappointment. He had absolutely nothing to do, almost died of _ennui_, and became a confirmed misanthrope. And besides, my dear old Basil, if you really want to console me, teach me rather to forget what has happened, or to see it from a proper artistic point of view. Was it not Gautier who used to write about _la consolation des arts_? I remember picking up a little vellum-covered book in your studio one day and chancing on that delightful phrase. Well, I am not like that young man you told me of when we were down at Marlow together, the young man who used to say that yellow satin could console one for all the miseries of life. I love beautiful things that one can touch and handle. Old brocades, green bronzes, lacquer-work, carved ivories, exquisite surroundings, luxury, pomp--there is much to be got from all these. But the artistic temperament that they create, or at any rate reveal, is still more to me. To become the spectator of one's own life, as Harry says, is to escape the suffering of life. I know you are surprised at my talking to you like this. You have not realized how I have developed. I was a schoolboy when you knew me. I am a man now. I have new passions, new thoughts, new ideas. I am different, but you must not like me less. I am changed, but you must always be my friend. Of course, I am very fond of Harry. But I know that you are better than he is. You are not stronger--you are too much afraid of life--but you are better. And how happy we used to be together! Don't leave me, Basil, and don't quarrel with me. I am what I am. There is nothing more to be said." The painter felt strangely moved. The lad was infinitely dear to him, and his personality had been the great turning point in his art. He could not bear the idea of reproaching him any more. After all, his indifference was probably merely a mood that would pass away. There was so much in him that was good, so much in him that was noble. "Well, Dorian," he said at length, with a sad smile, "I won't speak to you again about this horrible thing, after to-day. I only trust your name won't be mentioned in connection with it. The inquest is to take place this afternoon. Have they summoned you?" Dorian shook his head, and a look of annoyance passed over his face at the mention of the word "inquest." There was something so crude and vulgar about everything of the kind. "They don't know my name," he answered. "But surely she did?" "Only my Christian name, and that I am quite sure she never mentioned to any one. She told me once that they were all rather curious to learn who I was, and that she invariably told them my name was Prince Charming. It was pretty of her. You must do me a drawing of Sibyl, Basil. I should like to have something more of her than the memory of a few kisses and some broken pathetic words." "I will try and do something, Dorian, if it would please you. But you must come and sit to me yourself again. I can't get on without you." "I can never sit to you again, Basil. It is impossible!" he exclaimed, starting back. The painter stared at him. "My dear boy, what nonsense!" he cried. "Do you mean to say you don't like what I did of you? Where is it? Why have you pulled the screen in front of it? Let me look at it. It is the best thing I have ever done. Do take the screen away, Dorian. It is simply disgraceful of your servant hiding my work like that. I felt the room looked different as I came in." "My servant has nothing to do with it, Basil. You don't imagine I let him arrange my room for me? He settles my flowers for me sometimes--that is all. No; I did it myself. The light was too strong on the portrait." "Too strong! Surely not, my dear fellow? It is an admirable place for it. Let me see it." And Hallward walked towards the corner of the room. A cry of terror broke from Dorian Gray's lips, and he rushed between the painter and the screen. "Basil," he said, looking very pale, "you must not look at it. I don't wish you to." "Not look at my own work! You are not serious. Why shouldn't I look at it?" exclaimed Hallward, laughing. "If you try to look at it, Basil, on my word of honour I will never speak to you again as long as I live. I am quite serious. I don't offer any explanation, and you are not to ask for any. But, remember, if you touch this screen, everything is over between us." Hallward was thunderstruck. He looked at Dorian Gray in absolute amazement. He had never seen him like this before. The lad was actually pallid with rage. His hands were clenched, and the pupils of his eyes were like disks of blue fire. He was trembling all over. "Dorian!" "Don't speak!" "But what is the matter? Of course I won't look at it if you don't want me to," he said, rather coldly, turning on his heel and going over towards the window. "But, really, it seems rather absurd that I shouldn't see my own work, especially as I am going to exhibit it in Paris in the autumn. I shall probably have to give it another coat of varnish before that, so I must see it some day, and why not to-day?" "To exhibit it! You want to exhibit it?" exclaimed Dorian Gray, a strange sense of terror creeping over him. Was the world going to be shown his secret? Were people to gape at the mystery of his life? That was impossible. Something--he did not know what--had to be done at once. "Yes; I don't suppose you will object to that. Georges Petit is going to collect all my best pictures for a special exhibition in the Rue de Seze, which will open the first week in October. The portrait will only be away a month. I should think you could easily spare it for that time. In fact, you are sure to be out of town. And if you keep it always behind a screen, you can't care much about it." Dorian Gray passed his hand over his forehead. There were beads of perspiration there. He felt that he was on the brink of a horrible danger. "You told me a month ago that you would never exhibit it," he cried. "Why have you changed your mind? You people who go in for being consistent have just as many moods as others have. The only difference is that your moods are rather meaningless. You can't have forgotten that you assured me most solemnly that nothing in the world would induce you to send it to any exhibition. You told Harry exactly the same thing." He stopped suddenly, and a gleam of light came into his eyes. He remembered that Lord Henry had said to him once, half seriously and half in jest, "If you want to have a strange quarter of an hour, get Basil to tell you why he won't exhibit your picture. He told me why he wouldn't, and it was a revelation to me." Yes, perhaps Basil, too, had his secret. He would ask him and try. "Basil," he said, coming over quite close and looking him straight in the face, "we have each of us a secret. Let me know yours, and I shall tell you mine. What was your reason for refusing to exhibit my picture?" The painter shuddered in spite of himself. "Dorian, if I told you, you might like me less than you do, and you would certainly laugh at me. I could not bear your doing either of those two things. If you wish me never to look at your picture again, I am content. I have always you to look at. If you wish the best work I have ever done to be hidden from the world, I am satisfied. Your friendship is dearer to me than any fame or reputation." "No, Basil, you must tell me," insisted Dorian Gray. "I think I have a right to know." His feeling of terror had passed away, and curiosity had taken its place. He was determined to find out Basil Hallward's mystery. "Let us sit down, Dorian," said the painter, looking troubled. "Let us sit down. And just answer me one question. Have you noticed in the picture something curious?--something that probably at first did not strike you, but that revealed itself to you suddenly?" "Basil!" cried the lad, clutching the arms of his chair with trembling hands and gazing at him with wild startled eyes. "I see you did. Don't speak. Wait till you hear what I have to say. Dorian, from the moment I met you, your personality had the most extraordinary influence over me. I was dominated, soul, brain, and power, by you. You became to me the visible incarnation of that unseen ideal whose memory haunts us artists like an exquisite dream. I worshipped you. I grew jealous of every one to whom you spoke. I wanted to have you all to myself. I was only happy when I was with you. When you were away from me, you were still present in my art.... Of course, I never let you know anything about this. It would have been impossible. You would not have understood it. I hardly understood it myself. I only knew that I had seen perfection face to face, and that the world had become wonderful to my eyes--too wonderful, perhaps, for in such mad worships there is peril, the peril of losing them, no less than the peril of keeping them.... Weeks and weeks went on, and I grew more and more absorbed in you. Then came a new development. I had drawn you as Paris in dainty armour, and as Adonis with huntsman's cloak and polished boar-spear. Crowned with heavy lotus-blossoms you had sat on the prow of Adrian's barge, gazing across the green turbid Nile. You had leaned over the still pool of some Greek woodland and seen in the water's silent silver the marvel of your own face. And it had all been what art should be--unconscious, ideal, and remote. One day, a fatal day I sometimes think, I determined to paint a wonderful portrait of you as you actually are, not in the costume of dead ages, but in your own dress and in your own time. Whether it was the realism of the method, or the mere wonder of your own personality, thus directly presented to me without mist or veil, I cannot tell. But I know that as I worked at it, every flake and film of colour seemed to me to reveal my secret. I grew afraid that others would know of my idolatry. I felt, Dorian, that I had told too much, that I had put too much of myself into it. Then it was that I resolved never to allow the picture to be exhibited. You were a little annoyed; but then you did not realize all that it meant to me. Harry, to whom I talked about it, laughed at me. But I did not mind that. When the picture was finished, and I sat alone with it, I felt that I was right.... Well, after a few days the thing left my studio, and as soon as I had got rid of the intolerable fascination of its presence, it seemed to me that I had been foolish in imagining that I had seen anything in it, more than that you were extremely good-looking and that I could paint. Even now I cannot help feeling that it is a mistake to think that the passion one feels in creation is ever really shown in the work one creates. Art is always more abstract than we fancy. Form and colour tell us of form and colour--that is all. It often seems to me that art conceals the artist far more completely than it ever reveals him. And so when I got this offer from Paris, I determined to make your portrait the principal thing in my exhibition. It never occurred to me that you would refuse. I see now that you were right. The picture cannot be shown. You must not be angry with me, Dorian, for what I have told you. As I said to Harry, once, you are made to be worshipped." Dorian Gray drew a long breath. The colour came back to his cheeks, and a smile played about his lips. The peril was over. He was safe for the time. Yet he could not help feeling infinite pity for the painter who had just made this strange confession to him, and wondered if he himself would ever be so dominated by the personality of a friend. Lord Henry had the charm of being very dangerous. But that was all. He was too clever and too cynical to be really fond of. Would there ever be some one who would fill him with a strange idolatry? Was that one of the things that life had in store? "It is extraordinary to me, Dorian," said Hallward, "that you should have seen this in the portrait. Did you really see it?" "I saw something in it," he answered, "something that seemed to me very curious." "Well, you don't mind my looking at the thing now?" Dorian shook his head. "You must not ask me that, Basil. I could not possibly let you stand in front of that picture." "You will some day, surely?" "Never." "Well, perhaps you are right. And now good-bye, Dorian. You have been the one person in my life who has really influenced my art. Whatever I have done that is good, I owe to you. Ah! you don't know what it cost me to tell you all that I have told you." "My dear Basil," said Dorian, "what have you told me? Simply that you felt that you admired me too much. That is not even a compliment." "It was not intended as a compliment. It was a confession. Now that I have made it, something seems to have gone out of me. Perhaps one should never put one's worship into words." "It was a very disappointing confession." "Why, what did you expect, Dorian? You didn't see anything else in the picture, did you? There was nothing else to see?" "No; there was nothing else to see. Why do you ask? But you mustn't talk about worship. It is foolish. You and I are friends, Basil, and we must always remain so." "You have got Harry," said the painter sadly. "Oh, Harry!" cried the lad, with a ripple of laughter. "Harry spends his days in saying what is incredible and his evenings in doing what is improbable. Just the sort of life I would like to lead. But still I don't think I would go to Harry if I were in trouble. I would sooner go to you, Basil." "You will sit to me again?" "Impossible!" "You spoil my life as an artist by refusing, Dorian. No man comes across two ideal things. Few come across one." "I can't explain it to you, Basil, but I must never sit to you again. There is something fatal about a portrait. It has a life of its own. I will come and have tea with you. That will be just as pleasant." "Pleasanter for you, I am afraid," murmured Hallward regretfully. "And now good-bye. I am sorry you won't let me look at the picture once again. But that can't be helped. I quite understand what you feel about it." As he left the room, Dorian Gray smiled to himself. Poor Basil! How little he knew of the true reason! And how strange it was that, instead of having been forced to reveal his own secret, he had succeeded, almost by chance, in wresting a secret from his friend! How much that strange confession explained to him! The painter's absurd fits of jealousy, his wild devotion, his extravagant panegyrics, his curious reticences--he understood them all now, and he felt sorry. There seemed to him to be something tragic in a friendship so coloured by romance. He sighed and touched the bell. The portrait must be hidden away at all costs. He could not run such a risk of discovery again. It had been mad of him to have allowed the thing to remain, even for an hour, in a room to which any of his friends had access.

Chapter 9

https://web.archive.org/web/20201219150422/https://www.cliffsnotes.com/literature/p/the-picture-of-dorian-gray/summary-and-analysis/chapter-9

While Dorian breakfasts the next morning, Basil arrives, upset about Sibyl's death and concerned for Dorian. Basil had come by Dorian's home the night before but was told that Dorian was at the opera. Basil cannot believe that Dorian could have gone to the opera so soon after Sibyl's suicide, and he is concerned that "one tragedy might be followed by another." Dorian is bored and indifferent about Sybil. He tells Basil that Sibyl's mother has a son but that he has no idea how the woman is faring. Beyond that, he wants no more talk of "horrid subjects." Instead, he asks about Basil's paintings. Basil is astonished at Dorian's indifference. He asks Dorian how he could attend the opera while Sibyl Vane lay dead but not yet buried. Dorian tries to interrupt. Echoing his mentor, Lord Henry, he observes that a person who is "master of himself can end a sorrow as easily as he can invent a pleasure." Basil continues, saying that Dorian's attitude is "horrible." He accuses Dorian of having no heart and blames the change in Dorian on Lord Henry's influence. Dorian retorts that he owes "a great deal" to Lord Henry, more than he owes to Basil, who "only taught me to be vain." Basil sadly responds, "Well, I am punished for that, Dorian -- or shall be some day," a major foreshadowing of events to come in the novel. Basil is even more distraught when he learns that Sibyl's death was a suicide. Dorian, however, again echoes Lord Henry by calling Sibyl's death "one of the great romantic tragedies of the age." Besides, Dorian points out, he did grieve; however, he recalls, it soon passed. He repeats a self-serving anecdote about his own life and concedes that he has indeed changed. He admits that Basil may be "better" than Lord Henry, but the latter is stronger. Basil, he concludes, is too afraid of life. The subject turns to art. Dorian asks Basil to make a drawing of Sibyl, and Basil agrees to try making the portrait. More importantly, he asks Dorian to sit for him again. That would be impossible, says Dorian. Basil then asks to see the portrait because he now plans to exhibit it in Paris. Dorian is horrified that Basil wants to exhibit the portrait; he fears that his secret would be revealed to the whole world. Dorian reminds Basil of his promise never to exhibit the portrait and asks why he has changed his mind. Basil explains that he didn't want to exhibit the portrait for fear that others might see his feelings for Dorian in it. Since that time, he has come to the conclusion that "art conceals the artist far more completely than it ever reveals him," and that he doesn't fear others seeing the portrait. Basil finally agrees not to exhibit the portrait and leaves. At the end of the chapter, Dorian marvels at how he was spared from telling his own secret and, instead, managed to manipulate his friend into telling his secret. He vows to keep the portrait hidden away forever.

Wilde uses this chapter to continue his character development of both Basil and Dorian. Basil shows himself to be a decent, caring human being who is as concerned for Sibyl and her mother as he is for Dorian. Unlike Lord Henry, he does not encourage Dorian to turn away from the girl's death or treat it like some entertaining fantasy. In a moment of heightened irony, Dorian accuses Basil of being "too much afraid of life." In fact, Dorian is afraid that Basil will see the portrait and thus learn of his secret pact. As for Dorian, he shows himself to be fully immersed in his new life of selfishness and manipulation. For example, when Dorian learns of Basil's strange admiration for him, an admiration that has obviously had a major impact on Basil, Dorian is simply pleased to be adored by Basil. As he wonders if he will ever feel that way toward someone, it becomes evident that he already does -- while he respects Lord Henry, Dorian only adores himself. When he gets Basil to admit his secret without having to reveal his own, he feels pleasure at having manipulated the situation so completely to his own advantage. His decision at the end of the chapter to hide the painting reveals his commitment to a life of vanity and self-gratification. Wilde also shows the reader the tension that Dorian feels about keeping his pact a secret. Dorian becomes gripped with raging fear when he hears that Basil wants to see the painting and to show it to others -- he is so afraid that he actually breaks into a sweat. Dorian's fear points to an important theme in the book: A life devoted solely to the pursuit of selfish pleasure will always be marred by self-con-scious fear. Dorian has what he wants -- eternal youth and a life filled with pleasure -- but he can't fully enjoy his life for fear that his secret will be discovered. Dorian's fear in this chapter is the first sign that Dorian's new life will be a study in disappointment. Readers should note that this chapter contains several ironic allusions that become important later in the story. For example, Dorian makes a fleeting and flippant reference about Sibyl's brother; when Dorian mentions James, the reader is reminded of the brother's promise to kill anyone who harms Sybil. The repeated references to the brother remind the reader of his presence and foreshadow his later reemergence in the book. As the novel progresses, the reader also will see the irony in Dorian's statement that he would turn to Basil in a time of trouble. Glossary martyr one who suffers death rather than compromise principles; one who sacrifices greatly. philanthropist one who attempts to benefit mankind through charitable aid. ennui French, "boredom." misanthrope a person who scorns or hates mankind. Gautier Theophile Gautier , French poet and critic. la consolation des arts French, "the consolation of the arts." pallid ashen, or pale. Paris in Greek mythology, the son of King Priam of Troy and his wife, Hecuba; his choice of Helen as the winner of a beauty contest, and his refusal to return her, caused the Trojan War; later, he shot the arrow that caused the death of Achilles. Adonis in Greek mythology, a youth of astonishing beauty, favored by the goddess of love, Aphrodite. Adrian Publius Aelius Hadrianus , popularly known as Hadrian, or Adrian, Roman emperor ; had strong ties to Egypt and lost a close friend to drowning in the Nile. panegyrics praise.

shmoop

all_chapterized_books/107-chapters/18.txt

finished_summaries/shmoop/Far From the Madding Crowd/section_17_part_0.txt

Far From the Madding Crowd.chapter 18

chapter 18

{"name": "Chapter 18", "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20201219162644/https://www.shmoop.com/study-guides/literature/far-from-the-madding-crowd/summary/chapter-18", "summary": "Mr. Boldwood comes home to his farm, thinking of Bathsheba and pacing around. Like we said: he's crazy in love. The narrator informs us that this is the first time in his life that Boldwood has ever let his defenses down and allowed himself to love someone like this. Oh, jeepers. We feel bad for him now. Finally, he decides to march right across the fields to her door and declare his intention of courting her. He finds Bathsheba working in the field with Gabriel Oak, trying to get a sheep to adopt an orphaned lamb as her own. These lambs are just too cute. Oak notices Bathsheba blushing at the sight of Boldwood. This, combined with the letter Boldwood showed him, tells him that Bathsheba has been flirting and joking around with the farmer. Instead of walking up to Bathsheba, Boldwood tries to pretend that he was just passing by. As he walks away, Bathsheba decides that she probably shouldn't mess with him any more, and that she doesn't want him in her life. Unfortunately, it may no longer be up to her.", "analysis": ""}

BOLDWOOD IN MEDITATION--REGRET Boldwood was tenant of what was called Little Weatherbury Farm, and his person was the nearest approach to aristocracy that this remoter quarter of the parish could boast of. Genteel strangers, whose god was their town, who might happen to be compelled to linger about this nook for a day, heard the sound of light wheels, and prayed to see good society, to the degree of a solitary lord, or squire at the very least, but it was only Mr. Boldwood going out for the day. They heard the sound of wheels yet once more, and were re-animated to expectancy: it was only Mr. Boldwood coming home again. His house stood recessed from the road, and the stables, which are to a farm what a fireplace is to a room, were behind, their lower portions being lost amid bushes of laurel. Inside the blue door, open half-way down, were to be seen at this time the backs and tails of half-a-dozen warm and contented horses standing in their stalls; and as thus viewed, they presented alternations of roan and bay, in shapes like a Moorish arch, the tail being a streak down the midst of each. Over these, and lost to the eye gazing in from the outer light, the mouths of the same animals could be heard busily sustaining the above-named warmth and plumpness by quantities of oats and hay. The restless and shadowy figure of a colt wandered about a loose-box at the end, whilst the steady grind of all the eaters was occasionally diversified by the rattle of a rope or the stamp of a foot. Pacing up and down at the heels of the animals was Farmer Boldwood himself. This place was his almonry and cloister in one: here, after looking to the feeding of his four-footed dependants, the celibate would walk and meditate of an evening till the moon's rays streamed in through the cobwebbed windows, or total darkness enveloped the scene. His square-framed perpendicularity showed more fully now than in the crowd and bustle of the market-house. In this meditative walk his foot met the floor with heel and toe simultaneously, and his fine reddish-fleshed face was bent downwards just enough to render obscure the still mouth and the well-rounded though rather prominent and broad chin. A few clear and thread-like horizontal lines were the only interruption to the otherwise smooth surface of his large forehead. The phases of Boldwood's life were ordinary enough, but his was not an ordinary nature. That stillness, which struck casual observers more than anything else in his character and habit, and seemed so precisely like the rest of inanition, may have been the perfect balance of enormous antagonistic forces--positives and negatives in fine adjustment. His equilibrium disturbed, he was in extremity at once. If an emotion possessed him at all, it ruled him; a feeling not mastering him was entirely latent. Stagnant or rapid, it was never slow. He was always hit mortally, or he was missed. He had no light and careless touches in his constitution, either for good or for evil. Stern in the outlines of action, mild in the details, he was serious throughout all. He saw no absurd sides to the follies of life, and thus, though not quite companionable in the eyes of merry men and scoffers, and those to whom all things show life as a jest, he was not intolerable to the earnest and those acquainted with grief. Being a man who read all the dramas of life seriously, if he failed to please when they were comedies, there was no frivolous treatment to reproach him for when they chanced to end tragically. Bathsheba was far from dreaming that the dark and silent shape upon which she had so carelessly thrown a seed was a hotbed of tropic intensity. Had she known Boldwood's moods, her blame would have been fearful, and the stain upon her heart ineradicable. Moreover, had she known her present power for good or evil over this man, she would have trembled at her responsibility. Luckily for her present, unluckily for her future tranquillity, her understanding had not yet told her what Boldwood was. Nobody knew entirely; for though it was possible to form guesses concerning his wild capabilities from old floodmarks faintly visible, he had never been seen at the high tides which caused them. Farmer Boldwood came to the stable-door and looked forth across the level fields. Beyond the first enclosure was a hedge, and on the other side of this a meadow belonging to Bathsheba's farm. It was now early spring--the time of going to grass with the sheep, when they have the first feed of the meadows, before these are laid up for mowing. The wind, which had been blowing east for several weeks, had veered to the southward, and the middle of spring had come abruptly--almost without a beginning. It was that period in the vernal quarter when we may suppose the Dryads to be waking for the season. The vegetable world begins to move and swell and the saps to rise, till in the completest silence of lone gardens and trackless plantations, where everything seems helpless and still after the bond and slavery of frost, there are bustlings, strainings, united thrusts, and pulls-all-together, in comparison with which the powerful tugs of cranes and pulleys in a noisy city are but pigmy efforts. Boldwood, looking into the distant meadows, saw there three figures. They were those of Miss Everdene, Shepherd Oak, and Cainy Ball. When Bathsheba's figure shone upon the farmer's eyes it lighted him up as the moon lights up a great tower. A man's body is as the shell, or the tablet, of his soul, as he is reserved or ingenuous, overflowing or self-contained. There was a change in Boldwood's exterior from its former impassibleness; and his face showed that he was now living outside his defences for the first time, and with a fearful sense of exposure. It is the usual experience of strong natures when they love. At last he arrived at a conclusion. It was to go across and inquire boldly of her. The insulation of his heart by reserve during these many years, without a channel of any kind for disposable emotion, had worked its effect. It has been observed more than once that the causes of love are chiefly subjective, and Boldwood was a living testimony to the truth of the proposition. No mother existed to absorb his devotion, no sister for his tenderness, no idle ties for sense. He became surcharged with the compound, which was genuine lover's love. He approached the gate of the meadow. Beyond it the ground was melodious with ripples, and the sky with larks; the low bleating of the flock mingling with both. Mistress and man were engaged in the operation of making a lamb "take," which is performed whenever an ewe has lost her own offspring, one of the twins of another ewe being given her as a substitute. Gabriel had skinned the dead lamb, and was tying the skin over the body of the live lamb, in the customary manner, whilst Bathsheba was holding open a little pen of four hurdles, into which the Mother and foisted lamb were driven, where they would remain till the old sheep conceived an affection for the young one. Bathsheba looked up at the completion of the manoeuvre and saw the farmer by the gate, where he was overhung by a willow tree in full bloom. Gabriel, to whom her face was as the uncertain glory of an April day, was ever regardful of its faintest changes, and instantly discerned thereon the mark of some influence from without, in the form of a keenly self-conscious reddening. He also turned and beheld Boldwood. At once connecting these signs with the letter Boldwood had shown him, Gabriel suspected her of some coquettish procedure begun by that means, and carried on since, he knew not how. Farmer Boldwood had read the pantomime denoting that they were aware of his presence, and the perception was as too much light turned upon his new sensibility. He was still in the road, and by moving on he hoped that neither would recognize that he had originally intended to enter the field. He passed by with an utter and overwhelming sensation of ignorance, shyness, and doubt. Perhaps in her manner there were signs that she wished to see him--perhaps not--he could not read a woman. The cabala of this erotic philosophy seemed to consist of the subtlest meanings expressed in misleading ways. Every turn, look, word, and accent contained a mystery quite distinct from its obvious import, and not one had ever been pondered by him until now. As for Bathsheba, she was not deceived into the belief that Farmer Boldwood had walked by on business or in idleness. She collected the probabilities of the case, and concluded that she was herself responsible for Boldwood's appearance there. It troubled her much to see what a great flame a little wildfire was likely to kindle. Bathsheba was no schemer for marriage, nor was she deliberately a trifler with the affections of men, and a censor's experience on seeing an actual flirt after observing her would have been a feeling of surprise that Bathsheba could be so different from such a one, and yet so like what a flirt is supposed to be. She resolved never again, by look or by sign, to interrupt the steady flow of this man's life. But a resolution to avoid an evil is seldom framed till the evil is so far advanced as to make avoidance impossible.

Chapter 18

https://web.archive.org/web/20201219162644/https://www.shmoop.com/study-guides/literature/far-from-the-madding-crowd/summary/chapter-18

Mr. Boldwood comes home to his farm, thinking of Bathsheba and pacing around. Like we said: he's crazy in love. The narrator informs us that this is the first time in his life that Boldwood has ever let his defenses down and allowed himself to love someone like this. Oh, jeepers. We feel bad for him now. Finally, he decides to march right across the fields to her door and declare his intention of courting her. He finds Bathsheba working in the field with Gabriel Oak, trying to get a sheep to adopt an orphaned lamb as her own. These lambs are just too cute. Oak notices Bathsheba blushing at the sight of Boldwood. This, combined with the letter Boldwood showed him, tells him that Bathsheba has been flirting and joking around with the farmer. Instead of walking up to Bathsheba, Boldwood tries to pretend that he was just passing by. As he walks away, Bathsheba decides that she probably shouldn't mess with him any more, and that she doesn't want him in her life. Unfortunately, it may no longer be up to her.

cliffnotes

all_chapterized_books/107-chapters/10.txt

finished_summaries/cliffnotes/Far from the Madding Crowd/section_9_part_0.txt

Far from the Madding Crowd.chapter 10

chapter 10

{"name": "Chapter 10", "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20201101052914/https://www.cliffsnotes.com/literature/f/far-from-the-madding-crowd/summary-and-analysis/chapter-10", "summary": "After a short wait, Bathsheba granted the men an audience. They had settled on benches at the foot of the hall. Bathsheba opened the time book and the canvas moneybag. Liddy sat beside her \"with the air of a privileged person.\" Bathsheba announced her dismissal of the bailiff and her intention to manage the farm herself. \"The men breathed an audible breath of amazement.\" Then she called the roster, asking each employee about himself. The men were awkward; some joked, and each seized the opportunity to draw the attention of the crowd for a moment. Young Cainy Ball was made undershepherd to Gabriel, who spoke to Bathsheba with confidence. Bathsheba asked for news of Fanny and learned that Boldwood had had the pond dragged, but to no avail. Then Smallbury arrived from Casterbridge, stamping snow from his boots. The soldiers had left the town, and Fanny with them; rumor had it that her friend \"was higher in rank than a private.\" Bathsheba suggested that someone inform Boldwood. Before dismissing the help, Bathsheba promised, \"if you serve me well, so shall I serve you.\" She would arise early and be watching. \"In short, I shall astonish you all.\"", "analysis": "Critics consider this chapter representative of Hardy's work in its character delineation and its humor: Bathsheba is mistress of the situation; Gabriel loses none of his stature, although he is properly humble; Liddy is comical with the sense of her own importance; and the idiosyncratic characteristics of the staff members are developed further. The story has received a push forward."}

MISTRESS AND MEN Half-an-hour later Bathsheba, in finished dress, and followed by Liddy, entered the upper end of the old hall to find that her men had all deposited themselves on a long form and a settle at the lower extremity. She sat down at a table and opened the time-book, pen in her hand, with a canvas money-bag beside her. From this she poured a small heap of coin. Liddy chose a position at her elbow and began to sew, sometimes pausing and looking round, or, with the air of a privileged person, taking up one of the half-sovereigns lying before her and surveying it merely as a work of art, while strictly preventing her countenance from expressing any wish to possess it as money. "Now before I begin, men," said Bathsheba, "I have two matters to speak of. The first is that the bailiff is dismissed for thieving, and that I have formed a resolution to have no bailiff at all, but to manage everything with my own head and hands." The men breathed an audible breath of amazement. "The next matter is, have you heard anything of Fanny?" "Nothing, ma'am." "Have you done anything?" "I met Farmer Boldwood," said Jacob Smallbury, "and I went with him and two of his men, and dragged Newmill Pond, but we found nothing." "And the new shepherd have been to Buck's Head, by Yalbury, thinking she had gone there, but nobody had seed her," said Laban Tall. "Hasn't William Smallbury been to Casterbridge?" "Yes, ma'am, but he's not yet come home. He promised to be back by six." "It wants a quarter to six at present," said Bathsheba, looking at her watch. "I daresay he'll be in directly. Well, now then"--she looked into the book--"Joseph Poorgrass, are you there?" "Yes, sir--ma'am I mane," said the person addressed. "I be the personal name of Poorgrass." "And what are you?" "Nothing in my own eye. In the eye of other people--well, I don't say it; though public thought will out." "What do you do on the farm?" "I do do carting things all the year, and in seed time I shoots the rooks and sparrows, and helps at pig-killing, sir." "How much to you?" "Please nine and ninepence and a good halfpenny where 'twas a bad one, sir--ma'am I mane." "Quite correct. Now here are ten shillings in addition as a small present, as I am a new comer." Bathsheba blushed slightly at the sense of being generous in public, and Henery Fray, who had drawn up towards her chair, lifted his eyebrows and fingers to express amazement on a small scale. "How much do I owe you--that man in the corner--what's your name?" continued Bathsheba. "Matthew Moon, ma'am," said a singular framework of clothes with nothing of any consequence inside them, which advanced with the toes in no definite direction forwards, but turned in or out as they chanced to swing. "Matthew Mark, did you say?--speak out--I shall not hurt you," inquired the young farmer, kindly. "Matthew Moon, mem," said Henery Fray, correctingly, from behind her chair, to which point he had edged himself. "Matthew Moon," murmured Bathsheba, turning her bright eyes to the book. "Ten and twopence halfpenny is the sum put down to you, I see?" "Yes, mis'ess," said Matthew, as the rustle of wind among dead leaves. "Here it is, and ten shillings. Now the next--Andrew Randle, you are a new man, I hear. How come you to leave your last farm?" "P-p-p-p-p-pl-pl-pl-pl-l-l-l-l-ease, ma'am, p-p-p-p-pl-pl-pl-pl-please, ma'am-please'm-please'm--" "'A's a stammering man, mem," said Henery Fray in an undertone, "and they turned him away because the only time he ever did speak plain he said his soul was his own, and other iniquities, to the squire. 'A can cuss, mem, as well as you or I, but 'a can't speak a common speech to save his life." "Andrew Randle, here's yours--finish thanking me in a day or two. Temperance Miller--oh, here's another, Soberness--both women I suppose?" "Yes'm. Here we be, 'a b'lieve," was echoed in shrill unison. "What have you been doing?" "Tending thrashing-machine and wimbling haybonds, and saying 'Hoosh!' to the cocks and hens when they go upon your seeds, and planting Early Flourballs and Thompson's Wonderfuls with a dibble." "Yes--I see. Are they satisfactory women?" she inquired softly of Henery Fray. "Oh mem--don't ask me! Yielding women--as scarlet a pair as ever was!" groaned Henery under his breath. "Sit down." "Who, mem?" "Sit down." Joseph Poorgrass, in the background twitched, and his lips became dry with fear of some terrible consequences, as he saw Bathsheba summarily speaking, and Henery slinking off to a corner. "Now the next. Laban Tall, you'll stay on working for me?" "For you or anybody that pays me well, ma'am," replied the young married man. "True--the man must live!" said a woman in the back quarter, who had just entered with clicking pattens. "What woman is that?" Bathsheba asked. "I be his lawful wife!" continued the voice with greater prominence of manner and tone. This lady called herself five-and-twenty, looked thirty, passed as thirty-five, and was forty. She was a woman who never, like some newly married, showed conjugal tenderness in public, perhaps because she had none to show. "Oh, you are," said Bathsheba. "Well, Laban, will you stay on?" "Yes, he'll stay, ma'am!" said again the shrill tongue of Laban's lawful wife. "Well, he can speak for himself, I suppose." "Oh Lord, not he, ma'am! A simple tool. Well enough, but a poor gawkhammer mortal," the wife replied. "Heh-heh-heh!" laughed the married man with a hideous effort of appreciation, for he was as irrepressibly good-humoured under ghastly snubs as a parliamentary candidate on the hustings. The names remaining were called in the same manner. "Now I think I have done with you," said Bathsheba, closing the book and shaking back a stray twine of hair. "Has William Smallbury returned?" "No, ma'am." "The new shepherd will want a man under him," suggested Henery Fray, trying to make himself official again by a sideway approach towards her chair. "Oh--he will. Who can he have?" "Young Cain Ball is a very good lad," Henery said, "and Shepherd Oak don't mind his youth?" he added, turning with an apologetic smile to the shepherd, who had just appeared on the scene, and was now leaning against the doorpost with his arms folded. "No, I don't mind that," said Gabriel. "How did Cain come by such a name?" asked Bathsheba. "Oh you see, mem, his pore mother, not being a Scripture-read woman, made a mistake at his christening, thinking 'twas Abel killed Cain, and called en Cain, meaning Abel all the time. The parson put it right, but 'twas too late, for the name could never be got rid of in the parish. 'Tis very unfortunate for the boy." "It is rather unfortunate." "Yes. However, we soften it down as much as we can, and call him Cainy. Ah, pore widow-woman! she cried her heart out about it almost. She was brought up by a very heathen father and mother, who never sent her to church or school, and it shows how the sins of the parents are visited upon the children, mem." Mr. Fray here drew up his features to the mild degree of melancholy required when the persons involved in the given misfortune do not belong to your own family. "Very well then, Cainey Ball to be under-shepherd. And you quite understand your duties?--you I mean, Gabriel Oak?" "Quite well, I thank you, Miss Everdene," said Shepherd Oak from the doorpost. "If I don't, I'll inquire." Gabriel was rather staggered by the remarkable coolness of her manner. Certainly nobody without previous information would have dreamt that Oak and the handsome woman before whom he stood had ever been other than strangers. But perhaps her air was the inevitable result of the social rise which had advanced her from a cottage to a large house and fields. The case is not unexampled in high places. When, in the writings of the later poets, Jove and his family are found to have moved from their cramped quarters on the peak of Olympus into the wide sky above it, their words show a proportionate increase of arrogance and reserve. Footsteps were heard in the passage, combining in their character the qualities both of weight and measure, rather at the expense of velocity. (All.) "Here's Billy Smallbury come from Casterbridge." "And what's the news?" said Bathsheba, as William, after marching to the middle of the hall, took a handkerchief from his hat and wiped his forehead from its centre to its remoter boundaries. "I should have been sooner, miss," he said, "if it hadn't been for the weather." He then stamped with each foot severely, and on looking down his boots were perceived to be clogged with snow. "Come at last, is it?" said Henery. "Well, what about Fanny?" said Bathsheba. "Well, ma'am, in round numbers, she's run away with the soldiers," said William. "No; not a steady girl like Fanny!" "I'll tell ye all particulars. When I got to Casterbridge Barracks, they said, 'The Eleventh Dragoon-Guards be gone away, and new troops have come.' The Eleventh left last week for Melchester and onwards. The Route came from Government like a thief in the night, as is his nature to, and afore the Eleventh knew it almost, they were on the march. They passed near here." Gabriel had listened with interest. "I saw them go," he said. "Yes," continued William, "they pranced down the street playing 'The Girl I Left Behind Me,' so 'tis said, in glorious notes of triumph. Every looker-on's inside shook with the blows of the great drum to his deepest vitals, and there was not a dry eye throughout the town among the public-house people and the nameless women!" "But they're not gone to any war?" "No, ma'am; but they be gone to take the places of them who may, which is very close connected. And so I said to myself, Fanny's young man was one of the regiment, and she's gone after him. There, ma'am, that's it in black and white." "Did you find out his name?" "No; nobody knew it. I believe he was higher in rank than a private." Gabriel remained musing and said nothing, for he was in doubt. "Well, we are not likely to know more to-night, at any rate," said Bathsheba. "But one of you had better run across to Farmer Boldwood's and tell him that much." She then rose; but before retiring, addressed a few words to them with a pretty dignity, to which her mourning dress added a soberness that was hardly to be found in the words themselves. "Now mind, you have a mistress instead of a master. I don't yet know my powers or my talents in farming; but I shall do my best, and if you serve me well, so shall I serve you. Don't any unfair ones among you (if there are any such, but I hope not) suppose that because I'm a woman I don't understand the difference between bad goings-on and good." (All.) "No'm!" (Liddy.) "Excellent well said." "I shall be up before you are awake; I shall be afield before you are up; and I shall have breakfasted before you are afield. In short, I shall astonish you all." (All.) "Yes'm!" "And so good-night." (All.) "Good-night, ma'am." Then this small thesmothete stepped from the table, and surged out of the hall, her black silk dress licking up a few straws and dragging them along with a scratching noise upon the floor. Liddy, elevating her feelings to the occasion from a sense of grandeur, floated off behind Bathsheba with a milder dignity not entirely free from travesty, and the door was closed.

Chapter 10

https://web.archive.org/web/20201101052914/https://www.cliffsnotes.com/literature/f/far-from-the-madding-crowd/summary-and-analysis/chapter-10

After a short wait, Bathsheba granted the men an audience. They had settled on benches at the foot of the hall. Bathsheba opened the time book and the canvas moneybag. Liddy sat beside her "with the air of a privileged person." Bathsheba announced her dismissal of the bailiff and her intention to manage the farm herself. "The men breathed an audible breath of amazement." Then she called the roster, asking each employee about himself. The men were awkward; some joked, and each seized the opportunity to draw the attention of the crowd for a moment. Young Cainy Ball was made undershepherd to Gabriel, who spoke to Bathsheba with confidence. Bathsheba asked for news of Fanny and learned that Boldwood had had the pond dragged, but to no avail. Then Smallbury arrived from Casterbridge, stamping snow from his boots. The soldiers had left the town, and Fanny with them; rumor had it that her friend "was higher in rank than a private." Bathsheba suggested that someone inform Boldwood. Before dismissing the help, Bathsheba promised, "if you serve me well, so shall I serve you." She would arise early and be watching. "In short, I shall astonish you all."

Critics consider this chapter representative of Hardy's work in its character delineation and its humor: Bathsheba is mistress of the situation; Gabriel loses none of his stature, although he is properly humble; Liddy is comical with the sense of her own importance; and the idiosyncratic characteristics of the staff members are developed further. The story has received a push forward.

shmoop

all_chapterized_books/107-chapters/22.txt

finished_summaries/shmoop/Far From the Madding Crowd/section_21_part_0.txt

Far From the Madding Crowd.chapter 22

chapter 22

{"name": "Chapter 22", "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20201219162644/https://www.shmoop.com/study-guides/literature/far-from-the-madding-crowd/summary/chapter-22", "summary": "Well, it's time for the men on Bathsheba's farm to shear the sheep and get all of their valuable wool for the year. Bathsheba is there to oversee the whole thing. While Bathsheba is complimenting Gabriel on a job well done, Farmer Boldwood shows up and stands in the corner of the barn. Awk-ward. Bathsheba talks to Boldwood while Gabriel goes for a walk and heads back to his work. While shearing a sheep, though, he can't stop watching Bathsheba and Boldwood, and he mistakenly cuts a sheep. Ok, at this point we're starting to feel really bad for the sheep in this novel. Bathsheba scolds him and says she's heading over to Boldwood's farm for a while. As they leave, all of the workers talk about how Bathsheba and Boldwood are sure to be married. A worker named Henery says he thinks he saw Boldwood kiss Bathsheba once behind a shed. Gabriel Oak loses his cool and accuses the man of being a liar. As the conversation winds down, the workers talk about how they hope to get free booze and food if there's a wedding.", "analysis": ""}

THE GREAT BARN AND THE SHEEP-SHEARERS Men thin away to insignificance and oblivion quite as often by not making the most of good spirits when they have them as by lacking good spirits when they are indispensable. Gabriel lately, for the first time since his prostration by misfortune, had been independent in thought and vigorous in action to a marked extent--conditions which, powerless without an opportunity as an opportunity without them is barren, would have given him a sure lift upwards when the favourable conjunction should have occurred. But this incurable loitering beside Bathsheba Everdene stole his time ruinously. The spring tides were going by without floating him off, and the neap might soon come which could not. It was the first day of June, and the sheep-shearing season culminated, the landscape, even to the leanest pasture, being all health and colour. Every green was young, every pore was open, and every stalk was swollen with racing currents of juice. God was palpably present in the country, and the devil had gone with the world to town. Flossy catkins of the later kinds, fern-sprouts like bishops' croziers, the square-headed moschatel, the odd cuckoo-pint,--like an apoplectic saint in a niche of malachite,--snow-white ladies'-smocks, the toothwort, approximating to human flesh, the enchanter's night-shade, and the black-petaled doleful-bells, were among the quainter objects of the vegetable world in and about Weatherbury at this teeming time; and of the animal, the metamorphosed figures of Mr. Jan Coggan, the master-shearer; the second and third shearers, who travelled in the exercise of their calling, and do not require definition by name; Henery Fray the fourth shearer, Susan Tall's husband the fifth, Joseph Poorgrass the sixth, young Cain Ball as assistant-shearer, and Gabriel Oak as general supervisor. None of these were clothed to any extent worth mentioning, each appearing to have hit in the matter of raiment the decent mean between a high and low caste Hindoo. An angularity of lineament, and a fixity of facial machinery in general, proclaimed that serious work was the order of the day. They sheared in the great barn, called for the nonce the Shearing-barn, which on ground-plan resembled a church with transepts. It not only emulated the form of the neighbouring church of the parish, but vied with it in antiquity. Whether the barn had ever formed one of a group of conventual buildings nobody seemed to be aware; no trace of such surroundings remained. The vast porches at the sides, lofty enough to admit a waggon laden to its highest with corn in the sheaf, were spanned by heavy-pointed arches of stone, broadly and boldly cut, whose very simplicity was the origin of a grandeur not apparent in erections where more ornament has been attempted. The dusky, filmed, chestnut roof, braced and tied in by huge collars, curves, and diagonals, was far nobler in design, because more wealthy in material, than nine-tenths of those in our modern churches. Along each side wall was a range of striding buttresses, throwing deep shadows on the spaces between them, which were perforated by lancet openings, combining in their proportions the precise requirements both of beauty and ventilation. One could say about this barn, what could hardly be said of either the church or the castle, akin to it in age and style, that the purpose which had dictated its original erection was the same with that to which it was still applied. Unlike and superior to either of those two typical remnants of mediaevalism, the old barn embodied practices which had suffered no mutilation at the hands of time. Here at least the spirit of the ancient builders was at one with the spirit of the modern beholder. Standing before this abraded pile, the eye regarded its present usage, the mind dwelt upon its past history, with a satisfied sense of functional continuity throughout--a feeling almost of gratitude, and quite of pride, at the permanence of the idea which had heaped it up. The fact that four centuries had neither proved it to be founded on a mistake, inspired any hatred of its purpose, nor given rise to any reaction that had battered it down, invested this simple grey effort of old minds with a repose, if not a grandeur, which a too curious reflection was apt to disturb in its ecclesiastical and military compeers. For once mediaevalism and modernism had a common stand-point. The lanceolate windows, the time-eaten archstones and chamfers, the orientation of the axis, the misty chestnut work of the rafters, referred to no exploded fortifying art or worn-out religious creed. The defence and salvation of the body by daily bread is still a study, a religion, and a desire. To-day the large side doors were thrown open towards the sun to admit a bountiful light to the immediate spot of the shearers' operations, which was the wood threshing-floor in the centre, formed of thick oak, black with age and polished by the beating of flails for many generations, till it had grown as slippery and as rich in hue as the state-room floors of an Elizabethan mansion. Here the shearers knelt, the sun slanting in upon their bleached shirts, tanned arms, and the polished shears they flourished, causing these to bristle with a thousand rays strong enough to blind a weak-eyed man. Beneath them a captive sheep lay panting, quickening its pants as misgiving merged in terror, till it quivered like the hot landscape outside. This picture of to-day in its frame of four hundred years ago did not produce that marked contrast between ancient and modern which is implied by the contrast of date. In comparison with cities, Weatherbury was immutable. The citizen's THEN is the rustic's NOW. In London, twenty or thirty-years ago are old times; in Paris ten years, or five; in Weatherbury three or four score years were included in the mere present, and nothing less than a century set a mark on its face or tone. Five decades hardly modified the cut of a gaiter, the embroidery of a smock-frock, by the breadth of a hair. Ten generations failed to alter the turn of a single phrase. In these Wessex nooks the busy outsider's ancient times are only old; his old times are still new; his present is futurity. So the barn was natural to the shearers, and the shearers were in harmony with the barn. The spacious ends of the building, answering ecclesiastically to nave and chancel extremities, were fenced off with hurdles, the sheep being all collected in a crowd within these two enclosures; and in one angle a catching-pen was formed, in which three or four sheep were continuously kept ready for the shearers to seize without loss of time. In the background, mellowed by tawny shade, were the three women, Maryann Money, and Temperance and Soberness Miller, gathering up the fleeces and twisting ropes of wool with a wimble for tying them round. They were indifferently well assisted by the old maltster, who, when the malting season from October to April had passed, made himself useful upon any of the bordering farmsteads. Behind all was Bathsheba, carefully watching the men to see that there was no cutting or wounding through carelessness, and that the animals were shorn close. Gabriel, who flitted and hovered under her bright eyes like a moth, did not shear continuously, half his time being spent in attending to the others and selecting the sheep for them. At the present moment he was engaged in handing round a mug of mild liquor, supplied from a barrel in the corner, and cut pieces of bread and cheese. Bathsheba, after throwing a glance here, a caution there, and lecturing one of the younger operators who had allowed his last finished sheep to go off among the flock without re-stamping it with her initials, came again to Gabriel, as he put down the luncheon to drag a frightened ewe to his shear-station, flinging it over upon its back with a dexterous twist of the arm. He lopped off the tresses about its head, and opened up the neck and collar, his mistress quietly looking on. "She blushes at the insult," murmured Bathsheba, watching the pink flush which arose and overspread the neck and shoulders of the ewe where they were left bare by the clicking shears--a flush which was enviable, for its delicacy, by many queens of coteries, and would have been creditable, for its promptness, to any woman in the world. Poor Gabriel's soul was fed with a luxury of content by having her over him, her eyes critically regarding his skilful shears, which apparently were going to gather up a piece of the flesh at every close, and yet never did so. Like Guildenstern, Oak was happy in that he was not over happy. He had no wish to converse with her: that his bright lady and himself formed one group, exclusively their own, and containing no others in the world, was enough. So the chatter was all on her side. There is a loquacity that tells nothing, which was Bathsheba's; and there is a silence which says much: that was Gabriel's. Full of this dim and temperate bliss, he went on to fling the ewe over upon her other side, covering her head with his knee, gradually running the shears line after line round her dewlap; thence about her flank and back, and finishing over the tail. "Well done, and done quickly!" said Bathsheba, looking at her watch as the last snip resounded. "How long, miss?" said Gabriel, wiping his brow. "Three-and-twenty minutes and a half since you took the first lock from its forehead. It is the first time that I have ever seen one done in less than half an hour." The clean, sleek creature arose from its fleece--how perfectly like Aphrodite rising from the foam should have been seen to be realized--looking startled and shy at the loss of its garment, which lay on the floor in one soft cloud, united throughout, the portion visible being the inner surface only, which, never before exposed, was white as snow, and without flaw or blemish of the minutest kind. "Cain Ball!" "Yes, Mister Oak; here I be!" Cainy now runs forward with the tar-pot. "B. E." is newly stamped upon the shorn skin, and away the simple dam leaps, panting, over the board into the shirtless flock outside. Then up comes Maryann; throws the loose locks into the middle of the fleece, rolls it up, and carries it into the background as three-and-a-half pounds of unadulterated warmth for the winter enjoyment of persons unknown and far away, who will, however, never experience the superlative comfort derivable from the wool as it here exists, new and pure--before the unctuousness of its nature whilst in a living state has dried, stiffened, and been washed out--rendering it just now as superior to anything WOOLLEN as cream is superior to milk-and-water. But heartless circumstance could not leave entire Gabriel's happiness of this morning. The rams, old ewes, and two-shear ewes had duly undergone their stripping, and the men were proceeding with the shear-lings and hogs, when Oak's belief that she was going to stand pleasantly by and time him through another performance was painfully interrupted by Farmer Boldwood's appearance in the extremest corner of the barn. Nobody seemed to have perceived his entry, but there he certainly was. Boldwood always carried with him a social atmosphere of his own, which everybody felt who came near him; and the talk, which Bathsheba's presence had somewhat suppressed, was now totally suspended. He crossed over towards Bathsheba, who turned to greet him with a carriage of perfect ease. He spoke to her in low tones, and she instinctively modulated her own to the same pitch, and her voice ultimately even caught the inflection of his. She was far from having a wish to appear mysteriously connected with him; but woman at the impressionable age gravitates to the larger body not only in her choice of words, which is apparent every day, but even in her shades of tone and humour, when the influence is great. What they conversed about was not audible to Gabriel, who was too independent to get near, though too concerned to disregard. The issue of their dialogue was the taking of her hand by the courteous farmer to help her over the spreading-board into the bright June sunlight outside. Standing beside the sheep already shorn, they went on talking again. Concerning the flock? Apparently not. Gabriel theorized, not without truth, that in quiet discussion of any matter within reach of the speakers' eyes, these are usually fixed upon it. Bathsheba demurely regarded a contemptible straw lying upon the ground, in a way which suggested less ovine criticism than womanly embarrassment. She became more or less red in the cheek, the blood wavering in uncertain flux and reflux over the sensitive space between ebb and flood. Gabriel sheared on, constrained and sad. She left Boldwood's side, and he walked up and down alone for nearly a quarter of an hour. Then she reappeared in her new riding-habit of myrtle green, which fitted her to the waist as a rind fits its fruit; and young Bob Coggan led on her mare, Boldwood fetching his own horse from the tree under which it had been tied. Oak's eyes could not forsake them; and in endeavouring to continue his shearing at the same time that he watched Boldwood's manner, he snipped the sheep in the groin. The animal plunged; Bathsheba instantly gazed towards it, and saw the blood. "Oh, Gabriel!" she exclaimed, with severe remonstrance, "you who are so strict with the other men--see what you are doing yourself!" To an outsider there was not much to complain of in this remark; but to Oak, who knew Bathsheba to be well aware that she herself was the cause of the poor ewe's wound, because she had wounded the ewe's shearer in a still more vital part, it had a sting which the abiding sense of his inferiority to both herself and Boldwood was not calculated to heal. But a manly resolve to recognize boldly that he had no longer a lover's interest in her, helped him occasionally to conceal a feeling. "Bottle!" he shouted, in an unmoved voice of routine. Cainy Ball ran up, the wound was anointed, and the shearing continued. Boldwood gently tossed Bathsheba into the saddle, and before they turned away she again spoke out to Oak with the same dominative and tantalizing graciousness. "I am going now to see Mr. Boldwood's Leicesters. Take my place in the barn, Gabriel, and keep the men carefully to their work." The horses' heads were put about, and they trotted away. Boldwood's deep attachment was a matter of great interest among all around him; but, after having been pointed out for so many years as the perfect exemplar of thriving bachelorship, his lapse was an anticlimax somewhat resembling that of St. John Long's death by consumption in the midst of his proofs that it was not a fatal disease. "That means matrimony," said Temperance Miller, following them out of sight with her eyes. "I reckon that's the size o't," said Coggan, working along without looking up. "Well, better wed over the mixen than over the moor," said Laban Tall, turning his sheep. Henery Fray spoke, exhibiting miserable eyes at the same time: "I don't see why a maid should take a husband when she's bold enough to fight her own battles, and don't want a home; for 'tis keeping another woman out. But let it be, for 'tis a pity he and she should trouble two houses." As usual with decided characters, Bathsheba invariably provoked the criticism of individuals like Henery Fray. Her emblazoned fault was to be too pronounced in her objections, and not sufficiently overt in her likings. We learn that it is not the rays which bodies absorb, but those which they reject, that give them the colours they are known by; and in the same way people are specialized by their dislikes and antagonisms, whilst their goodwill is looked upon as no attribute at all. Henery continued in a more complaisant mood: "I once hinted my mind to her on a few things, as nearly as a battered frame dared to do so to such a froward piece. You all know, neighbours, what a man I be, and how I come down with my powerful words when my pride is boiling wi' scarn?" "We do, we do, Henery." "So I said, 'Mistress Everdene, there's places empty, and there's gifted men willing; but the spite'--no, not the spite--I didn't say spite--'but the villainy of the contrarikind,' I said (meaning womankind), 'keeps 'em out.' That wasn't too strong for her, say?" "Passably well put." "Yes; and I would have said it, had death and salvation overtook me for it. Such is my spirit when I have a mind." "A true man, and proud as a lucifer." "You see the artfulness? Why, 'twas about being baily really; but I didn't put it so plain that she could understand my meaning, so I could lay it on all the stronger. That was my depth! ... However, let her marry an she will. Perhaps 'tis high time. I believe Farmer Boldwood kissed her behind the spear-bed at the sheep-washing t'other day--that I do." "What a lie!" said Gabriel. "Ah, neighbour Oak--how'st know?" said, Henery, mildly. "Because she told me all that passed," said Oak, with a pharisaical sense that he was not as other shearers in this matter. "Ye have a right to believe it," said Henery, with dudgeon; "a very true right. But I mid see a little distance into things! To be long-headed enough for a baily's place is a poor mere trifle--yet a trifle more than nothing. However, I look round upon life quite cool. Do you heed me, neighbours? My words, though made as simple as I can, mid be rather deep for some heads." "O yes, Henery, we quite heed ye." "A strange old piece, goodmen--whirled about from here to yonder, as if I were nothing! A little warped, too. But I have my depths; ha, and even my great depths! I might gird at a certain shepherd, brain to brain. But no--O no!" "A strange old piece, ye say!" interposed the maltster, in a querulous voice. "At the same time ye be no old man worth naming--no old man at all. Yer teeth bain't half gone yet; and what's a old man's standing if so be his teeth bain't gone? Weren't I stale in wedlock afore ye were out of arms? 'Tis a poor thing to be sixty, when there's people far past four-score--a boast weak as water." It was the unvarying custom in Weatherbury to sink minor differences when the maltster had to be pacified. "Weak as water! yes," said Jan Coggan. "Malter, we feel ye to be a wonderful veteran man, and nobody can gainsay it." "Nobody," said Joseph Poorgrass. "Ye be a very rare old spectacle, malter, and we all admire ye for that gift." "Ay, and as a young man, when my senses were in prosperity, I was likewise liked by a good-few who knowed me," said the maltster. "'Ithout doubt you was--'ithout doubt." The bent and hoary man was satisfied, and so apparently was Henery Fray. That matters should continue pleasant Maryann spoke, who, what with her brown complexion, and the working wrapper of rusty linsey, had at present the mellow hue of an old sketch in oils--notably some of Nicholas Poussin's:-- "Do anybody know of a crooked man, or a lame, or any second-hand fellow at all that would do for poor me?" said Maryann. "A perfect one I don't expect to get at my time of life. If I could hear of such a thing twould do me more good than toast and ale." Coggan furnished a suitable reply. Oak went on with his shearing, and said not another word. Pestilent moods had come, and teased away his quiet. Bathsheba had shown indications of anointing him above his fellows by installing him as the bailiff that the farm imperatively required. He did not covet the post relatively to the farm: in relation to herself, as beloved by him and unmarried to another, he had coveted it. His readings of her seemed now to be vapoury and indistinct. His lecture to her was, he thought, one of the absurdest mistakes. Far from coquetting with Boldwood, she had trifled with himself in thus feigning that she had trifled with another. He was inwardly convinced that, in accordance with the anticipations of his easy-going and worse-educated comrades, that day would see Boldwood the accepted husband of Miss Everdene. Gabriel at this time of his life had out-grown the instinctive dislike which every Christian boy has for reading the Bible, perusing it now quite frequently, and he inwardly said, "'I find more bitter than death the woman whose heart is snares and nets!'" This was mere exclamation--the froth of the storm. He adored Bathsheba just the same. "We workfolk shall have some lordly junketing to-night," said Cainy Ball, casting forth his thoughts in a new direction. "This morning I see 'em making the great puddens in the milking-pails--lumps of fat as big as yer thumb, Mister Oak! I've never seed such splendid large knobs of fat before in the days of my life--they never used to be bigger then a horse-bean. And there was a great black crock upon the brandish with his legs a-sticking out, but I don't know what was in within." "And there's two bushels of biffins for apple-pies," said Maryann. "Well, I hope to do my duty by it all," said Joseph Poorgrass, in a pleasant, masticating manner of anticipation. "Yes; victuals and drink is a cheerful thing, and gives nerves to the nerveless, if the form of words may be used. 'Tis the gospel of the body, without which we perish, so to speak it."

Chapter 22

https://web.archive.org/web/20201219162644/https://www.shmoop.com/study-guides/literature/far-from-the-madding-crowd/summary/chapter-22

Well, it's time for the men on Bathsheba's farm to shear the sheep and get all of their valuable wool for the year. Bathsheba is there to oversee the whole thing. While Bathsheba is complimenting Gabriel on a job well done, Farmer Boldwood shows up and stands in the corner of the barn. Awk-ward. Bathsheba talks to Boldwood while Gabriel goes for a walk and heads back to his work. While shearing a sheep, though, he can't stop watching Bathsheba and Boldwood, and he mistakenly cuts a sheep. Ok, at this point we're starting to feel really bad for the sheep in this novel. Bathsheba scolds him and says she's heading over to Boldwood's farm for a while. As they leave, all of the workers talk about how Bathsheba and Boldwood are sure to be married. A worker named Henery says he thinks he saw Boldwood kiss Bathsheba once behind a shed. Gabriel Oak loses his cool and accuses the man of being a liar. As the conversation winds down, the workers talk about how they hope to get free booze and food if there's a wedding.

pinkmonkey

all_chapterized_books/161-chapters/21.txt

finished_summaries/pinkmonkey/Sense and Sensibility/section_20_part_0.txt

Sense and Sensibility.chapter 21

chapter 21

{"name": "Chapter 21", "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20180820034609/http://www.pinkmonkey.com/booknotes/monkeynotes/pmSenseSensibility36.asp", "summary": "The Dashwood girls visit the Middletons at the Park. Mrs. Palmer comes forward to welcome them and regretfully informs them about their early departure. She invites Elinor and Marianne to Cleveland. She dominates the conversation by imparting information about Willoughby and Colonel Brandon. She also talks about her husband and his profession.", "analysis": "Notes The chapter is devoted to the Palmers. Mrs. and Mr. Palmer make interesting cases for a character study. Mrs. Palmer enjoys indulging in gossip and gives exaggerated accounts about people. She tries her best to please her friends. Mr. Palmer is frank, factual and down-to-earth. He often cautions his wife when she makes inconsiderate remarks or rash statements. Mrs. Palmer is frivolous and lacks insight. Since her husband is intelligent and shrewd, he is intolerant of her views. Mr. Palmer appears rude, but Elinor considers him rather agreeable. CHAPTER 21 Summary One more pair of guests arrives after the departure of the Palmers. On their trip to Exeter, John Middleton and Mrs. Jennings meet the Steele sisters and invite them to Barton Park. The Misses Steele eventually arrive at the Park. Sir John invites the Dashwoods to the Park to get acquainted with the Steele sisters. The Misses Dashwood meet the Steele sisters and are unimpressed. The girls are pleasant looking and smart, but they lack refinement. However, they please Lady Middleton because they pay attention to her children. During the course of their conversation with the Dashwoods, the Steele sisters mention their acquaintance with Edward Ferrars. This piece of information stirs Elinor's curiosity. Notes This chapter illustrates Jane Austen's subtle use of satire. Sir John Middleton is an amusing character, as shown by his talk and behavior. As soon as he meets the Steele sisters at Exeter, he invites them to Barton Park to spend a few days. However, Lady Middleton shows apprehension at having the Steele girls as their guests. But she is unable to stop the girls from coming to Barton, as they have already accepted the invitation of Sir John. Hence she contents herself \"with merely giving her husband a gentle reprimand on the subject five or six times everyday.\" This sentence illustrates Austen's ability to use understatement to her advantage. Another humorous instance occurs when John Middleton persuades the Dashwood sisters to accompany him to the Park in order to meet the Steeles. It is reported in this manner: \"Sir John wanted the whole family to walk to the Park directly and look at the guests. Benevolent, philanthropic man! It was painful to him even to keep a third cousin to himself. \" The passage adequately demonstrates Austen's ironic humor. The manner in which Sir John persuades the Dashwood sisters to come to the Park is hilarious. His logic is amusing, \"'Do come, now,' said he--'pray come--you must come--I declare you shall come.--You can't think how you will like them. Lucy is monstrous pretty, and so good-humored and agreeable!---They have brought the whole coach full of playthings for the children. How can you be so cross as not to come! Why, they are your cousins, you know, after a fashion. You are my cousins, and they are my wife's, so you must be related.\" Through repetition and exaggerated remarks, he finally persuades the sisters to visit the Park to meet his guests. The Steele sisters are a perfect foil to Elinor and Marianne. They are crude, vulgar and frivolous. Elinor and Marianne find it tedious to converse with them. They have no wish to renew their acquaintance with them. CHAPTER 22 Summary One day while walking from the Park to the cottage, Lucy confides in Elinor about her secret engagement with Edward Ferrars. Edward had stayed with her uncle four years ago, and it was at that time that the two had become intimate. To prove her point, Lucy displays Edward's picture in her locket and a letter he wrote to her. She also informs Elinor that Edward had spent some time with them before proceeding to Barton. Lucy's revelations naturally come as an absolute shock to Elinor. Notes Chapter 22 reveals something important about Edward Ferrars' past. Before Edward had met Elinor, he had been friendly with Lucy Steele and had become engaged to her. It is Lucy's hair that he wears in his ring. Elinor is distressed on hearing Lucy's secret. She is fond of Edward and had believed that he returned her affection. However, she did see a look of concern in his eyes during his recent trip to Barton. At that time he was moody and out of spirits. Lucy's revelation reveals the cause behind Edward's melancholy. It is ironic that Lucy should choose to tell her secret to Elinor, the girl who loves Edward. It makes the reader wonder if Lucy has knowledge of Edward's affection for Elinor. Lucy not only reveals her relationship with Edward to her confidante, but she also asks her for her advice to tackle this precarious situation. Elinor is stunned to hear the news. She fails to comprehend how Edward could have loved a girl who is so lacking in taste and refinement."}

The Palmers returned to Cleveland the next day, and the two families at Barton were again left to entertain each other. But this did not last long; Elinor had hardly got their last visitors out of her head, had hardly done wondering at Charlotte's being so happy without a cause, at Mr. Palmer's acting so simply, with good abilities, and at the strange unsuitableness which often existed between husband and wife, before Sir John's and Mrs. Jennings's active zeal in the cause of society, procured her some other new acquaintance to see and observe. In a morning's excursion to Exeter, they had met with two young ladies, whom Mrs. Jennings had the satisfaction of discovering to be her relations, and this was enough for Sir John to invite them directly to the park, as soon as their present engagements at Exeter were over. Their engagements at Exeter instantly gave way before such an invitation, and Lady Middleton was thrown into no little alarm on the return of Sir John, by hearing that she was very soon to receive a visit from two girls whom she had never seen in her life, and of whose elegance,--whose tolerable gentility even, she could have no proof; for the assurances of her husband and mother on that subject went for nothing at all. Their being her relations too made it so much the worse; and Mrs. Jennings's attempts at consolation were therefore unfortunately founded, when she advised her daughter not to care about their being so fashionable; because they were all cousins and must put up with one another. As it was impossible, however, now to prevent their coming, Lady Middleton resigned herself to the idea of it, with all the philosophy of a well-bred woman, contenting herself with merely giving her husband a gentle reprimand on the subject five or six times every day. The young ladies arrived: their appearance was by no means ungenteel or unfashionable. Their dress was very smart, their manners very civil, they were delighted with the house, and in raptures with the furniture, and they happened to be so doatingly fond of children that Lady Middleton's good opinion was engaged in their favour before they had been an hour at the Park. She declared them to be very agreeable girls indeed, which for her ladyship was enthusiastic admiration. Sir John's confidence in his own judgment rose with this animated praise, and he set off directly for the cottage to tell the Miss Dashwoods of the Miss Steeles' arrival, and to assure them of their being the sweetest girls in the world. From such commendation as this, however, there was not much to be learned; Elinor well knew that the sweetest girls in the world were to be met with in every part of England, under every possible variation of form, face, temper and understanding. Sir John wanted the whole family to walk to the Park directly and look at his guests. Benevolent, philanthropic man! It was painful to him even to keep a third cousin to himself. "Do come now," said he--"pray come--you must come--I declare you shall come--You can't think how you will like them. Lucy is monstrous pretty, and so good humoured and agreeable! The children are all hanging about her already, as if she was an old acquaintance. And they both long to see you of all things, for they have heard at Exeter that you are the most beautiful creatures in the world; and I have told them it is all very true, and a great deal more. You will be delighted with them I am sure. They have brought the whole coach full of playthings for the children. How can you be so cross as not to come? Why they are your cousins, you know, after a fashion. YOU are my cousins, and they are my wife's, so you must be related." But Sir John could not prevail. He could only obtain a promise of their calling at the Park within a day or two, and then left them in amazement at their indifference, to walk home and boast anew of their attractions to the Miss Steeles, as he had been already boasting of the Miss Steeles to them. When their promised visit to the Park and consequent introduction to these young ladies took place, they found in the appearance of the eldest, who was nearly thirty, with a very plain and not a sensible face, nothing to admire; but in the other, who was not more than two or three and twenty, they acknowledged considerable beauty; her features were pretty, and she had a sharp quick eye, and a smartness of air, which though it did not give actual elegance or grace, gave distinction to her person.-- Their manners were particularly civil, and Elinor soon allowed them credit for some kind of sense, when she saw with what constant and judicious attention they were making themselves agreeable to Lady Middleton. With her children they were in continual raptures, extolling their beauty, courting their notice, and humouring their whims; and such of their time as could be spared from the importunate demands which this politeness made on it, was spent in admiration of whatever her ladyship was doing, if she happened to be doing any thing, or in taking patterns of some elegant new dress, in which her appearance the day before had thrown them into unceasing delight. Fortunately for those who pay their court through such foibles, a fond mother, though, in pursuit of praise for her children, the most rapacious of human beings, is likewise the most credulous; her demands are exorbitant; but she will swallow any thing; and the excessive affection and endurance of the Miss Steeles towards her offspring were viewed therefore by Lady Middleton without the smallest surprise or distrust. She saw with maternal complacency all the impertinent encroachments and mischievous tricks to which her cousins submitted. She saw their sashes untied, their hair pulled about their ears, their work-bags searched, and their knives and scissors stolen away, and felt no doubt of its being a reciprocal enjoyment. It suggested no other surprise than that Elinor and Marianne should sit so composedly by, without claiming a share in what was passing. "John is in such spirits today!" said she, on his taking Miss Steeles's pocket handkerchief, and throwing it out of window--"He is full of monkey tricks." And soon afterwards, on the second boy's violently pinching one of the same lady's fingers, she fondly observed, "How playful William is!" "And here is my sweet little Annamaria," she added, tenderly caressing a little girl of three years old, who had not made a noise for the last two minutes; "And she is always so gentle and quiet--Never was there such a quiet little thing!" But unfortunately in bestowing these embraces, a pin in her ladyship's head dress slightly scratching the child's neck, produced from this pattern of gentleness such violent screams, as could hardly be outdone by any creature professedly noisy. The mother's consternation was excessive; but it could not surpass the alarm of the Miss Steeles, and every thing was done by all three, in so critical an emergency, which affection could suggest as likely to assuage the agonies of the little sufferer. She was seated in her mother's lap, covered with kisses, her wound bathed with lavender-water, by one of the Miss Steeles, who was on her knees to attend her, and her mouth stuffed with sugar plums by the other. With such a reward for her tears, the child was too wise to cease crying. She still screamed and sobbed lustily, kicked her two brothers for offering to touch her, and all their united soothings were ineffectual till Lady Middleton luckily remembering that in a scene of similar distress last week, some apricot marmalade had been successfully applied for a bruised temple, the same remedy was eagerly proposed for this unfortunate scratch, and a slight intermission of screams in the young lady on hearing it, gave them reason to hope that it would not be rejected.-- She was carried out of the room therefore in her mother's arms, in quest of this medicine, and as the two boys chose to follow, though earnestly entreated by their mother to stay behind, the four young ladies were left in a quietness which the room had not known for many hours. "Poor little creatures!" said Miss Steele, as soon as they were gone. "It might have been a very sad accident." "Yet I hardly know how," cried Marianne, "unless it had been under totally different circumstances. But this is the usual way of heightening alarm, where there is nothing to be alarmed at in reality." "What a sweet woman Lady Middleton is!" said Lucy Steele. Marianne was silent; it was impossible for her to say what she did not feel, however trivial the occasion; and upon Elinor therefore the whole task of telling lies when politeness required it, always fell. She did her best when thus called on, by speaking of Lady Middleton with more warmth than she felt, though with far less than Miss Lucy. "And Sir John too," cried the elder sister, "what a charming man he is!" Here too, Miss Dashwood's commendation, being only simple and just, came in without any eclat. She merely observed that he was perfectly good humoured and friendly. "And what a charming little family they have! I never saw such fine children in my life.--I declare I quite doat upon them already, and indeed I am always distractedly fond of children." "I should guess so," said Elinor, with a smile, "from what I have witnessed this morning." "I have a notion," said Lucy, "you think the little Middletons rather too much indulged; perhaps they may be the outside of enough; but it is so natural in Lady Middleton; and for my part, I love to see children full of life and spirits; I cannot bear them if they are tame and quiet." "I confess," replied Elinor, "that while I am at Barton Park, I never think of tame and quiet children with any abhorrence." A short pause succeeded this speech, which was first broken by Miss Steele, who seemed very much disposed for conversation, and who now said rather abruptly, "And how do you like Devonshire, Miss Dashwood? I suppose you were very sorry to leave Sussex." In some surprise at the familiarity of this question, or at least of the manner in which it was spoken, Elinor replied that she was. "Norland is a prodigious beautiful place, is not it?" added Miss Steele. "We have heard Sir John admire it excessively," said Lucy, who seemed to think some apology necessary for the freedom of her sister. "I think every one MUST admire it," replied Elinor, "who ever saw the place; though it is not to be supposed that any one can estimate its beauties as we do." "And had you a great many smart beaux there? I suppose you have not so many in this part of the world; for my part, I think they are a vast addition always." "But why should you think," said Lucy, looking ashamed of her sister, "that there are not as many genteel young men in Devonshire as Sussex?" "Nay, my dear, I'm sure I don't pretend to say that there an't. I'm sure there's a vast many smart beaux in Exeter; but you know, how could I tell what smart beaux there might be about Norland; and I was only afraid the Miss Dashwoods might find it dull at Barton, if they had not so many as they used to have. But perhaps you young ladies may not care about the beaux, and had as lief be without them as with them. For my part, I think they are vastly agreeable, provided they dress smart and behave civil. But I can't bear to see them dirty and nasty. Now there's Mr. Rose at Exeter, a prodigious smart young man, quite a beau, clerk to Mr. Simpson, you know, and yet if you do but meet him of a morning, he is not fit to be seen.-- I suppose your brother was quite a beau, Miss Dashwood, before he married, as he was so rich?" "Upon my word," replied Elinor, "I cannot tell you, for I do not perfectly comprehend the meaning of the word. But this I can say, that if he ever was a beau before he married, he is one still for there is not the smallest alteration in him." "Oh! dear! one never thinks of married men's being beaux--they have something else to do." "Lord! Anne," cried her sister, "you can talk of nothing but beaux;--you will make Miss Dashwood believe you think of nothing else." And then to turn the discourse, she began admiring the house and the furniture. This specimen of the Miss Steeles was enough. The vulgar freedom and folly of the eldest left her no recommendation, and as Elinor was not blinded by the beauty, or the shrewd look of the youngest, to her want of real elegance and artlessness, she left the house without any wish of knowing them better. Not so the Miss Steeles.--They came from Exeter, well provided with admiration for the use of Sir John Middleton, his family, and all his relations, and no niggardly proportion was now dealt out to his fair cousins, whom they declared to be the most beautiful, elegant, accomplished, and agreeable girls they had ever beheld, and with whom they were particularly anxious to be better acquainted.-- And to be better acquainted therefore, Elinor soon found was their inevitable lot, for as Sir John was entirely on the side of the Miss Steeles, their party would be too strong for opposition, and that kind of intimacy must be submitted to, which consists of sitting an hour or two together in the same room almost every day. Sir John could do no more; but he did not know that any more was required: to be together was, in his opinion, to be intimate, and while his continual schemes for their meeting were effectual, he had not a doubt of their being established friends. To do him justice, he did every thing in his power to promote their unreserve, by making the Miss Steeles acquainted with whatever he knew or supposed of his cousins' situations in the most delicate particulars,--and Elinor had not seen them more than twice, before the eldest of them wished her joy on her sister's having been so lucky as to make a conquest of a very smart beau since she came to Barton. "'Twill be a fine thing to have her married so young to be sure," said she, "and I hear he is quite a beau, and prodigious handsome. And I hope you may have as good luck yourself soon,--but perhaps you may have a friend in the corner already." Elinor could not suppose that Sir John would be more nice in proclaiming his suspicions of her regard for Edward, than he had been with respect to Marianne; indeed it was rather his favourite joke of the two, as being somewhat newer and more conjectural; and since Edward's visit, they had never dined together without his drinking to her best affections with so much significancy and so many nods and winks, as to excite general attention. The letter F--had been likewise invariably brought forward, and found productive of such countless jokes, that its character as the wittiest letter in the alphabet had been long established with Elinor. The Miss Steeles, as she expected, had now all the benefit of these jokes, and in the eldest of them they raised a curiosity to know the name of the gentleman alluded to, which, though often impertinently expressed, was perfectly of a piece with her general inquisitiveness into the concerns of their family. But Sir John did not sport long with the curiosity which he delighted to raise, for he had at least as much pleasure in telling the name, as Miss Steele had in hearing it. "His name is Ferrars," said he, in a very audible whisper; "but pray do not tell it, for it's a great secret." "Ferrars!" repeated Miss Steele; "Mr. Ferrars is the happy man, is he? What! your sister-in-law's brother, Miss Dashwood? a very agreeable young man to be sure; I know him very well." "How can you say so, Anne?" cried Lucy, who generally made an amendment to all her sister's assertions. "Though we have seen him once or twice at my uncle's, it is rather too much to pretend to know him very well." Elinor heard all this with attention and surprise. "And who was this uncle? Where did he live? How came they acquainted?" She wished very much to have the subject continued, though she did not chuse to join in it herself; but nothing more of it was said, and for the first time in her life, she thought Mrs. Jennings deficient either in curiosity after petty information, or in a disposition to communicate it. The manner in which Miss Steele had spoken of Edward, increased her curiosity; for it struck her as being rather ill-natured, and suggested the suspicion of that lady's knowing, or fancying herself to know something to his disadvantage.--But her curiosity was unavailing, for no farther notice was taken of Mr. Ferrars's name by Miss Steele when alluded to, or even openly mentioned by Sir John.

Chapter 21

https://web.archive.org/web/20180820034609/http://www.pinkmonkey.com/booknotes/monkeynotes/pmSenseSensibility36.asp

The Dashwood girls visit the Middletons at the Park. Mrs. Palmer comes forward to welcome them and regretfully informs them about their early departure. She invites Elinor and Marianne to Cleveland. She dominates the conversation by imparting information about Willoughby and Colonel Brandon. She also talks about her husband and his profession.

Notes The chapter is devoted to the Palmers. Mrs. and Mr. Palmer make interesting cases for a character study. Mrs. Palmer enjoys indulging in gossip and gives exaggerated accounts about people. She tries her best to please her friends. Mr. Palmer is frank, factual and down-to-earth. He often cautions his wife when she makes inconsiderate remarks or rash statements. Mrs. Palmer is frivolous and lacks insight. Since her husband is intelligent and shrewd, he is intolerant of her views. Mr. Palmer appears rude, but Elinor considers him rather agreeable. CHAPTER 21 Summary One more pair of guests arrives after the departure of the Palmers. On their trip to Exeter, John Middleton and Mrs. Jennings meet the Steele sisters and invite them to Barton Park. The Misses Steele eventually arrive at the Park. Sir John invites the Dashwoods to the Park to get acquainted with the Steele sisters. The Misses Dashwood meet the Steele sisters and are unimpressed. The girls are pleasant looking and smart, but they lack refinement. However, they please Lady Middleton because they pay attention to her children. During the course of their conversation with the Dashwoods, the Steele sisters mention their acquaintance with Edward Ferrars. This piece of information stirs Elinor's curiosity. Notes This chapter illustrates Jane Austen's subtle use of satire. Sir John Middleton is an amusing character, as shown by his talk and behavior. As soon as he meets the Steele sisters at Exeter, he invites them to Barton Park to spend a few days. However, Lady Middleton shows apprehension at having the Steele girls as their guests. But she is unable to stop the girls from coming to Barton, as they have already accepted the invitation of Sir John. Hence she contents herself "with merely giving her husband a gentle reprimand on the subject five or six times everyday." This sentence illustrates Austen's ability to use understatement to her advantage. Another humorous instance occurs when John Middleton persuades the Dashwood sisters to accompany him to the Park in order to meet the Steeles. It is reported in this manner: "Sir John wanted the whole family to walk to the Park directly and look at the guests. Benevolent, philanthropic man! It was painful to him even to keep a third cousin to himself. " The passage adequately demonstrates Austen's ironic humor. The manner in which Sir John persuades the Dashwood sisters to come to the Park is hilarious. His logic is amusing, "'Do come, now,' said he--'pray come--you must come--I declare you shall come.--You can't think how you will like them. Lucy is monstrous pretty, and so good-humored and agreeable!---They have brought the whole coach full of playthings for the children. How can you be so cross as not to come! Why, they are your cousins, you know, after a fashion. You are my cousins, and they are my wife's, so you must be related." Through repetition and exaggerated remarks, he finally persuades the sisters to visit the Park to meet his guests. The Steele sisters are a perfect foil to Elinor and Marianne. They are crude, vulgar and frivolous. Elinor and Marianne find it tedious to converse with them. They have no wish to renew their acquaintance with them. CHAPTER 22 Summary One day while walking from the Park to the cottage, Lucy confides in Elinor about her secret engagement with Edward Ferrars. Edward had stayed with her uncle four years ago, and it was at that time that the two had become intimate. To prove her point, Lucy displays Edward's picture in her locket and a letter he wrote to her. She also informs Elinor that Edward had spent some time with them before proceeding to Barton. Lucy's revelations naturally come as an absolute shock to Elinor. Notes Chapter 22 reveals something important about Edward Ferrars' past. Before Edward had met Elinor, he had been friendly with Lucy Steele and had become engaged to her. It is Lucy's hair that he wears in his ring. Elinor is distressed on hearing Lucy's secret. She is fond of Edward and had believed that he returned her affection. However, she did see a look of concern in his eyes during his recent trip to Barton. At that time he was moody and out of spirits. Lucy's revelation reveals the cause behind Edward's melancholy. It is ironic that Lucy should choose to tell her secret to Elinor, the girl who loves Edward. It makes the reader wonder if Lucy has knowledge of Edward's affection for Elinor. Lucy not only reveals her relationship with Edward to her confidante, but she also asks her for her advice to tackle this precarious situation. Elinor is stunned to hear the news. She fails to comprehend how Edward could have loved a girl who is so lacking in taste and refinement.

pinkmonkey

all_chapterized_books/110-chapters/08.txt

finished_summaries/pinkmonkey/Tess of the D'Urbervilles/section_2_part_2.txt

Tess of the D'Urbervilles.chapter 8

chapter 8

{"name": "CHAPTER 8", "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20180820050202/http://www.pinkmonkey.com/booknotes/monkeynotes/pmTessD17.asp", "summary": "Tess leaves with Alec for Trantridge. His reckless driving makes Tess uneasy. She asks him to be more careful, and he demands a kiss to oblige her, revealing his true nature. Tess immediately wipes her cheek after Alec forcibly plants a kiss on it. This action outrages Alec. Shortly afterwards, Tess's hat blows off, and she gets off the cart to retrieve it. Then she refuses to get back in the cart with Alec, for she is upset over his amorous advances and his anger. Tess is determined to walk the rest of the way, and Alec grows even more furious at her audacity. While walking, Tess ponders returning home, for she cannot trust her employer.", "analysis": "Notes It is very obvious that Alec is infatuated with Tess, for he cannot keep his eyes off of her. Tess's constant requests to Alec to be more attentive towards the road rather than her go unheeded. In fact, he tries to show off more by urging the horses into a full gallop. The jerky ride leaves Tess on edge. When Alec demands a kiss in order to drive more cautiously, Tess is shocked and begins to realize what the real Alec is like. She protests his behavior by refusing to reboard the cart after retrieving her hat. Alec screams at her, and Tess angrily responds; but she still refuses to climb back up beside him. As Alec watches her trudge beside the cart, he feels somewhat guilty, for he knows he has caused the situation. At the same time, Tess wants to go home, but she feels no one would accept or understand her reasons. If Tess, at this point, had followed her instincts, she would have saved herself from the cruel hands of fate. At the beginning of the chapter, Hardy foreshadows that fate will not be kind to Tess. He states that she was leaving Marlott, \"the Green Valley\" of her birth, and moving towards an unknown \"grey country\""}

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.

CHAPTER 8

https://web.archive.org/web/20180820050202/http://www.pinkmonkey.com/booknotes/monkeynotes/pmTessD17.asp

Tess leaves with Alec for Trantridge. His reckless driving makes Tess uneasy. She asks him to be more careful, and he demands a kiss to oblige her, revealing his true nature. Tess immediately wipes her cheek after Alec forcibly plants a kiss on it. This action outrages Alec. Shortly afterwards, Tess's hat blows off, and she gets off the cart to retrieve it. Then she refuses to get back in the cart with Alec, for she is upset over his amorous advances and his anger. Tess is determined to walk the rest of the way, and Alec grows even more furious at her audacity. While walking, Tess ponders returning home, for she cannot trust her employer.

Notes It is very obvious that Alec is infatuated with Tess, for he cannot keep his eyes off of her. Tess's constant requests to Alec to be more attentive towards the road rather than her go unheeded. In fact, he tries to show off more by urging the horses into a full gallop. The jerky ride leaves Tess on edge. When Alec demands a kiss in order to drive more cautiously, Tess is shocked and begins to realize what the real Alec is like. She protests his behavior by refusing to reboard the cart after retrieving her hat. Alec screams at her, and Tess angrily responds; but she still refuses to climb back up beside him. As Alec watches her trudge beside the cart, he feels somewhat guilty, for he knows he has caused the situation. At the same time, Tess wants to go home, but she feels no one would accept or understand her reasons. If Tess, at this point, had followed her instincts, she would have saved herself from the cruel hands of fate. At the beginning of the chapter, Hardy foreshadows that fate will not be kind to Tess. He states that she was leaving Marlott, "the Green Valley" of her birth, and moving towards an unknown "grey country"

shmoop

all_chapterized_books/107-chapters/10.txt

finished_summaries/shmoop/Far From the Madding Crowd/section_9_part_0.txt

Far From the Madding Crowd.chapter 10

chapter 10

{"name": "Chapter 10", "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20201219162644/https://www.shmoop.com/study-guides/literature/far-from-the-madding-crowd/summary/chapter-10", "summary": "Bathsheba sits with her men at a long table with her money books and a bag of coins. Before starting, Bathsheba informs the men that she's fired her bailiff and will be managing everything herself from now on. The men breathe a breath of amazement. A woman handling money? No way! She wants to know if anyone has heard anything about Fanny Robin. The men admit that no, they haven't. One by one, she asks the men what jobs they do for her and pays them. She also gives out a few extra shillings as a gift since she's the new boss. The men suggest that, as the new shepherd, Gabriel Oak will need a young boy to work under him as a helper. They settle on a kid named Cainy Ball. Bathsheba and Oak talk business coolly in front of the crowd, as if the two of them have never met before. A guy named Smallbury runs in, having just come from Casterbridge. The word is that Fanny Robin has run away with a pack of soldiers because she's been courting one of them. No one knows which soldier it is, though. Gabriel knows that Fanny Robin is probably the same girl he met on the road, but he keeps his promise and tells doesn't tell anyone that he saw her.", "analysis": ""}

MISTRESS AND MEN Half-an-hour later Bathsheba, in finished dress, and followed by Liddy, entered the upper end of the old hall to find that her men had all deposited themselves on a long form and a settle at the lower extremity. She sat down at a table and opened the time-book, pen in her hand, with a canvas money-bag beside her. From this she poured a small heap of coin. Liddy chose a position at her elbow and began to sew, sometimes pausing and looking round, or, with the air of a privileged person, taking up one of the half-sovereigns lying before her and surveying it merely as a work of art, while strictly preventing her countenance from expressing any wish to possess it as money. "Now before I begin, men," said Bathsheba, "I have two matters to speak of. The first is that the bailiff is dismissed for thieving, and that I have formed a resolution to have no bailiff at all, but to manage everything with my own head and hands." The men breathed an audible breath of amazement. "The next matter is, have you heard anything of Fanny?" "Nothing, ma'am." "Have you done anything?" "I met Farmer Boldwood," said Jacob Smallbury, "and I went with him and two of his men, and dragged Newmill Pond, but we found nothing." "And the new shepherd have been to Buck's Head, by Yalbury, thinking she had gone there, but nobody had seed her," said Laban Tall. "Hasn't William Smallbury been to Casterbridge?" "Yes, ma'am, but he's not yet come home. He promised to be back by six." "It wants a quarter to six at present," said Bathsheba, looking at her watch. "I daresay he'll be in directly. Well, now then"--she looked into the book--"Joseph Poorgrass, are you there?" "Yes, sir--ma'am I mane," said the person addressed. "I be the personal name of Poorgrass." "And what are you?" "Nothing in my own eye. In the eye of other people--well, I don't say it; though public thought will out." "What do you do on the farm?" "I do do carting things all the year, and in seed time I shoots the rooks and sparrows, and helps at pig-killing, sir." "How much to you?" "Please nine and ninepence and a good halfpenny where 'twas a bad one, sir--ma'am I mane." "Quite correct. Now here are ten shillings in addition as a small present, as I am a new comer." Bathsheba blushed slightly at the sense of being generous in public, and Henery Fray, who had drawn up towards her chair, lifted his eyebrows and fingers to express amazement on a small scale. "How much do I owe you--that man in the corner--what's your name?" continued Bathsheba. "Matthew Moon, ma'am," said a singular framework of clothes with nothing of any consequence inside them, which advanced with the toes in no definite direction forwards, but turned in or out as they chanced to swing. "Matthew Mark, did you say?--speak out--I shall not hurt you," inquired the young farmer, kindly. "Matthew Moon, mem," said Henery Fray, correctingly, from behind her chair, to which point he had edged himself. "Matthew Moon," murmured Bathsheba, turning her bright eyes to the book. "Ten and twopence halfpenny is the sum put down to you, I see?" "Yes, mis'ess," said Matthew, as the rustle of wind among dead leaves. "Here it is, and ten shillings. Now the next--Andrew Randle, you are a new man, I hear. How come you to leave your last farm?" "P-p-p-p-p-pl-pl-pl-pl-l-l-l-l-ease, ma'am, p-p-p-p-pl-pl-pl-pl-please, ma'am-please'm-please'm--" "'A's a stammering man, mem," said Henery Fray in an undertone, "and they turned him away because the only time he ever did speak plain he said his soul was his own, and other iniquities, to the squire. 'A can cuss, mem, as well as you or I, but 'a can't speak a common speech to save his life." "Andrew Randle, here's yours--finish thanking me in a day or two. Temperance Miller--oh, here's another, Soberness--both women I suppose?" "Yes'm. Here we be, 'a b'lieve," was echoed in shrill unison. "What have you been doing?" "Tending thrashing-machine and wimbling haybonds, and saying 'Hoosh!' to the cocks and hens when they go upon your seeds, and planting Early Flourballs and Thompson's Wonderfuls with a dibble." "Yes--I see. Are they satisfactory women?" she inquired softly of Henery Fray. "Oh mem--don't ask me! Yielding women--as scarlet a pair as ever was!" groaned Henery under his breath. "Sit down." "Who, mem?" "Sit down." Joseph Poorgrass, in the background twitched, and his lips became dry with fear of some terrible consequences, as he saw Bathsheba summarily speaking, and Henery slinking off to a corner. "Now the next. Laban Tall, you'll stay on working for me?" "For you or anybody that pays me well, ma'am," replied the young married man. "True--the man must live!" said a woman in the back quarter, who had just entered with clicking pattens. "What woman is that?" Bathsheba asked. "I be his lawful wife!" continued the voice with greater prominence of manner and tone. This lady called herself five-and-twenty, looked thirty, passed as thirty-five, and was forty. She was a woman who never, like some newly married, showed conjugal tenderness in public, perhaps because she had none to show. "Oh, you are," said Bathsheba. "Well, Laban, will you stay on?" "Yes, he'll stay, ma'am!" said again the shrill tongue of Laban's lawful wife. "Well, he can speak for himself, I suppose." "Oh Lord, not he, ma'am! A simple tool. Well enough, but a poor gawkhammer mortal," the wife replied. "Heh-heh-heh!" laughed the married man with a hideous effort of appreciation, for he was as irrepressibly good-humoured under ghastly snubs as a parliamentary candidate on the hustings. The names remaining were called in the same manner. "Now I think I have done with you," said Bathsheba, closing the book and shaking back a stray twine of hair. "Has William Smallbury returned?" "No, ma'am." "The new shepherd will want a man under him," suggested Henery Fray, trying to make himself official again by a sideway approach towards her chair. "Oh--he will. Who can he have?" "Young Cain Ball is a very good lad," Henery said, "and Shepherd Oak don't mind his youth?" he added, turning with an apologetic smile to the shepherd, who had just appeared on the scene, and was now leaning against the doorpost with his arms folded. "No, I don't mind that," said Gabriel. "How did Cain come by such a name?" asked Bathsheba. "Oh you see, mem, his pore mother, not being a Scripture-read woman, made a mistake at his christening, thinking 'twas Abel killed Cain, and called en Cain, meaning Abel all the time. The parson put it right, but 'twas too late, for the name could never be got rid of in the parish. 'Tis very unfortunate for the boy." "It is rather unfortunate." "Yes. However, we soften it down as much as we can, and call him Cainy. Ah, pore widow-woman! she cried her heart out about it almost. She was brought up by a very heathen father and mother, who never sent her to church or school, and it shows how the sins of the parents are visited upon the children, mem." Mr. Fray here drew up his features to the mild degree of melancholy required when the persons involved in the given misfortune do not belong to your own family. "Very well then, Cainey Ball to be under-shepherd. And you quite understand your duties?--you I mean, Gabriel Oak?" "Quite well, I thank you, Miss Everdene," said Shepherd Oak from the doorpost. "If I don't, I'll inquire." Gabriel was rather staggered by the remarkable coolness of her manner. Certainly nobody without previous information would have dreamt that Oak and the handsome woman before whom he stood had ever been other than strangers. But perhaps her air was the inevitable result of the social rise which had advanced her from a cottage to a large house and fields. The case is not unexampled in high places. When, in the writings of the later poets, Jove and his family are found to have moved from their cramped quarters on the peak of Olympus into the wide sky above it, their words show a proportionate increase of arrogance and reserve. Footsteps were heard in the passage, combining in their character the qualities both of weight and measure, rather at the expense of velocity. (All.) "Here's Billy Smallbury come from Casterbridge." "And what's the news?" said Bathsheba, as William, after marching to the middle of the hall, took a handkerchief from his hat and wiped his forehead from its centre to its remoter boundaries. "I should have been sooner, miss," he said, "if it hadn't been for the weather." He then stamped with each foot severely, and on looking down his boots were perceived to be clogged with snow. "Come at last, is it?" said Henery. "Well, what about Fanny?" said Bathsheba. "Well, ma'am, in round numbers, she's run away with the soldiers," said William. "No; not a steady girl like Fanny!" "I'll tell ye all particulars. When I got to Casterbridge Barracks, they said, 'The Eleventh Dragoon-Guards be gone away, and new troops have come.' The Eleventh left last week for Melchester and onwards. The Route came from Government like a thief in the night, as is his nature to, and afore the Eleventh knew it almost, they were on the march. They passed near here." Gabriel had listened with interest. "I saw them go," he said. "Yes," continued William, "they pranced down the street playing 'The Girl I Left Behind Me,' so 'tis said, in glorious notes of triumph. Every looker-on's inside shook with the blows of the great drum to his deepest vitals, and there was not a dry eye throughout the town among the public-house people and the nameless women!" "But they're not gone to any war?" "No, ma'am; but they be gone to take the places of them who may, which is very close connected. And so I said to myself, Fanny's young man was one of the regiment, and she's gone after him. There, ma'am, that's it in black and white." "Did you find out his name?" "No; nobody knew it. I believe he was higher in rank than a private." Gabriel remained musing and said nothing, for he was in doubt. "Well, we are not likely to know more to-night, at any rate," said Bathsheba. "But one of you had better run across to Farmer Boldwood's and tell him that much." She then rose; but before retiring, addressed a few words to them with a pretty dignity, to which her mourning dress added a soberness that was hardly to be found in the words themselves. "Now mind, you have a mistress instead of a master. I don't yet know my powers or my talents in farming; but I shall do my best, and if you serve me well, so shall I serve you. Don't any unfair ones among you (if there are any such, but I hope not) suppose that because I'm a woman I don't understand the difference between bad goings-on and good." (All.) "No'm!" (Liddy.) "Excellent well said." "I shall be up before you are awake; I shall be afield before you are up; and I shall have breakfasted before you are afield. In short, I shall astonish you all." (All.) "Yes'm!" "And so good-night." (All.) "Good-night, ma'am." Then this small thesmothete stepped from the table, and surged out of the hall, her black silk dress licking up a few straws and dragging them along with a scratching noise upon the floor. Liddy, elevating her feelings to the occasion from a sense of grandeur, floated off behind Bathsheba with a milder dignity not entirely free from travesty, and the door was closed.

Chapter 10

https://web.archive.org/web/20201219162644/https://www.shmoop.com/study-guides/literature/far-from-the-madding-crowd/summary/chapter-10

Bathsheba sits with her men at a long table with her money books and a bag of coins. Before starting, Bathsheba informs the men that she's fired her bailiff and will be managing everything herself from now on. The men breathe a breath of amazement. A woman handling money? No way! She wants to know if anyone has heard anything about Fanny Robin. The men admit that no, they haven't. One by one, she asks the men what jobs they do for her and pays them. She also gives out a few extra shillings as a gift since she's the new boss. The men suggest that, as the new shepherd, Gabriel Oak will need a young boy to work under him as a helper. They settle on a kid named Cainy Ball. Bathsheba and Oak talk business coolly in front of the crowd, as if the two of them have never met before. A guy named Smallbury runs in, having just come from Casterbridge. The word is that Fanny Robin has run away with a pack of soldiers because she's been courting one of them. No one knows which soldier it is, though. Gabriel knows that Fanny Robin is probably the same girl he met on the road, but he keeps his promise and tells doesn't tell anyone that he saw her.